Sunday Dinner: Steak, Roast Baby Potatoes, and Green Beans

Steaks: Neil is in charge of all grilling at our house.

USDA Choice Sirloin steaks, we use two for our family
grapeseed oil, 1-2 T
kosher salt
pepper
Mozambique Peri Peri Fire Rub
garlic
lime juice

Rub the meat with oil. Then sprinkle with however much seasoning you would like. The Peri Peri rub is spicy, so do not go heavy on that one. Let the meat marinate in that while the grill heats up. Heat the grill on high until 500F. Place the steak on the grill, sear for 3 minutes on each side. Drop temp to low. Neil says to listen to your spidey sense to know when to take the steaks off. We prefer Medium doneness and love to eat them right off the grill.

Roast Baby Potatoes:

I bought a tiny bag of baby red potatoes. Some of them were seriously only an inch in diameter. The largest ones were maybe two inches. I washed the potatoes, seasoned them and stuck them in the oven for 35 minutes. These were the instructions on the package and it was very easy to make. we put these in when we started the grill heating.

Grapeseed oil
Kosher salt
Pepper
Garlic

Preheat the oven to 425F. Rub the salt and pepper into the washed potatoes. Add the oil and garlic, and rub them in to the potatoes. Put them in a shallow baking dish to bake. I happened to use a pizza pan that has small holes in it, and it worked fine.

Green beans:

1 bag frozen green beans
chicken broth
3 slices of uncooked bacon
salt
pepper
garlic

I empty the bag of green beans into the crock pot, add enough water to go about half way up the beans, sprinkle salt, pepper, and garlic, and lay the bacon on top. If I had had already chopped onions, I would have added those, too. Cook them on low for at least 6 hours. Once I was close to the rest of dinner being done, then I turned it to "Keep warm." I remove the bacon before serving. The leftover broth is great to hold on to and use in another meal.

Apple Crisp and Ice-cream
by Pampered Chef

5 Granny Smith apples
1/2 pkg (9 ounces total) butter yellow cake mix
2 T sugar
1 T cinnamon
1/4 c butter, melted
Vanilla Ice cream

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Use a Pampered Chef Apple Peeler/Corer/Slicer on all the apples. Cut apples in half. Place in the bottom of a 9X13 glass baking dish.
2. Combine cake mix, sugar, cinnamon, and butter in a large bowl. Mix with a fork or pastry blender until mixture is crumbly. Sprinkle evenly over the apples.
3. Bake 35 minutes. Serve warm over ice cream.

This is our absolute favorite dessert. Back in Ol' Army Days, Kendra made this for us. Neil fell in love with the Apple Peeler/Corer/Slicer. She gave it to him as a Christmas gift some time later. We make this at least once a month. We do not always cut the apples in half. We have made it with pre-sliced apples with skins on because they were fixing to go bad-it still worked. The key to making a crumbly top is to keep mixing with the forks until you can tell that it is done. We have leftovers on this dish, and that is fine. It would be nice to make two pie dishes of this and give one to a friend. When I've done that, I'll let you know how it turns out. Always use a light ice-cream with this rich dessert. I prefer Bluebell No Sugar Added Vanilla Bean. Or I did when I lived in Texas and could find Bluebell. Now I settle for Dryers...

None of the recipes tonight were very specific-sorry. Also, Kendra posted a comment about leftovers. We seriously do not have leftovers. I make just enough food for us to eat. We eat three chicken breasts or pork chops, two steaks. We don't usually have leftover vegetables, and not enough leftover rice or pasta to use. The dog eats all leftover vegetables as part of his "diet."