Saturday Steaks

The boy really enjoys cooking.  And it's a good thing too, because I do NOT.  You can read more about that here.    But I do enjoy eating good food and our food is becoming nicer and nicer the more he cooks.  But he's decided to set himself a little challenge (we do love our challenges in this house.)  He is going to try several different chef's recipes for cooking the "perfect steak."  We will then try one each weekend and decide which technique truly turns out the best steak.  

Now I know what you must be thinking.  We are already consuming more burgers than we should on a regular basis, how can we possibly add a weekly steak to the mix too?  Well to ease your mind, I think I should explain that we will be sharing one steak between us and we already share one burger when we go out on the quest...Except for on a few occasions when I was so ravenous I refused to share and made the boy get his own burger.  It's still quite a bit of red meat, but we're trying our best to keep it as healthy as possible.  And it's all in the name of blogging, so that makes it ok, right?  Right!

So, on to the first specimen.  For this gorgeous steak, the boy followed this incredibly straight-forward recipe by British kitchen wizard Heston Blumenthal.  If you haven't ever seen what this man can do with food, I highly recommend you watch a few of his shows from Britain.  There are tons of clips on youtube and I promise it's worth the search.  He creates magical feasts that bring in all the senses.  It's really interesting.  Here's the how-to the boy followed:

And the finished product?  I have to say it was delicious.  I would have preferred it to be a bit more cooked in the middle (still getting used to eating meat rare.)  But it really was so flavorful and juicy!  I loved the rocket salad as well.  Again it was so simple, but really was incredibly delicious!  A superb steak! 

brilliant bevies

Something you may not know about me is that I have a pretty severe and long-term addiction to Diet Coke.  It started back when I was 15.  I went away to a summer-intensive ballet program with the Milwaukee Ballet and roomed with an anorexic girl, who taught me all about the horrors of empty calories.  And so I started drinking Diet Coke. 

I always said that I'd stop drinking it when a support group sprouted up, but to my knowledge that hasn't happened and I don't think it's likely.  Since meeting the boy 8 years ago, I've slowly cut down on my diet coke intake, but there are still days when I put away at least 3 cans...When I'm stressed or sluggish at work, it's just habit.  But I know that all the chemicals and all the carbonation is really not good for me and I get plenty of caffeine from my morning cup of tea, and calories don't scare me quite like they used to, so there's really no excuse for me to continue drinking quite so much DC.

So in an effort to replace that craving with something a bit more natural, here's 3 sweet spring beverages I'm sipping slowly....

I adore lemonade, it can help to break up calcium deposits in your system, it's sweet, refreshing AND so pretty when it's pink!

Sprigs of mint and a few slices of lemon really go a long way to spruce up a plain glass of water.  Again this is so refreshing and super easy to prepare.

Add a bit of blueberry pomegranate juice (you can find it at Trader Joe's or even Minute Maid makes a version now) to you morning OJ and I think you'll find it adds an extra delicious kick!  Plus it's bursting with anti-oxidants, and we can all use more of those! 

What are your favorite springtime sips? 

The Boy's Bruschetta

The boy has been cooking his way through our copy of the Barefoot Contessa's Back to Basics cookbook and let me tell ya, he has already made a myriad of dishes both wonderful and exotic.  However I think my favorite item so far has been the bruschetta.  

This delicious bruschetta was made with bell peppers, which gave it a spicy kick.  It was so yummy!  I am definitely going to put it on my favorites list...It would be great at a picnic!