Last week, before I fled DC for home, Sophie came over for dinner, and I basically forced her to eat steak since it would otherwise go bad during my extended trip. Because I didn't want to face packing, I decided to search for a good marinade recipe. Many of the options google presented me with involved balsamic (I'm not a fan) or some other steak-type sauce that I don't own. So I cruised over to Dinner: A Love Story (which is quickly becoming a go-to after Epicurious and food network), and found their seemingly simple recipe.
I didn't have scallions and I skipped the hot sauce (Sophie doesn't like spicy food), but it came out pretty well nonetheless. It didn't have an overwhelming flavor, but wasn't too plain and boring, either.
The steaks, however, were definitely overcooked, and I blame George (Foreman). See, George and I are still getting to know each other. He seems to be pretty old, and is entirely lacking in any sort of options. You plug him in, and that's it. So I'm not quite sure when it reaches maximum heat (or what that temperature is). Nor am I sure of the average cooking time for various foods. So what I'm saying here is that it's a bit of an experiment every time.
The first time I checked the steaks, they were practically still raw, so we let them cook for what seemed like a reasonable extra amount of time. And then they were far too done for our medium (or medium-rare) preferences. But Sophie was a good sport and pretended it was perfect. They at least looked pretty...
On the side we had roasted baby potatoes with olive oil, garlic, and rosemary (aka the convenient, long-time pinch hitter in my family's dinner arsenal), which were perfectly crisped (I'm allowed to have a moment of selfish gloating over the potatoes, right? I mean, I totally bungled the steak temperature). We skipped the wine thanks to my weird esophagus pain, which was so bad that night that I only ate because Sophie practically forced me to do so. But I made up for it by offering her a dessert sampler of all the ice cream flavors in my freezer at the moment.
After dessert, Sophie gamely offered to do the dishes. While she scrubbed everything else, I used the little scraper tool that comes with George--easily the grossest part of the whole process. When I popped the grill plates off for Sophie to scrub, I noticed (and pointed out) a tiny pool of grease on the counter.
"Oh, meat," Sophie said. Oh, meat, indeed. I couldn't help but think of her matter-of-fact statement the entire time I was reading The China Study. I first heard about the book on the CNN Health site (probably one day when I was a little on the bored side at work). Dr. Gupta briefly described the study, explaining that there's a whole slew of physicians and researchers who believe we can eradicate heart disease and drastically reduce instances of cancer, autoimmune diseases, and other less-severe health issues by eliminating animal protein from our diets. I realize it sounds drastic, and probably hard to buy in to (especially if you're an enthusiastic meat-eater like me), but the wealth of evidence the authors presented is staggering to say the least.
I'm not saying I'll be an overnight vegan, or even vegetarian (in fact, I made risotto with chicken last night). But the information they presented was eye-opening and hard to ignore. I'll definitely be thinking about making some changes in the LKTC...
I didn't have scallions and I skipped the hot sauce (Sophie doesn't like spicy food), but it came out pretty well nonetheless. It didn't have an overwhelming flavor, but wasn't too plain and boring, either.
The steaks, however, were definitely overcooked, and I blame George (Foreman). See, George and I are still getting to know each other. He seems to be pretty old, and is entirely lacking in any sort of options. You plug him in, and that's it. So I'm not quite sure when it reaches maximum heat (or what that temperature is). Nor am I sure of the average cooking time for various foods. So what I'm saying here is that it's a bit of an experiment every time.
The first time I checked the steaks, they were practically still raw, so we let them cook for what seemed like a reasonable extra amount of time. And then they were far too done for our medium (or medium-rare) preferences. But Sophie was a good sport and pretended it was perfect. They at least looked pretty...
On the side we had roasted baby potatoes with olive oil, garlic, and rosemary (aka the convenient, long-time pinch hitter in my family's dinner arsenal), which were perfectly crisped (I'm allowed to have a moment of selfish gloating over the potatoes, right? I mean, I totally bungled the steak temperature). We skipped the wine thanks to my weird esophagus pain, which was so bad that night that I only ate because Sophie practically forced me to do so. But I made up for it by offering her a dessert sampler of all the ice cream flavors in my freezer at the moment.
bottom left: chocolate with crushed red pepper, top: salted caramel,
bottom right: jacked up cookies and cream
I think it was a hit
After dessert, Sophie gamely offered to do the dishes. While she scrubbed everything else, I used the little scraper tool that comes with George--easily the grossest part of the whole process. When I popped the grill plates off for Sophie to scrub, I noticed (and pointed out) a tiny pool of grease on the counter.
"Oh, meat," Sophie said. Oh, meat, indeed. I couldn't help but think of her matter-of-fact statement the entire time I was reading The China Study. I first heard about the book on the CNN Health site (probably one day when I was a little on the bored side at work). Dr. Gupta briefly described the study, explaining that there's a whole slew of physicians and researchers who believe we can eradicate heart disease and drastically reduce instances of cancer, autoimmune diseases, and other less-severe health issues by eliminating animal protein from our diets. I realize it sounds drastic, and probably hard to buy in to (especially if you're an enthusiastic meat-eater like me), but the wealth of evidence the authors presented is staggering to say the least.
I'm not saying I'll be an overnight vegan, or even vegetarian (in fact, I made risotto with chicken last night). But the information they presented was eye-opening and hard to ignore. I'll definitely be thinking about making some changes in the LKTC...
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