The review: steak tacos

Remember how I said this week’s theme was going to be simple? Well I should have said that this week’s theme was going to be distracted.

If you haven’t checked out the recipe for flank steak tacos, it is pretty simple but does involve a series of distinct steps. First step is to marinate the meat for six hours or overnight. There is also a cilantro pesto (made in the food processer) and a grilled fruit salsa that goes on top of the meat. These can be prepped in advance. If you have the ingredients. Finally, you grill the steak, slice it up and top it with the goodies. Pretty straight-forward.

I had such good intentions of marinating the flank steak overnight. I finally got to it at 1 pm day of. That’s pretty good, right? I may have not read the fine print on the recipe and did not have lemon pepper. I substituted dried lemon peel and cracked pepper. (Side note: if you live anywhere near a Penzey’s and haven’t gone there, do yourself a favor and go. While you are there getting lemon peel, get some hot chocolate, cinnamon, and greek seasoning. Hokey website, great store. Trust me.)

Next, I started to make the cilantro pesto while I still had light in my kitchen so that I could get a good photos. This was at about 1:15. Let’s just say I finally got back to it at 5 pm. No light. I intended to grill my fruit (mango, avocado, pineapple) for the salsa next, but ended up bringing my mango and avocado over to my mom’s where we were eating dinner and decorating her tree. The plan was to pick up pineapple on the way to Mom’s. No pineapple at the store. When we got to Mom’s, the mango was bad and I forgot the red onion and cilantro. Scrapped the salsa. If you do make this, let me know if the fruit salsa was tasty.

I also forgot my grill pan, and since it was 5° outside, that wasn’t really an option. Enter the George Foreman! My mom actually has one of these and uses it. Welcome back to 2006. (Sorry, Mom.) It was quick and easy. We served the steak with corn and avocado for the kids and over mixed greens for the adults. We also added some Newman’s Own Lime Dressing to replace the missing salsa. Overall, and considering how flighty a cook I was, dinner was pretty good. The dressing helped. I wish I had made the salsa because I could see how the meat would have been better in combination with the grilled fruit.

In case you can’t tell, I also forgot my camera. Geesh. Better luck tonight.