Cutie Beef

Jackson, my youngest son, is totally enthralled by the Cutie orange commercials.  He insisted that I buy them for him at the grocery store because they are made for kids and he is a kid and so he needed them.  Since he was asking for a healthy snack, I totally gave in and bought some.  (Plus, they are on a crazy good sale right now at HEB and I had a coupon!)  Of course, as soon as we got home, he took one bite of one section and decided that cuties were not for him.  The baby and I have been tearing them up though, so yummy!

I started up on E-Mealz again (and Grocery Gaming).  Links for both sites are listed on the blog here, but combined they make my life so easy.  Grocery Game is a great way to match coupons and store sales to save a TON of money on food.  E-Mealz recently came out with a new Natural/Organic plan that features easy-to-make recipes without using a lot of processed or canned/boxed products.  So, I'm using E-Mealz to help plan meals for the family while using Grocery Game to stock our house with healthy food super cheap.  It's a good plan.  :)  Tonight's meal, Cutie Beef, is an adaptation of an E-Mealz recipe with items that I had on hand already through my stockpile by doing the Grocery Game.

Long story short...  this was a super yummy meal that we all enjoyed!  It marinated overnight and was quick to prepare.  The kiddos ate it deconstructed, as we like to say here, and we enjoyed it with the beef over rice with the pan sauce.  You really have to try this meal, yum-yum!

Ingredients:
(for the marinade)
1 cutie orange, zested and juiced 
 4 green onions, sliced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1" of fresh ginger, grated using a microplane
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 Tablespoons sesame oil
2 teaspoons of sugar
red pepper flakes to taste
3 thin-cut, lean beef steaks (a little more than 1 lb of beef)
(for the pan sauce)
2 Tablespoons of orange marmalade

Preparation Instructions:

1. In a small bowl, combine the ingredients for the marinade, Cutie orange zest and juice, green onions, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar, and red pepper flakes.  Whisk together.  Place thin steaks in a baking dish.  Pour the marinade over the beef, cover dish, and place in refridgerator overnight.
2. Place a cast iron skillet on medium-high heat.  Add one Tablespoon of butter to the pan.  (Reserve the marinade.)  Cook steaks until medium rare, just about 4-5 minutes on each side.  Remove beef to a cutting board and allow it to rest for 10-15 minutes.  Tent with aluminum foil.
3. Add the reserved marinade to the pan, scraping up the pan drippings.  Allow it to come to a boil and thicken slightly.  Add two Tablespoons of orange marmalade and allow the sauce to come together.  
4. We served our Cutie beef with cooked white rice and steamed broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots. 

Weekend Waffles

After much nagging from Dusty over our Christmas vacation (love you honey!), I'm once-again writing for my blog.  :)  There hasn't been a lot of cooking in our house during the last part of 2011.  Just a month after my shoulder surgery in September, Dusty and I found out that we had a baby on board.  Drosche #3 is due in June 2012 and since then I've struggled with morning (noon & night) sickness.  We've eaten a lot of boxed, already prepared, and fast food.  But it slowly starting to get better and I'm looking forward to cooking again and resurrecting the blog.  :)

So, onto a new and exciting post...  I love big breakfasts! During the week, I have a list of quick and healthy breakfasts for me and the kiddos posted on the side of the fridge, things like yogurt, cheese sticks, toast and peanut butter.  Lots of things that we can just grab and go.  But on the weekends, I like to do breakfast up right.  This morning, we had the cousins over for a sleepover and so with three extra mouths to feed, I knew my go-to waffle recipe would be awesome.  We're trying to cut out a lot of the processed, boxed/canned foods and so a few weeks ago, I found this waffle recipe.  It's super easy and if you double it, you'll have plenty of leftovers to freeze.  And the best part is that you can pop them in your toaster or microwave just like an eggo during the week.  So this is written as my doubled recipe which will make a TON of waffles, but you can always half it if you don't want all of the leftovers.  And fear not, I know there's a lot of powdered sugar on those waffles in the picture, they are sweet enough, I just like my waffles almost like desert.  :)

Ingredients:
4 cups flour
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 cup white sugar
4 eggs
3 cups buttermilk (regular milk can be substituted but I love the tang this provides)
2/3 cup butter, melted
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preparation Instructions:

1. In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients: flour, salt, baking powder and sugar.  Set aside. 
2. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs. Stir in the buttermilk, butter and vanilla. Pour the wet ingredients into the flour mixture; beat until blended.
3. Preheat your waffle iron.
4. Ladle the batter into a preheated waffle iron. Cook the waffles until golden and crisp. Serve immediately. 
5. If you are going to freeze the leftover waffles, allow them to cool completely.  Then stack between layers of wax paper in a gallon-sized Ziploc bag.  

Adapted from a recipe posted on All Recipes:  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/classic-waffles/detail.aspx