Martha's steak and potatoes

So I must say that this little $5 Everyday Food magazine was one of the best purchases.  I came across this delightful steak and potatoes recipe that was quite tasty!

Garlic!!! YUM

Added rosemary and Worcestershire sauce.   

Added some delicious, delicious steak rounds to the marinade and let the steaks sit in the fridge for about two hours.  I think next time I'll marinate it overnight just to make it juicier!  

Boiled some potatoes to help reduce the baking time.

Pan-seared the beef till it was perfectly cooked!

Baked the potatoes with some blue cheese sprinkled on top along with some salt and pepper.  The blue cheese melted nicely on the potatoes, super delicious!! Thanks Martha Stewart for another winner!!

Stuffed Tomatoes

Its Monday again, which means it is Meatless Monday!  For Meatless Monday I did stuffed tomatoes and I quite fancied them! Again, thanks Miss Stewart!

First I scooped out the insides of four fair-sized hot house tomatoes.  Shopping for tomatoes at the grocery store makes me miss when my parents used to grow their own tomatoes.  Their tomatoes were sooo juicy and tasty!

In a hot skillet I put green onions and corn....how corny! (I know, that was a terrible joke!)

Wash and drained black beans and added mozzarella cheese to the beans. 

Added some chilly peppers to the corn and green onions (THANKS DENISE :) )

The tomatoes all ready to be stuffed!

Added the corn to the beans and added some salt and pepper with bread crumbs. 

Stuffed the crapped out of the tomatoes!

With the leftover tomato insides, I put it on thick cut bread and then added some salt and pepper to it.  I put it in the oven with the tomatoes as they were cooking. 

Et voila! I think I overstuffed them just a bit, but they tasted absolutely fantastic! 

How the bread looked when it came out of the oven!! Sooo tasty! 

That's Meatless Monday for this week! Next blog post will be about these protein balls I made on the weekend!!

Rice and Bean Burritos

Hello hello, I know I have been lacking severely in the area of blog posts lately!  On a side note, apparently America's Most Wanted is still on T.V.  I know, I was super surprised too when I discovered that tonight!  

Last week I decided to make another Martha creation, rice and bean burritos!!

How cool are these clouds? Photo taken by yours truly...me!

So to start I chopped a white onion and put it in a hot skillet that had a bit of safflower oil.  I have noticed that safflower oil does not have a strong flavour to it, so I'm starting to use it a lot more in my cooking.

 I boiled about a cup of vegetable broth, took it off the heat and then added about a cup of rice to the boiled broth.  I didn't have any rice but instant or else I would have used brown rice.  I really didn't feel like going to the store - was definitely having a sweat pants and baggy hoodie kind of day.

I coarsely chopped a jalapeño pepper (thanks Denise!!!).  Since I'm not a big fan of spicy, I removed the ribs and seeds of the pepper.  

Of course there has to be garlic! So I chopped up two cloves of garlic. 

I added the pepper and garlic to the onions in the skillet. 

Two tablespoons of tomato paste was added to the onion, pepper and garlic mixture. 

I added about a third of a cup of water, a can of baby corn and a can of black beans (I rinsed them first before I added the beans to the mixture). 

After the rice was fully cooked, it joined in on the party too! 

I put a bit of cheese on a tortilla shell and then added the rice/bean mixture.

I somehow thought it would be a great idea to put the burritos under the broiler to crisp them up a bit.  Yep, they got crispy thats for sure!  I got side tracked by some ridiculous reality show and they ended up looking like Snooki after she goes tanning.  Regardless of the char on the burritos, they actually tasted really good!  I froze the leftovers (the recipe made 6 large burritos) and I bring them for my lunch. 

Popcorn Topper

So Martha to the rescue again!  I found this popcorn topper recipe in the September issue of Everyday Food for 'cheesy garlic' popcorn.  I made it last night and it was absolutely delicious!

Recipe is as follows:

1 tablespoon of parmesan cheese
1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

Drizzle some form of vegetable oil over the popcorn.  I used safflower oil because I heard it has some health benefits and is rumoured to 'melt' belly fat, so hey why not???

Then, toss the popcorn with the popcorn topper mix.

The only thing I would do differently for next time is that I would double the recipe so that there would be more of a pronounced flavour.  Very delicious though!

Thanks Ms. Stewart!

Meatless Monday

So for Meatless Monday this week I made a portobello, broccoli and red pepper open-faced sandwich.  OH MY GOODNESS WAS IT EVER DELICIOUS!!!  I got the recipe from my favourite criminal, Martha Stewart.  I never realised that she has some absolutely delicious recipes on her website and in her monthly publication of "Everyday Food."  Needless to say, I am a little bit impressed.  I was curious at the cost per serving (one serving being one open-faced sandwich) and it worked out to about $2.55 a serving! Hello ridiculous! Thats cheaper than the cheapest sub at subway...not to mention ten times more delicious! I started out by cutting the broccoli, portobello mushrooms and red peppers. 

 I tossed the broccoli with safflower oil (Dr. Oz says that safflower oil has the potential to cut belly fat, so hey I'll give it a shot) and salt & pepper.  I then put the broccoli under the broiler for 4 minutes.

I then added the portobello mushrooms and red peppers with the broccoli and let the veggies cook under the broiler for 9 minutes. I tossed them twice as they were cooking and the veggies turned out perfectly!

This is how the veggies looked when they came out of the oven....om nom nom!

I 'painted' two thick slices of bread with mayonaise that I had mixed garlic (YUM) into.

The assembly process begins!

I added gouda cheese on top of the open-faced sandwiches and then put it under the broiler for 2 minutes, which was the perfect amount of time because any longer and it would have been absolutely charred.

Absolutely delicious! Soo good!

Stay tuned for Meatless Monday next week! I'm thinking burritos...be excited!!! Cheers for now.