Keep It Simple Dinner

I have been a bit under the weather, and I wanted to make a simple dinner for this evening. Tonight the fare is sirloin steaks, baked potatoes and steamed asparagus.

Take the steaks out about an hour before cooking, and season both sides with fresh ground salt and pepper.

Steak seasoned with fresh ground salt and pepper

My husband will be doing the grilling tonight. He says the steaks take 20 minutes.

Steaks midway through cooking on the grill

Scrub the potatoes and rub with a bit of oil and fresh ground salt.

Potato scrubbed, oiled and ground salt and pepper added

These will take 50 minutes or so to cook, so you will need to time the rest of the dinner. Turn the oven on to 375 degrees, and when the oven is ready, place the potatoes on a rack in the center for 25 minutes. Turn 1/2 way through the cooking time. Before removing from the oven test them to make sure that they are soft cooked.

Get the asparagus ready next. Wash them and then snap the stalk.

Bend the asparagus until

The asparagus snaps

Lay these in a steamer basket. When you are ready to steam these get your steamer going and cook until just crisp tender, about 6 – 8 minutes.

When the steaks are done, pull them off the grill and let them stand for 5 minutes. During this time, get those spuds ready by adding a bit of butter, and sour cream if you like. Lay the asparagus on the plate and lay on the steak!

Dinner is served!

Serve this dinner with a really good Bordeaux or try a Cabernet Sauvignon! Enjoy!

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Marinated Lamb Loin Chops

I don’t know about you, but I love lamb! I recently had some at a friend’s wedding that were really great and done on a grill. While the temperature outside is in the mid-thirties, I won’t be outside with the BBQ but inside with the indoor grill.

Ingredients
4 Lamb loin chops, 1 inch thick
Drizzle of extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 tsp. dried rosemary
1 1/2 tsp. dried thyme
6 cloves of garlic, chopped fine
salt and pepper

Two to three hours before grilling, rub the chops with the olive oil. Then rub with the garlic and herbs, then dash them with some salt and pepper.

Marinating Lamb

Put them back in the refrigerator covered for two – three hours.

Take the chops out of the refrigerator on hour before cooking. Grill on either the BBQ or an indoor grill.

Lamb goes on the grill

Monitor the meat. Cook 5 minutes per side.

Turn the chops

When the meat is done the way you like it, serve it up!

Dinner is served!

I like rice pilaf and steamed green beans! Pinot Noir is a good wine with this dish!

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Review of Meatball Griller

I was looking through the clearance page on the Sur la Table website and came across what I thought was a bargain item: A meatball griller! Cost: $5.00, and with shipping about $12.00. My mouth was salivating as I hit the checkout button thinking of grilled meatballs in my spaghetti sauce!

The griller makes 12 meatballs. It took a bit of time to get the size of the meatballs right, but once I did I was on a roll! Then it was out to the grill.

The first thing I realized is that the wood handle had to rest inside the barbeque, and not only does it get hot, but the wood can burn. Not a very good design.

Grilling Up Meatballs!

The next thing that I noticed is that they do not cook evenly. If you take a good look at the next photo you will see that they are not all done the same, and no matter how you turn the darn thing, you cannot get them to cook evenly.

Meatballs Almost Done...

After pulling them out of the griller, the next issue was cleaning the darn thing. It cannot go in the dishwasher, and you do not discover it until it arrives at your house. This message is in very small print on the backside of the package. Cleaning is not a very easy task when you look at all the parts that you need to scrub.

Cleaning Up...

So, if you come across a gem like this, my suggestion: Make the meatballs and grill them without this device.

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