Meal of the Week

I have an idea for the blog - to feature one thing I made each week that I especially loved as the Meal of the Week. Maybe it will become a regular Saturday post...(and this was originally supposed to post on Saturday, but life got in the way).

This week, we grilled fajita meat for the first time. We have never been too adventurous on the grill, mainly sticking to burgers and sometimes chicken and recently, corn. A few weeks ago my brother told me he had grilled fajitas and used this recipe. Well, we tried it and I have to say it was the BEST meat I have ever made! (Well, technically Travis grilled it but I prepared it and marinated it.)

I had to make a couple of changes to the recipe. They didn't have skirt steak at the store so I used flat iron steak (the butcher's recommended substitute). Also, we don't use soy sauce so I just kinda threw in some balsamic vinegar and red cooking wine.

And I planned to make corn tortillas from scratch. Oh, the tortillas. They did not turn out like they are supposed to. The dough would not stick together at all, and I don't have a tortilla press (well, I have one now!) so they were super-thick anyway. Ahhh, this kind of mishap would have totally thrown me for a loop in the past. But, I decided to roll with it and we ended up with a tortilla-type bread on the side of our meat and veggies. They tasted fine, and Levi certainly didn't complain!

So aside from the meat and tortillas, I cooked bell peppers, mushrooms, and onions, guacamole, and corn on the cob. It was a truly delicious meal. This is how it turned out (and bear with me, I am not a great photographer).

What was YOUR favorite meal of this week? Let me know in the comments!

The one-ingredient rule

I thought I'd stop by and let you know how we are defining "processed."

I guess it could be defined a number of ways - I mean, there are some foods that are processed that are not bad - they just aren't in their original form anymore. Example, raisins. Since they aren't in their original form of grapes, they are technically processed. But they are dried, and nothing is added, so to us, they are ok.

We decided to go by a "one-ingredient" rule. So, if there are any additives at all, we won't buy it.

This will require us to do all of our cooking from scratch! So, if I want sweets or a loaf of bread, I can have it, but I'll have to learn to make it from scratch. (And gluten-free baking is a delicate art...so it may be a while before I dive into it.)

[A side note: I've already found (well, my mom found) a nice alternative to eating half a bag of chocolate chips every day. Chocolate-Covered Katie has a recipe for fudge babies that uses just walnuts, dates, and cacao powder (I use raw). Seriously, they are so good. And they have three ingredients - none of which is sugar - but they are sweet! Love this site...she has so many more recipes to try, too.]

So, cooking from scratch - here we go. The one-ingredient rule is in full effect!