Thursday, September 1, 2011

Texas


We had a lot of possibilities to choose from for our Texas dinner. Chili immediately came to mind, but with the unseasonally hot weather we're having up here in Iowa, we looked for something a little lighter. (I know, it's always hot in Texas--why am I complaining!?). We decided to go Tex-Mex and prepare fajitas--something the kids hadn't tried and that might be a good addition to our regular, non-blogging dinner repertoire.

This turned out to be a pretty quick meal to cook, though the marinating the meat required us to plan ahead a bit. We were able to get it accomplished in the short window between school and soccer practice, putting it in the category of "easy weeknight meal" for me.


We did both chicken and steak, though one or the other would have been fine. For the steak Marc originally planned to make up his own marinade recipe, but this one just looked so good he went with that (though he decreased the amount of chipotle peppers). We used flank steak, and marinated it for about 4 hours before grilling.


For the chicken, Marc blended the juice of 1 lime, a few minced garlic cloves, salt, pepper, oregano and ground cumin and poured that over two chicken breasts. This only marinated about an hour--the acid in the lime juice will start to cook the chicken if you leave it in too long.

The meat was grilled over very hot coals. Marc put the chicken on first, then the beef, which we prefer on the rare side.

While he was grilling, I sliced one red bell pepper and a red onion, seasoned them with salt and pepper and quickly sauteed them over high heat in a cast iron skillet. You could also put them on the grill in larger pieces, then slice them small before serving. These should stay crisp, so they don't need to go too long.


The meat was sliced thin and the onions and peppers were served on the side. I warmed flour tortillas in a 225 degree oven, wrapped in foil, and we sliced a lime to add at the table.

Everyone was pretty happy with this meal--though Maia (per usual) said the meat was a little on the spicy side for her. Lucy preferred the beef to the chicken, in both flavor and texture and even enjoyed the onions. Both girls have always declared a strong hatred for onions, but they are beginning to realize that most tasty things contain onions. Another benefit of this meal was that we will have good leftovers for the rest of the week!

The grown-ups rounded out the meal with a Shiner, Texas brew


Next: Wyoming

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