I had 3 people ask me last week if I have lost weight. This is NOT acceptable to me. I do not have weight to lose, and definitely not before my wedding. If anything, a little more junk in the trunk could be a good thing for this skin-tight wedding dress I have. The comments caught me a little off guard.
So if you are a recent bride who had to starve yourself to fit into your wedding dress, don't hate me, but I have the best wedding diet ever! I eat anything and everything possible. I had spaghetti for breakfast this morning. And I am seriously contemplating making a milkshake to chase it down. I will try and add some of my hearty recipes to my diet (and my blog) this week before leaving, but then you are going to have to come up with your own recipes for 3 weeks until I am back. But I promise to bring back some French, Italian, and Greek yumminess for you!
One of my favorite things to do recently is take recipes from cookbooks and change them up and tweek them to make 'em my own. This meal is a combination of like 15 difference recipes.
Cheesy Factor (1 no cheese, 10 all cheese): 1blah
Dummy Factor (1 easiest, 10 hardest): 5
Time Factor (1 shortest, 10 longest): 6
Jerked Flank Steak
Flank Steak
Lawry's Caribbean Jerk Marinade
Small corn or flour tortillas
Sour cream (optional)
This is the easiest part: marinate flank steak in casserole dish with Jerk Marinade for as long as you have time for...the longer the better. Grill over medium heat until inside temperature is around 140. Let meat rest for at least 5 minute after taking off grill. Slice thinly, against the grain, with a long serrated knife. Serve with tortillas, cantaloupe salsa, and sour cream for tacos.
Cantaloupe Salsa
Half of a Cantaloupe, diced
1/4 red bell pepper, diced
2-3 slices of red onion, diced
1 Tbl fresh cilantro, chopped finely
1 Tbl olive oil
1 Tbl white distilled vinegar
Salt
In large mixing bowl, combine all ingredients and mix. Season heavily with salt. Correct ingredients to taste.
* Note: this is NOT one of those situations where you should substitute whatever vinegar you have for the listed vinegar in the recipe. I learned this the hard way. I didn't think the vinegar was strong enough, so I added some cider vinegar. GROSS. All I could taste was cider vinegar after that. Don't do it, trust me.
Florida Slaw
Pickling:
1 cup distilled white vinegar
1 cup water
1 Tbl salt
1/2 tsp sugar (optional)
Dressing:
1/3 cup mayonnaise
3 Tbl sour cream
1/4 cup Orange Syrup or Orange juice concentrate
2 Tbl rice wine vinegar
2 Tbl lime juice
Salt and Pepper to taste
1/2 green cabbage, cored and thinly shredded (or 2 bags of pre-shredded cabbage)
2 carrots, peeled and shredded (I just used a peeler to "shred" them)
2 Jalapenos, cored, de-seeded, and finely minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 slices of red onion, minced
1 ripe mango, diced (optional)
Whisk together vinegar, water, salt, and sugar until sugar dissolved. In shallow baking dish, mix together cabbage, carrots, jalapenos, garlic, and onion. Pour vinegar mixture over it and toss to coat. Put in refrigerator and let pickle for at least 2 hours, up to overnight, continually tossing in vinegar.
Once cabbage is done pickling, drain out all liquid. Prepare the dressing by whisking mayo and sour cream in large mixing bowl until smooth. Then whisk in orange syrup, vinegar, lime juice, salt and pepper. Correct seasonings, adding lime juice or salt to taste.
Mix cabbage mixture with dressing and toss until completely coated, and then decorate with mango (or stir mango in, whichever you prefer.)
Soooo....what the h*ll is orange syrup??? I have no idea, so I just used good, fresh OJ, and it worked fine.
The one thing I will say about this entire meal is that it is pretty vinegar-y. Mind you, I added almost double the amount of vinegar to the salsa AND the coleslaw the first time I made this. But I have since learned that, as much as I love vinegar, I really didn't want an entire meal that tasted like it.
Oh, and also, if you like your food a little on the spicier side, I suggest rubbing the flank steak in some sort of jerk rub before marinating also. I like the Lawry's Caribbean Jerk marinade because it's sweet, and it's already made. But there are tons of amazing jerk marinade recipes to choose from if you want to make your own.
