Tonight's Menu.
With the afore-mentioned money from the sale of the car, we bought a LOT of beef, pork, and chicken. And even a bit of shrimp. It's all in the freezer now, except for three petite sirloin steaks, which are, as I type this, marinating. So - tonight's menu:
Petite sirloin steaks, brown rice, and cabbage salad
Steaks are soaking in a mixture of a cup of burgundy, four crushed garlic cloves, some lemon-pepper seasoning, some Omaha Steak seasoning, two tablespoons of light brown sugar, and a quarter-cup of olive oil. Oh - and some liquid smoke. (Note: Liquid smoke should be a staple in every pantry whose owner does a lot of outdoor grilling. Grab it when it's on sale at the store - it keeps forever, and you'll never stop finding new uses for it.)
While the steaks are grilling, I'll be cooking the brown rice (1 cup rice to 2 cups water. Might put a beef boullion cube in for flavor, but other than that, it'll just be plain brown rice.
And the cabbage salad? There are variations, but here's what I did:
1/2 head white cabbage (you could use red, if you want - it's a beautiful color!) sliced and chopped
1/4 cup red onion, diced
1 jalapeno pepper (scrape the seeds out before you mince it, unless you want your salad HOT)
1 large tomato (I used a vine-ripened one because it was cheaper, but Romas will work just as well) diced
1 clove garlic, crushed
Juice of 4 limes (don't used bottled lime juice for this - it just won't taste the same)
Half a bunch of fresh cilantro, minced
Salt to taste
I put the lime juice, cilantro and tomato into the bowl first because stuff mixes better when you don't dump all the liquids and minced things on top. Note: As this salad ages, you might need to add more salt because one or more of the ingredients tends to leach flavor (I'm thinking it's the cabbage, but it might be the lime... And no use laying blame. Just season with salt.)
I haven't posted menus for quite awhile - life tends to make things complicated. But, this is tonight, the weather's very summer-ish, the grill works, and I feel inspired.
It's also the 4th of July, so we can expect all the animals to freak once the sun sets.
We shall be jailing the animals, pending the noise and fiery explosions. Happy whatever to whoever!