Philly Steak Salad

What do you get when you combine healthy salad, great steak, and delicious cheese? A cheese steak salad! I happen to have a freezer full of steaks, so this dish helps me work through them. Though the recipe calls for leftover steak, you can, of course, cook the steak specifically for this salad, as I did. Once cooked, either slice thin or grate your steak. Heat a large skillet with olive oil over medium-high heat. Cook your peppers with the steak and garlic powder for about five minutes. Turn the heat off and smother the still-hot steak and peppers with the shredded mozzarella. While this is melting, split the bag of lettuce between two plates or bowls. Add the cheese-covered steak onto the salads and you're ready to eat!The ingredients for Food Network's Easy Philly Steak Salad are:

• one cup of fresh, diced red and green bell peppers
• a six to eight ounce steak per person, cooked, sliced or shredded
  
• a quarter teaspoon of garlic powder
• one cup of shredded mozzarella cheese
• a 10-ounce bag of salad mix
  

Buffalo Chicken Salad

This meal came from July 27th. The band and I had just finished our five hour marathon set and we were looking for something simple and guy-friendly to eat. This buffalo chicken recipe was both good man-food and "healthy" because of the salad. No, maybe my logic doesn't hold, but it sure was yummy. Here, now, is something any dude can make on a Sunday.
Preheat your oven to broil. What makes this chicken so delicious is that it wasn't contact-grilled. Put the chicken between two sheets of wax paper and flatten it with a hammer or some other chicken-flattening-device. Then mix together two teaspoons of olive oil and two tablespoons of hot sauce (your preference, but probably not something small like Tabasco sauce). Toss and coat the chicken in this and then place the strips on a baking sheet. Broil until the chicken is done throughout (four to six minutes), turning once half-way. This makes the chicken unbelievably tender and the smell of the hot sauce is fantastic. The salad is straight forward: Romaine, celery, carrots, and scallions. Put the chicken on top and cover with your dressing of choice (the recipe recommended a home-made blue cheese, but we just bought some from the store).
The ingredients for Food Network's buffalo chicken salad are:

• 16 ounces of boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into strips
• 2 tablespoons of cayenne pepper hot sauce (or your preference)
• 2 teaspoons of olive oil
• about 8 cups of Romaine hearts (just buy a bag from the grocery)
• 4 celery stalks, sliced thin
• 2 carrots, coarsely grated (or buy a bag of grated carrots: easy)
• 2 scallions, sliced (if you want)
• blue cheese dressing of your choice
  

Tandoori Chicken Salad

I had a hard time picking what to cook for this week's meal (last week I was down in NYC at MoCCA and visiting friends). I wanted something simple, but not boring. After much deliberating (debilitating?), I found this recipe for Tandoori chicken salad from Food Network's website. Tandoori chicken is an Indian dish where the chicken is marinaded in a curry-esque yogurt. The meal is simple: make the yogurt marinade, grill the chicken, then add it atop a salad.
The marinade was simple enough: yogurt with Garam masala, ginger, garlic, turmeric, and a minced jalapeño chili. Garam masala is an Indian blend of cinnamon, cumin, nutmeg, and other spices. Turmeric is a Southeast Asian spice from the ginger family often used in curries. Thoroughly coating the chicken and grill it along with some of the marinade until there's no remaining pink.

Once finished, add it to a salad of iceberg lettuce, cucumber, scallions, jicama, or your preferred greens. The recipe actually calls for cabbage, radishes, and cilantro, but these aren't really of my preference, so I did without. I had never heard of jicama before; it's, well, a potato/yam-like starchy thing that looks rough from the outside but is very juicy and crunchy on the inside. Without much flavor itself, it absorbs those its paired with. It was actually very delicious!
And now, by popular request, the ingredients and preparation. First, the link to Food Network's recipe: Tandoori Chicken Salad. It looks to be for a limited-time only, so print it now if you want to keep it. The marinade's ingredients are:

• 1 cup of plain yogurt
• 2 teaspoons of Garam masala (powder)
• 1 teaspoon of ginger
• 1 teaspoon of garlic (minced or powder)
• 1 teaspoon of ground turmeric
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• a jalapeño chili, minced, if you so choose

Just stir these all together and cover the chicken thoroughly. Keep the chicken marinading while preparing the salad thusly:

• shredded iceberg lettuce, as much as you need
• shredded red cabbage (I just used a bag of mixed salad greens)
• 1 cup of sliced radishes, if that's what you're into
• 2 cups of sliced cucumber
• a small bunch of sliced scallions
• 1 cup of finely chopped cilantro leaves (unless you're Ian)
• 1.5 cups of diced jicama

Just combine the grilled chicken with the salad vegetables and enjoy! How easy was that?

Flank Steak Salad

Wonder of wonders! Two Sunday updates in a row! You'd think I had a crush on you or something (I do). Confession: I'm a big fan of salads... but only if I can put meat on them. I love ordering buffalo chicken salads when they're on menus. But what about this? A steak salad. I mean, c'mon - steak! Now that you're as sold on the idea as I was, let me explain how simple this is: grill a steak, put it on top of a salad. Whew, trivial! Rachael Ray makes things interesting by asking us to make our own marinade, salad dressing, and croutons.

Basically, get some fresh, crisp bread (sliced is convenient), brush some olive oil on a few pieces, sprinkle with salt and pepper, toast until crispy, rub with crushed garlic, then slice into one inch square chunks. I recommend munching on the leftover crusts as you cook. Delicious. This recipe calls for making two other liquidy mixtures: the marinade and the salad dressing. Following the recipe's quantities, my horseradish salad dressing was skimpy and I have no good pictures of it. It's made by whisking together horseradish (which you can get prepared in a can), Dijon mustard, lemon juice, and olive oil (and sour cream, if you're so inclined).

The marinade was much better. As you can see above, it's combined olive oil, thinly sliced garlic, Worcestershire, hot sauce, and a little thyme. I coated the flank steak (about 12 ounces) and let it marinade for a few minutes before warming up my iron skillet. Oh man, I suck at indoor grilling (and, arguably, outdoor grilling). The flank steak gave off sooo much smoke (I mean, it is 16 square inches of marinaded meat straight onto a cast iron frying pan). I'm a little concerned, now, that none of my smoke detectors went off (Cyndie, ignore this last sentence, please). Ten minutes - two open doors, three open windows, and the ceiling fans on high - later and the steak was ready.

The steak turned out very flavorful (I loved the marinade) but borderline rare, which isn't quite my preference. I may postpone other grilling-based dishes until Spring (so, like, May). Thinly slice the steak against the grain and lay it on top of your salad. Oh yeah, the salad (I almost forgot): baby spinach with arugula. Even though arugula sounds like a variety of spider, it's a leaf not unlike spinach itself. In fact, it's so not unlike it, I think I bought spinach again instead of arugula. Price Chopper, you lied to me!

Toss the salad (hehe) together with the steak, croutons, and dressing and you're finished! Man, I used way too many exclamation marks in this post. Screw that! Anyway, it was quite good. Steaks and salads for the win!