Prizes For Reading This Trifle?

I've been calling this week The Super Overwhelming Week because I have a ridiculous amount on my plate.  This was the only night that I could do any grilling until Sunday, so I tried to take advantage of that.  To add to that, The Bride is in Germany for the next twelve days, so I wanted to make something that I knew she would be less than pleased with if she were here.  I went with Chopped "Steaks" With Ketchup Glaze on page 97.

As much as I love eating meat, I knew that I needed something resembling "healthy" on the plate as well.  Knowing The Bride's stance on Caesar Salad, I made the call to make the Hail Caesar! Salad on page 362. 

The "steaks" came together pretty easily, although they are a little messy.  I was worried about how loose they felt, but I hoped that a little time in the fridge would firm them up.  In the meantime, I prepped my salad.  I began by trimming the top and bottom of head of lettuce.

This enabled me to stack the leaves.

The advantage to this is the ability to easily remove many spines at once.  I don't like them, and so with the leaves stacked I was able to make two quick cuts with my chef's knife to remove them.  Three more cuts and I had perfectly cut my lettuce leaves into a bunch of evenly-sized squares.

The "steaks" had some trouble on the grill. They didn't firm up like I had hoped, and when I tried to turn them with tongs, the first two fell apart.  I ran inside to grab a spatula, which helped a little.  In the picture below, it is quite evident which ones were turned with a spatula instead of tongs.

 

I tossed the salad with the dressing, and plated my meal.


The recipe refers to Mom's Wednesday Night Special for meatloaf, but this was NOTHING like that.  After some careful consideration, I determined that it is much more similar to a Jamaican beef patty.  It has all of the ingredients to be so: carrots, onion, ginger, curry, and mustard.  I loved the texture as well.  The outside was nice and crispy, and the inside was juicy and soft.  The ketchup glaze added amazing depth for such a simple technique.  The salad, however, was average at best.  It was a close approximation of a Caesar Salad, but was a little plain.  I will fully admit to taking a shortcut by not making my own croutons, but that wasn't the difference maker. 

Okay, to the good stuff!  Last week I was contacted by the marketing department of an online retailer.  I checked them out, and they have an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau, so I replied.  It turns out they like the blog, and would like to do a giveaway through my site to promote their company!  So, on Sunday I am planning to do a nice grill-out, and when I do that write-up I will include details.  One of my lucky readers will win a $35 gift card to do some online shopping!  Awesome!  Look for it Sunday night!