redemption

I may have mentioned earlier that The Husband, in all his thrifty glory, picked up about six containers of ground turkey during a recent $.99 sale at Kroger. This is excellent because we’ve pretty much completely replaced any use of ground beef with ground turkey or chicken, but sucky because I am so sick and tired of ground turkey that I try, usually unsuccessfully, to find creative ways to spice it up. (See: spanish rice.)

So when I visited Kroger on Tuesday I was determined to find something a little different. I strolled through the aisles, packing my basket full of fresh fruits and vegetables, then came upon the meat cooler. I’m weary of poultry, ham and pork chops just weren’t sounding spectacular — then I spied a little sirloin on sale. The cogs were spinning as I drove home, combining ingredients in my head until I ended up in the kitchen, preparing a marinade of olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper.

Which is when I remembered that earlier that week during a girls’ day out I decided to get fake nails put on. Crazy fake nails, too — ones that impeded my typing and made it hard to text-message. And now, staring at the lonely bulb of garlic on the cutting board, I began to realize the folly of my ways. If I can’t stand garlic juice underneath my normal fingernails, how would I function with garlicky fake tips? I couldn’t very well tear them off, so I did the next best thing: wrapped my hands in sandwich bags and started to dice. And I bet you all can guess how well that went.

Undaunted, I put the steaks in the fridge to marinate and started quartering red potatoes. I planned on boiling them with a little salt and some butter, but it belatedly occurred to me that I didn’t have enough pots to do so. The medium-sized pot was full of fresh broccoli being steamed and the small pot wouldn’t fit all the potatoes, so after a brief moment of panic I was seized with inspiration: I would coat the potatoes with olive oil, Mrs. Dash, salt, and pepper, and roast them. My mother used to make a similar recipe with dried onion soup mix, but I was fresh out and, besides, Mrs. Dash is better for you anyway. The potatoes went into the oven, the broccoli came out of the pot crisp and green, and the steaks sizzled away on the Foreman Grill. For once in my life, everything was done at once.

I love the grill marks. They remind me of the fake ones on the Salisbury steak at my middle-school cafeteria.

Dinner was delicious, and there were enough leftovers to make this later on in the week:

Steak stir-fry with edamame and rice.

So it’s not filet mignon or stuffed trout or what-have-you, but it’s a far cry from the crap I’ve been churning out lately. These next two Sundays will be fairly challenging because I’ll be traveling for my spring break, but I’m looking forward to two “Very Special Dumbass Gourmet” episodes — one with my BFF and one with my family! If nothing else, it’ll be amusing.