Peach and Jalapeño Grilled Steak

Posted on June 14, 2018 by Our Growing Paynes

While I’m not a fan of the heat of summer I do love the flavours of summer. The shops are starting to have peaches and other stone fruits which means light delicious meals and desserts.

It’s been a busy week but I wanted to make a nice meal for my husband and myself last night. Peaches sparked an idea and jalapeño is one of my husband’s favourite hot peppers. A match is made!

I prepped the corn by soaking the ears before grilling and dusted the steak with chili powder and cumin.

Slice up a quarter red onion. Begin to sweat them in a hot skillet with olive oil. Slice the jalapeño. I removed the seeds because sometimes the pepper can be very hot and I didn’t want to overwhelm the peach. I also started with half a pepper.

Sauté the pepper and onion for a few minutes. I sliced up three small peaches. You can tell it’s the beginning of the season as the peaches were quite small. Add the peaches. Cook for a few minutes. Fire up the grill to start grilling the corn. I grill the corn, unshucked, 5 minutes a side. Season the peach with chili pepper and cumin. Add a splash of lime juice. After tasting I added the rest of the pepper as there wasn’t much heat.

Grill the steak to the desired doneness. We like ours on the rare side. Once cooked, rest the steak for a few minutes then slice. Shuck the corn. Place the steak on salad greens and spoon the peach over the steak.

Bring on summer flavours, just not the heat. Unless it’s in the food. 🙂

Grilled Thai Steak and Ever So Grateful

Posted on August 24, 2015 by Our Growing Paynes

It was a very long week last week but everything went well with my dad’s surgery. Yesterday they discharged him from hospital and now he is recuperating at home. We were all breathing a sigh of relief. Still are if you want to know the truth.

So he’ll be causing trouble for a good long while now and we wouldn’t have it any other way!

As you can imagine I’m a bit backed up with blog posts and getting everything else back on track. Kids are back at school this week so we’re winding down the summer the next couple of days. Making sure they get back into the routine of things.

Last weekend I was in the mood for Thai flavours and decided to do a grilled steak with rice noodles. We have had some success with growing fresh garlic this year and we also had ginger and cilantro on hand.

In a bowl mix 2 tablespoons peanut oil, 2 tablespoons oyster sauce, 2 tablespoons amino acid, 1 tablespoon lime juice, one to two teaspoons of fresh chopped cilantro, a large clove of garlic, finely chopped, and salt and pepper. Add the steak to marinate for at least an hour.

When it is time to cook, heat up a couple of tablespoons of peanut oil. Add a few cloves of garlic, finely chopped, and a couple of scallions, chopped. Saute until the garlic starts to soften. Add a cayenne pepper. When slicing use gloves, saves on burning skin. We keep the seeds but some may find that too hot. Saute for a few minutes.

Add a cup of chicken stock and bring to a simmer. I made the mistake of adding the rest of the veg too soon. I like my veg on the crispy side. If you like them soft then add the peppers and mushrooms when you add the stock. Also add carrots. I added a couple of tablespoons of green curry paste, a tablespoon of oyster sauce, a tablespoon of amino acids, and a splash of lime juice. Continue to simmer. As it cooks adjust the flavour to your liking.

Grill the steak to medium rare.

Take the leftover marinade and add it to the skillet and continue to simmer. While the steak is resting add half a cup light coconut milk. Add a few more teaspoons of freshly chopped cilantro at this stage as well.

While this is being created cook rice noodles according to the package. Toss the noodles in the sauce and serve. Top with the steak and peanuts.

I enjoyed this dish. The heat was mild but you could always add more hot pepper as you cook. Tonight we are doing Pad Thai for dinner. Another one of our favourites!

Arugula Pesto with Balsamic Grilled Steak

Posted on August 6, 2013 by Our Growing Paynes

One thing I like about living in this area is that we have a great community with people coming together. One person who does a ton in this town is Luca who owns a fabulous restaurant a short walk from our home. His children also go to the same school as my son and Luca has been wonderful in supporting our PTA activities. We got to chatting recently and I mentioned how much our daughter loves to cook and he thought it would be great for her to be on his local cooking show. How cool is that? She is very excited about that prospect! Of course I checked out the show and found a fabulous recipe and asked if I could feature it on my blog and here we are. 🙂

Here is a link to his show A Culinary Journey and the recipe I’m featuring is the salmon dish near the bottom of the screen. Now you’ve probably noticed that I am not making a salmon dish. Try as my husband might he just can’t develop a taste for fish. And he has tried. So I thought this would be perfect with a nice grilled steak. I kept the steak simple with a garlic balsamic marinade. Just the balsamic, chopped garlic, and olive oil. Salt and pepper the steak and add to the marinade about an hour ahead of time.

I had a tough time finding arugula as the season has been weird so I had to get some at the co-op. And the only hazelnuts I could find had the skins on them. I’ve never cooked with hazelnuts but I knew I didn’t want the skins. After a bit of research on the internet I found a few tips pointing to the same technique.

Boil a couple of cups of water. Then add 3 T of baking soda. It will foam up quite a bit. Boil the hazelnuts for about 3 minutes then plunge in cold water.

It’s messy but the skins come off easily.

Next the hazelnuts need to be roasted. Everyone says when roasting nuts to roast until you get a nice nutty smell. I don’t have a sense of smell. So I had to keep a close eye on them because you don’t want to burn them, just get them golden.

While they are roasting, and that doesn’t take too long, prep the rest of the pesto. In a food processor throw in a couple of handfuls of arugula.

Add about 1/2 cup of parmesan, a good pinch of sea salt, and then pulse it to blend. Add the hazelnuts.

Pulse to blend then as you are processing drizzle the olive oil in to bring it all together. Add a bit at a time until you get the right consistency. You don’t want it dry but you don’t want it goopy either.

To add a bit of brightness I added a bit of lemon juice as well.

I grilled up the steak and while it was resting I added a few drops of real balsamic vinegar to give the flavours more depth.

To serve I sliced the steak then grated parmesan over the meat. Then I added the pesto to the steak. I served this with roasted potatoes and corn.

This can be a bit strong for people so be careful how much you put on their dish. I loved the strong flavour but my husband, while he really liked it, wanted a bit less on the steak. Overall we’ll be having it again though. 🙂

Our Growing Paynes

A journey about cooking, traveling, gardening, and crafting.

Tag Archives: grilled steak

Peach and Jalapeño Grilled Steak

Grilled Thai Steak and Ever So Grateful

Arugula Pesto with Balsamic Grilled Steak