Steak, Potatoes and a Green Salad - the Saturday Night Special...

     I have not been on my kale kick for very long and a kale salad was my very first post.  I was so excited about finding a new-to-me vegetable, one I could see just by looking at it's beautiful dark green leaves that it was going to be good for me (AKA a "healthy" choice).  That excitement and the desire to share my "discovery" with other Weight Watchers is what started my little blog.  When I eat a kale salad I feel a sense of well-being (no kidding!) and I picture little green Pac Man nutrients racing through my body - crazy, I know!  And since I have to work at chewing a kale salad that makes me feel that I am eating a real vegetable, not just "salad."

     This time around I wanted to use vegetables in the kale salad and no fruit, something that was hearty and substantial with the sirloin I was going to grill.  I choose red peppers (bought that bag of 6 at Costco!), carrot, cucumber and onion, things I would typically use in a "regular" green salad.  Steak (a lean, marinated piece of sirloin), salad (hearty kale and veggies in a no-oil dressing), and potatoes (skin-on oven fries) - a classic combination for a Saturday summer night's dinner!      

The Saturday Night Special: steak, potatoes and a green salad.

Kale-Veggie Salad

Ingredients:  

• Bunch of kale (Lacinato or curly), rinsed with ribs removed
• A carrot
• A cucumber
• A red sweet pepper
• Half a small sweet onion
• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1-1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/4-1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon sugar

Putting It Together:

     In a small bowl, stir together red wine vinegar, 1 tablespoon sugar, 2 tablespoons water and 1 teaspoon salt until sugar/salt dissolve.  Cut onion half into large 1/2-1inch sized pieces and add to vinegar mixture; set aside.   

Onion pieces are mellowing in the vinegar/dressing mixture.

    While the onions mellow out, prepare the rest of the vegetables.  Rinse the kale leaves and pull out the ribs.  Stack up the leaves and cut into thins strips; place in a large serving bowl.  

Those ribs are tough and woody and I can't imagine even eating them cooked!

     Pour the vinegar mixture over the cut kale, holding back the onion pieces; toss the cut kale, sprinkle over a teaspoon of sugar and 1/2 teaspoon salt; set aside.  Cut the carrot, cucumber and pepper and add to the reserved onion pieces.  Sprinkle with freshly ground black pepper and a pinch of salt, toss together vegetables.

A rainbow such as this just has to be good for you!

     Add the vegetables to the kale-vinegar mixture and toss well to combine.  Cover and refrigerate several hours before serving; this resting time is necessary to soften the kale and remove some of its bitterness.  Pull out the salad once or twice to toss and redistribute the dressing.   

A hearty salad with a tangy vinegar sweet-sour bite.

     Weight Watcher's Recipe Builder came up with a total of 9 Points Plus for this kale salad recipe.  All the salad ingredients are "free" so why the Points?  Think serving size - a Weight Watcher vegetable serving is one half cup and "free" foods are to be eaten in moderation.  The volume of the kale does deflate as it marinates but I would estimate the recipe easily makes 9-1/2 cup servings and that gives each serving a value of 1 Point Plus.  I choose to count my serving(s) as "free" and you, dear eater, may chose for yourself.
     I usually give myself a noon deadline on preparing this salad so I know it has several hours to mellow before dinner.  The steak prep is dependent upon the cut of steak I am using.  I prefer to give a flank steak or London broil the whole afternoon (or morning and afternoon) but the boneless top sirloin I used in this post was not a tough cut of meat in comparison, so I was shooting for 4-5 hours of marination time.      
     The flavor of this simple marinade is all-American beef-on-the-grill yummy.  It's common pantry-frig ingredients just bring out the best in beef flavor and is a snap to put together.  Before I was "gifted" with a Cuisinart, I just chopped and mixed by hand so don't let the lack of a food processor stop you - it just makes prep faster.

Simply Steak Marinade

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup vinegar (red wine or apple cider are my favorites)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon crushed dried oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 2 teaspoons brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 medium sweet onion, rough chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, smashed
• 1/4 cup ketchup
• Small handful of flat leaf parsley leaves

Putting It Together:

     Into the bowl of a food processor, add first 8 ingredients and pulse until blended but left with some texture.  If preparing by hand, finely chop onion and garlic, roughly chop parley and combine with the remaining ingredients in marinating container.

Marinades enhance the flavor of and tenderize leaner cuts of beef, a win-win for WWs!

     After pulsing to combine, add the ketchup and flat leaf (Italian) parsley.  Pulse a few times to combine.  I've found the onion and garlic chop better without the thick ketchup in the first go-around but you may not have that issue.  The parley is added last so that it isn't obliterated.

Just a couple of pulses and it's ready to fulfill it's flavor destiny!

     Trim your steak of fat and any "silver skin".  I find it so much easier to see and remove the extraneous fat before the meat is cooked and I appreciate knocking off a Point or two on my serving(s) by trimming.  If you are not concerned about fat, well, you're a fortunate so-and-so!  Pour the marinade over the steak in a non-reactive container, turn over, making certain to surround the meat.  Cover and refrigerate for 4 or more hours, depending on the cut of the meat.  

Turn the meat over and dunk it around to cover it completely with the marinade.

     Remove the meat from the marinade 20-30 minutes before putting it on the grill.  The meat will warm up a bit before it hits the smokin' hot grill (less stickage) and have a chance to dry off a bit (also helps with browning and stickage).  I like to put meat to be grilled on a wire rack and scrape off the marinade - you can also pat it with a paper towel.

I trimmed off slabs of fat and ended up with 2 pieces...but also less Points.

     Before grilling, spray both sides with cooking spray and add a sprinkle of salt to each side.  Always oil your grill grates, too.  Cooking time depends on the size of the steak and the rareness preference.  But always let your meat rest before slicing or eating (whatever type, from burgers to chicken) or you'll see the juices on your plate and not in your food and you'll be left eating a dry piece of steak, chicken, pork or burger, wondering what you did wrong.  This is a lesson that has made me a much better griller.

Beef!  It's what's for dinner.

     The last component of the Saturday Night Special are the potatoes, oven fries in this case.  The earlier prepping of the salad and steak make the prep time for the fries seem like, well, small potatoes.  I usually start the potatoes when I take the marinated steak out of the frig.  While it's coming to room temp there's time to prep the fries, the grill, etc.
The recipe's technique is from Middle-Eastern Style Potatoes (in an earlier post), just with bigger potatoes!  In the past, whenever I made oven fries they would either be soft but not have much color, so I'd leave them in longer or use a hotter oven, and then they would brown but be dry inside.  So if the brown-steam-oven technique works for cubed I was hoping it would work for fries - and it did, beautifully.

Oven Fries

Ingredients:

• Scrubbed potatoes (my 2 russets equaled 20 ounces raw)
• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• Seasoning mix: 1/4 teaspoon each onion and garlic powder, paprika, salt and pepper plus a dash of cayenne
• Olive oil cooking spray

Putting It Together:  

     Scrub and cut potatoes into fries (too thin and they'll be too fragile to manipulate without breaking); pat dry.  Heat oil in a non-stick skillet that has a tightly fitting lid.  Add potatoes, sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon salt and let brown over medium-high heat for 4-5 minutes.  Turn over fries and let them brown on other sides for 4-5 more minutes.

I found some beautiful new bakers with thin, flaky skins - so delicious!

     Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Spray a heavy baking sheet with cooking spray and set aside.  After the potatoes have browned for the total 8-10 minutes, add a couple tablespoons of water to the pan and quickly cover.  Turn the heat down to low and let the fries steam for about 4-5 minutes.  Remove lid, let any remaining water evaporate, season with salt and pepper or a mix of seasoning for more zip.  Turn fries gently to coat and carefully pour onto prepared baking sheet.  
     If you need more time to pull your meal together, bake the potatoes at 375 for 20 or more minutes, checking on them to make certain they don't over-brown or dry out.  If you need less time, opt for 400 degrees for 10-15 minutes.  Just don't forget to monitor their progress.  I often start out at 400 and turn the oven down when I put them in.  My convection does a great job but does cook faster.  I don't turn the fries - I'd rather not risk breaking them!   

Just a few more minutes to perfection!

     As a diner and Weight Watcher I love this recipe for it's flavor and low Points Plus value. As a cook I love this recipe for it's ease of preparation and it's downtime that allows me time out at the grill - what a winning combination.  Weight Watchers Recipe Builder's total came out as 13 points Plus (using 20 ounces of raw potato).  This came out to be five servings of approximately 3 ounces each, 3 Plus Points per serving. 

The Saturday - or any day - Night Special!

     This hearty meal was very satisfying and not a Points budget buster.  Three ounces of trimmed, cooked sirloin weighs in at 3 Points (untrimmed would have been 5 Points Plus!) and I'm not spending any Points for the marinade (see my Chipotle Pork Post!).  The salad is a Point per serving (for some of us) and the oven fries are 3 Plus Points per serving.  I had 5 ounces of steak (5 PP), a cup of salad (2 PP - really?), and 6 ounces of fries (6 PP) for a total of 13 Plus Points (or 11 PP without counting the salad).  A less ravenous person eating a single serving of each would have used only 7 Plus Points.  Regardless of Point values, this is a dinner full of flavor that anyone would enjoy, any day of the week!