Best Beef Marinade. Ever.

Again another weekend comes to a close and I wish I were already retired.  Sadly, I have about 20 years to go!  Oh well, the lottery is up to $190 million this week, maybe I should get some lottery tickets!

Saturday I met up with Hannah, my Mom, Hannah’s boyfriend and his Mom for lunch to celebrate Hannah’s 21st birthday.   She picked Flat Top Grill in Oak Park.  I love that place – so fresh and delicious.  Hannah had her eye on a Mango Margarita.  She was so cute, she had her student idea out (to get the $1 discount!) and her new driver’s license (yes, she already got her “adult” license the day after her birthday!) in hand.

The server took her drink order, simply asked if she wanted sugar or salt on the rim of her drink, and off she went.  She never asked for her i.d.!

The same thing happened to me.  I was living in Virginia.  My cousin was in a band at the time, and while I could get in the bar under 21, you couldn’t actually drink obviously until you were 21.  The weekend after my 21st birthday?  No one ever carded me once!

We walked around Oak Park for a while, went into some shops and then it was time to go our separate ways.  Hannah and I have had a long standing joke of me touching her boobs inappropriately – its perfectly innocent, and it makes us laugh our asses off.  I’ll come up to her and touch her boob and say “that’s such a pretty shirt, what’s this fabric made out of?”  So I give you the “reach for boob” hug picture!

And a normal pic, just so people walking by didn’t think I had completely lost it!

I took a different route home because I needed gas and my Gas Buddy app (totally get that if you don’t already have it – it tells you where the cheapest gas is either where you are using the GPS, or entering your zip code).  As soon as I made a turn down one road, I saw the signs!!!!!!

Whole Foods Now Open!

This one is ginormous – seriously the biggest Whole Foods I’ve ever been to.  They have been talking about it opening for the past couple years.  It’s about a 20 minute drive from my house vs. the 45 minutes it would take one way to get to the other closest one.

Now if I had unlimited income, I could shop here every week.  It is a Foodie’s paradise.  But realistically, the best way to shop here is to go for the sale items on meat and seafood – typically they deeply discount one meat and one seafood a week.  And it’s the best place to buy herbs and seasonings.  You buy just pennies of what you need, nothing goes bad, and if you try a new herb like tumeric and decide you don’t like it, you aren’t going to have to hang onto a $7 dollar bottle of it.

I of course couldn’t pass up a visit to the cheese market section.  Holy moly!  I could just set up a cot next to it and wake up to cheese every day.

I tasted and bought a small piece of goat cheese gouda.  OMG.  I cannot wait to try this one on a panini!

I ended up buying a chuck roast steak – on sale for $3.99 a pound.  This was actually one giant steak, but I had them cut it in half length wise.  I cooked the first steak for dinner Saturday night – used the leftovers for one of my SIL’s dishes this week, and I froze the other steak for a later time – so about $2.50 per serving – not bad!

I found a recipe for a steak marinade.  Unfortunately, I cut and pasted the recipe onto a Word document and printed it out, and for the life of me I can’t figure out where I got it from!  Hopefully I’ll find it so I can give credit where credit is due – but this was amazeballs.  I only marinated it for one hour, I think longer would be even better.

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Not bad grilling considering I was cooking in the dark!  I ended up making $40 dollars on my Souper Friday lunch, so I splurged and used some of that money on Boddington’s Beer.  Hands down one of my favorite beers (if you can find it on tap – get it!) and a craft beer that Tony will actually drink!

The beef was delicious.  Super tender, nice flavor – cannot wait to try this one again!

Since I baked some extra potatoes from our steak night dinner, Tony made me an amazeballs breakfast.  Because of the time change, and when I got up (9:30, er 10:30!) it was nearly noon by the time I ate breakfast.  Note that Tony cuts and fans the strawberries!  Thanks Tony, it was delicious!

I caught up on my THREE American Idol shows I DVR’d.  I have to say I am really happy with the Top 10!  And I don’t care if Tony tells me the ratings suck, I still love the show.

It was rainy, dreary, foggy all day yesterday.  Tony and I went to the store – great shop, only spent $69!   Tony would like to show you something though.

He’s modest, so he only showed you half!  Ha, I wonder what the people in the store thought of us!  Well, we aren’t the type of people to care, so no worries!  (but I apologize to my Mom and his parents for our behavior in advance!)

Tis the season for Reuben’s, and especially this time of year, if it’s on a menu, I am going to order it.  Even though we were at the Texan, home of the smoked sausage and pulled pork, I got a Reuben.  Perfection.  Super tender and flavorful corned beef, grilled.  Tony and I split the sides.

So it can come as no surprise that I bought a corned beef brisket!  This is the simplest way I know how to cook corned beef.  First, try to buy one in a brine with the seasoning packet.  Put the corned beef, brine and seasoning packet in a Dutch oven.  Cover with enough water so it’s 2 inches above the corned beef.  Bake at 325 with a tight fitting lid (I put foil between the pot and lid) and cook for 2 hours and 15 minutes.  Peel and dice potatoes and carrots, add the veggies to the pot, and cook for 45 more minutes.

The “dip” is 1 tablespoon thousand island dressing mixed with 1 tablespoon yellow mustard.  This was delicious!

Question of the Day:  Corned beef fan or not?  My Mom definitely is not, but every year would make it around St. Patrick’s day for my Dad who loved it.

Alright, off to get my shizz together for the day – make it a great day!