Steak Breakfast Toast

I loved reading all your comments yesterday on my Blog Anniversary – so many readers who have stuck with me for years – I love it!  I forgot to mention that I am running my giveaway until I pick a winner on Friday – so good luck!  And, I did find out that my last giveaway recipient in Canada got my BBQ sauce!  It only took about a month for her to get it though!

I also have to give a shout out to my friends Alison and Cameron.  On Saturday after working the farmers market, I drove by their house, unannounced mind you, to see if they had any more tomatoes they wanted me to can.  What I thought would be a 30 minute stop at most (because she will never let me leave without having at least one beer!) turned into an all afternoon and evening stay!  Thank you for your hospitality, dinner, bonfire and most of all seeing that your chicken Gloria is still alive!

An animal (maybe racoon?) got into their chicken coop and killed two of their chickens, and maimed Gloria – that is her good eye because her other eye is gone.  They said it was touch and go for a few weeks, but she’s as healthy as can be.

It was weird staying out on Saturday night.  Mind you, I was home by 10:00 p.m., but I am usually in bed way before that to get up for the farmers market.  Sunday was my first Sunday off all summer.  So I had a lazy morning and had plenty of time to make a nice brunch.  Avocado toast is all the rage.  If you search “breakfast ideas” on Google, Pinterest or even Instagram, you’ll likely get hundreds of hits for avocado toast.  And not that I am at all against that, but I just think steak toast should be the next big breakfast toast idea.

First of all, can we get a hell yeah on how colorful that plate of food is?!  Hannah reorganized all my “food photography” stuff – various bowls, plates, etc., and I’d forgotten I had this one.  I think I got it at Goodwill for .50.  Anywho, steak toast is great for leftover steak or you can make it the same morning, which is what I did when I was getting ice out of the freezer Sunday morning and saw I had a small steak in the corner of the freezer.  Just a quick minute defrost in the microwave, a little salt and pepper and because it was pretty thin, only cooked for 1.5 minutes a side and let rest.  You’ll notice that I like my steak on the rare side! I also had two kinds of leftover salsa from taco takeout earlier in the week – one red and one green – so spicy good!

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I worked at the Lincoln Square location Sunday night to help move inventory because new floors are going in.  I love the fact that it doesn’t matter if you are the GM, head chef, class assistant or dishwasher, everyone is treated as an equal.  No job is beneath anyone and I love the camaraderie so far.  I was driving home when I got this text from Hannah, who had a taste for garlic green beans at 10:30 at night!

I had my grocery list ready to go yesterday morning, and garlic was already at the top of my list.  Whew, crisis averted!

My Mom came over for the afternoon/evening yesterday.   Since I knew it was going to be a bit before I lit up the grill, I made a charcuterie platter.  Seriously, I could have just had this for dinner and been perfectly happy!

When I was at her house a couple weeks ago, she handed me a frozen pork loin.  She bought it at Mariano’s super cheap, but when she was portioning it, her measurement was a bit off, and she froze a 3 pound portion, which is obviously way too much for her to eat, unless she wanted to eat every single meal with pork in it for a week.  I defrosted it in my fridge from Saturday night, then took it out of the fridge two hours before I was grilling it to get it to room temperature.  At that time I put on my best wet rub ever, and grilled it in my kettle Weber grill on indirect heat.  My old meat thermometer broke, so I bought a new digital one.   After it had been grilling for about 45 minutes, I took a look to see where we were on temperature, and was shocked that I was only at 60 degrees.  My fear was that it was still frozen in the middle.  Another 15 minutes and I was only up to 75 – wtf?!   But when I touched the pork it felt like it was done – but I usually take the pork off at 145 degrees before resting.

My Momma came over to the grill and noticed that I had Celsius instead of Fahrenheit and my pork was already up to 160.  Luckily after I rested it, it was still super tender and juicy – whew!

  We had such a nice time hanging out outside. 

My Mom and I went old school and played this board game – in which I misspelled my word, so even though I stumped her, it didn’t count.  When I played this game when I was little Xylophone was always my go to word because no one expects your word to start with an X.  But guess how I spelled it?!!  ZYLAPHONE!  And I am pretty sure that’s exactly how I spelled it when I was nine, which made it so funny!

And Hannah and my Mom trying to take selfies

So this is my first full time week at The Chopping Block!  Most days I don’t work until 3:30 or 4:30 in the afternoon, but Friday I am working from 10:30 – 5:30 which isn’t too bad.  I’ll be able to take the train on that day, which will be nice.  I’ve still gotten my $10 parking with SpotHero – and I loved all your suggestions on finding cheaper parking, but I’ve done the research and that’s the best I can do.  Because of how far I live from Chicago, it’s a $12 round trip to get to Chicago and back, so it’s not too bad.

I slept in a bit today, so didn’t get to my WW meeting.  I finally got new batteries for my scale, and I am done 1/2 a pound from last week.  And yes, getting a pedicure is on my list of things to do this week

And my decorator friend Whitney will love to see the work that Roman’s done on my “ugly” chair.  Pretty much everyone but me thinks it’s ugly.  He ate the ottoman already, so we threw that out.  Now he’s working his way through the arm of the chair.  When I asked him if he did this, this was his look:

That doesn’t look too guilty!   My only saving grace is that he hasn’t touched any of the new furniture (well, now almost a year old!) and if he does go to the bathroom in the house, he goes in the basement, in the same spot, which is easy to clean up.

Alright, time to get my show on the road.  I have to do some laundry, get gas, get my workout in before heading out to work.  So much time for activities!

Hope you had a great long weekend – make it a great day!