I just want to give you an idea for dinner this weekend…

One of the best traits my husband has is that he likes food. Well, and I like food. We were made for each other! 🙂

When we were first married Paul was ok on the grill. He tried, and it was edible, good even, but I had better. Then I had a few babies and we started watching the Food Network at all hours of the night with newborns. At some point Bobby Flay and Alton Brown became our best friends!

We started eating things like brie, mushrooms and pesto and liking it! Paul started getting all famous for his fancy grilled cheese and grilling skills.

Thankfully, my kids love pesto, because Paul and I love it. As a kid I probably would not have liked it. This is what we are using for the flavor in this marinade and on the steak.

For the steak, I am using flank steak…

The flank steak is a beef steak cut from the abdominal muscles of the cow. A relatively long and flat cut, flank steak is used in a variety of dishes including London broil and as an alternative to the traditional skirt steak in fajitas. It can be grilled, pan-fried, broiled, or braised for increased tenderness. (Source)

In a ziploc I added some pesto (1/2 cup) , white vinegar (2 T ) and oil (1/2 cup). Toss in the steak and stick in the fridge for a few hours. I pull mine out about 30 minutes before grilling.

Cover with some seasoning salt like Lawry’s and coat with more pesto.

Now, we would have normally grilled this, but 2 weeks ago my husband caught our grill on fire and it has not been the same since 🙁 So we opted to broil these bad boys.

When you broil steaks, you will broil about 4-7 minutes on each side depending on the thickness. These were about 1/2 thick and so they cooked quickly.

Move the rack up pretty close to the broiler and prop the door open to the oven like Paul did with my oven mit. This will keep the broiler going since it will have a little draft and not cut off.

Then after you have flipped them and they are just about done, pull them out and quickly wrap them up in some foil. They will continue to cook and the meat will “rest.”

* you MUST do this to have an AWESOME steak!

When you go to slice your steak, make sure that you are cutting it on an angle with a sharp knife against the grain. This will make your steak cuttable ( is that a word?) with a fork! It will MELT in your mouth!

Here let me give you another look….

We covered it in some more pesto, had some salad and some garlic knots. I made sure to smuggle some in the fridge to have cold on my salad for lunch!

Give this a try, you will not be sorry!

Tools I use: 

Awesome Chef Knife J.A.Forged 8-Inch $34.95 (was $59)

Core Bamboo Cutting boards 3-Piece set $13.96 (was $39)

One of the easiest ways to save money and make a quick meal at home is to have a handful of recipes called Fast Five Meals! The reason they are called Fast Five Meals is that you can have 5 or so recipes that you always have the ingredients for and can make on the fly!

I teach menu planning classes through Savings.com that help teach you some of these tricks!

Some of the  Savings.com DealPros swapped recipes, to try each others Fast Five Recipes. I got a fun box in the mail the other day with a recipe from Maria at A Savings Wow to make a Torta recipe that is in her Fast Five Meals.

In the box was a recipe, a few goodies, and a $20.00 gift card to purchase the ingredients to make the recipe. One MyLitter reader will have an opportunity to win A Fast Five Meal Recipe Box from Savings.com; the details are at the bottom of this post.

I have never made a Torta before, and I might have done it all wrong, but whatever I made was AWESOME and I had it the next day as well!

Along with my Torta I also made some brown rice and corn on the cob to go with it. I chopped up some onions and browned it with some ground beef.

When the ground beef was done, I chopped up some tomatoes and mixed up some eggs, adding it all together.

Then taking my Kohl’s griddle, I was able to cook them all up in about 7 minutes!

I didn’t really know they should look like, and Maria mentioned making them like omelets so I did. I added a little cheese on top, and plated them for the kids.

They were a HIT! They were SOOOOOO good and SIMPLE and CHEAP to make. PLUS, I probably have all the ingredients about 95% of the time. I can also add really anything that I want. It was super easy and filling.

AND, I made a few extra and had them for lunch the next day with a couple of my kids. These would be great for lunch to take to work.

This is a very easy and cheap chicken dish you can make any night of the week. You can also serve just about ANY sides you can dream up, tonight we had green beans. EASY.

This is what to do: 

• Buy some chicken, any pieces will do. I used drumsticks and bone in breasts. *I made extra for dinner tomorrow night.
• Mix all ingredients together. The paprika makes it look fun!
• Add chicken to a Ziploc bag, pour liquid in bag and put in fridge for 2 – 24 hours
• Bake – Place chicken you didn’t eat in a new Ziploc for tomorrow!

With the left over chicken we will have Chicken Tortilla soup the next night. You can make almost anything you want with it…