Insanely Delicious Steak Marinade

I searched allrecipes.com for a good marinade recipe that used ingredients I already had in my kitchen. I didn't find one specific recipe that I liked, so I took some tips from a bunch of them, and added the following to my blender:

1/3 cup olive oil

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup Worcestershire Sauce (I just discovered that it contains HFCS. I am not pleased. I will look for a replacement sauce to use once we have used up our bottle).

Juice of one large lemon

3 T Herbs de Provence

1 t white pepper

1 T garlic powder

1 T Tabasco Sauce

It literally took me about three minutes to pull all of the ingredients and blend them up. (Tip--before squeezing the juice out of the lemon, roll it on the counter to loosen up the juices). I poured the marinade over two porterhouse steaks,
covered the dish in plastic wrap, and let it marinate for a few hours before broiling them. (We would have used the grill, but it is currently buried in almost two feet of snow). :-)

I served the steak with baked potatoes and a simple salad (I always keep cucumbers, red peppers, and mixed greens on hand to throw together a salad). It was quick, easy, and pretty healthy.

Spinach Loaded Lasagna

I decided to make a lasagna last night, but wanted to make it as healthy as possible. My family really enjoyed it. Dan said it had a little too much spinach in it, so next time I might cut out about 1/3 of it. However, my 10 month old, Audrey, wolfed it down, and I knew she was getting her veggies, so that made me feel good. Hopefully she'll continue to enjoy her spinach as she gets older and learns to talk back. :)

Ingredients:

9 whole wheat lasagna noodles, cooked according to package directions
1 lb ground turkey or lean ground beef (I used beef, which is a rare occurence for us)
1 16 oz container part skim ricotta cheese
1 egg
1 16 oz bag frozen spinach
1 and a half jars of marinara sauce
1 T olive oil
1 1/2 head of garlic, chopped (I chopped it up in a mini food processor)
2/3 of a small yellow onion
2 cups shredded mozzarella

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Brown the ground beef, drain the grease, and set the beef aside in a bowl. Using the same skillet (just to make less mess), saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil on medium heat. Add the ground beef back in with the onion and garlic, and pour one jar of marinara sauce in with it. Simmer on low while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

In a medium bowl, combine the ricotta, egg, and spinach. Mix until well blended. Set aside.

Grease a 9x13 inch glass dish (I use spray canola oil). Pour about 1/3 of the marinara/ground beef mixture on the bottom of the glass dish, and spread it out in a thin layer.

Place three lasagna noodles on top of the marinara mixture (not overlapping). Scoop 1/2 of the ricotta mixture on top of the noodles, and spread it into a thin layer. Top with 1/3 of the ground beef mixture, and spread thin. Top with three more noodles, the rest of the ricotta, and another layer of marinara/beef.

Add the three final noodles on top, pour the 1/2 jar of marinara sauce over the noodles and spread it to completely cover the dish, and sprinkle the mozzarella on top.

Loosely cover the dish with foil (don't set it too close to the cheese or it will stick).

Bake for 40 minutes. Remove the foil, and bake for another 10 minutes. When you pull it out of the oven at the end of 50 minutes, let it sit and cool for about 15 minutes.


Enjoy with a salad and some garlic bread. :)

Whole Wheat Lemon Blueberry Muffins

I found the following recipe for blueberry muffins on http://www.allrecipes.com/:

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon lemon zest
1/2 cup milk
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
5 tablespoons white sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons butter, diced
Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease 12 muffin cups or line with paper muffin liners.
Combine 2 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in medium bowl. In a small bowl, sprinkle 1 to 2 tablespoons flour over blueberries, and set aside. (This simple trick will keep you from having "purple" batter)
In a large bowl, beat 1/2 cup butter with 3/4 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, and stir in vanilla and lemon zest. Fold in dry ingredients alternately with milk. Fold in blueberries. Remember, fold gently, don't stir. Spoon batter into prepared cups.
Combine 2 tablespoons flour, 5 tablespoons sugar ,and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon in a small bowl. Cut in 2 tablespoons butter with fork or pastry blender until mixture resembles course crumbs. Sprinkle over batter in muffin cups.
Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire rack. These muffins freeze really well, and re-heat in the microwave successfully.


I made the following changes to the ingredients:

whole wheat flour instead of white
2 cups frozen blueberries (I still did the flour trick to keep them from turning the batter blue)
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter (1/2 stick)
1/2 t lemon zest
a squirt of fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1/4 cup applesauce

All other ingredients were kept the same. I did use skim milk. Although the recipe doesn't specify what kind of milk to use, baking recipes usually call for whole milk.

The muffins turned out great and everyone at our Wednesday baby playgroup gave them a thumbs up! :)