Pioneer Woman Cooks - Marinated Steak

I have been wanting to make a Cafe Rio Creamy Tomatillo Dressing for quite a while.  I finally stopped procrastinating when I saw this recipe for Marinated Flank Steak I know it would make a PERFECT salad!

I added the marinade to a Tri-tip instead of Flank Steak only because it was a sale at my grocery store and it was such a good deal that I could not pass it up!  I would love to make this again for some soft tacos I think it would be delish!  This salad was a home-run!  The combination of the spicy dressing with smokey tri-tip was wonderful.  I added some corn tortilla chips that I baked in the oven and Queso Fresco to make a delicious combination.  I got the smallest tri-tip at the store but still had enough left over for both of us to have salads for lunch the next day and I made some nachos for dinner.  Love it!

Steak Marinade Marinade
Recipe from The Pioneer Woman Cooks

Steak, of your choice
1/3 cup olive oil
Juice from 2 limes
1 can chipotle peppers
4 garlic cloves, peeled
1 handful cilantro, chopped

Place all ingredients in food processor, blend until well incorporated.  Place steak of your choice in a ziploc bag, add marinade.  With bag closed massage marinade into steak.  Refrigerate overnight.  Take steak out of the refrigerator about 30 minutes prior to cooking to allow the steak to come to room temperature.  Cook steak, discard marinade.

ENJOY!

Cafe Rio Creamy Tomatillo Dressing

A very good friend of ours is from Salt Lake City, Utah so when a Cafe Rio opened about a mile from our office she almost exploded with excitement!  Cafe Rio is labeled as a Mexican food restaurant - although anyone from California would argue with this, the food is really tasty!  I personally love the Fire Grilled Steak Salad which is a gigantic flour tortilla filled with romaine lettuce, fire grilled steak, cheese, tortilla strips and your choice of dressing.  I always, always get the Creamy Tomatillo Dressing! The dressing has a wonderful spiciness that I love, which pairs wonderfully with the cool lettuce and marinaded steak.

I am obsessed with this dressing!!  I knew that I couldn't go to Cafe Rio every day just for the dressing so I started looking on the internet for a recipe.  I found a couple of copy cat recipes and merged them together with what I had one hand to create a dressing that is almost as good as the original!  It tasted better as it sits in the fridge so I suggest making it the night before you want to use it.   This will be a repeat recipe in our house - I paired it with a marinade trip tip to make my very own version of the salad!

Cafe Rio Creamy Tomatillo Dressing

2 tomatillos, peeled and quartered
1 package dry ranch dressing mix
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup greek yogurt
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 clove garlic
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
juice of one lime
1 small jalapeno, chopped and seeds removed

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Roast tomatillos for 10 minutes.  Cool slightly.

Place all items into blender and process until smooth.  Refrigerate until use.  The flavor gets better over time.  Keeps in the fridge for up to a week.

ENJOY!

Chocolate Chip Roll out Cookies

As I mentioned before one of my new years goals is to practice my royal icing skills and decorating cookies.  I am constantly inspired by a couple of blogs that I follow: Bake at 350; i am baker and The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle just to name a few!  Take a look at their blogs and tell me you are not inspired to pull out your piping tips and give it a try!   

The one problem I always have is with the sugar cookie dough - I find that it is hard to roll out even after refrigerating.  I am also a chocolate girl and while the hubby gobbles up the vanilla based sugar cookies I am always sneaking in the cupboard looking for the lonely piece of chocolate that I must have left back there!  When I saw these chocoalte chip roll out cookies on The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle I knew I had to try them out!!!  Once again Baking GALS gave me the perfect opportunity to try out this new recipe and not have dozen of cookies tempting me.

This dough was really easy to pull together and roll out really well.  No sticking!  I did put the dough back in the fridge when I wasn't using it to keep it cool.  I didn't have any problem with the cookies spreading out while they baked, I am not sure if this is because I kept the dough really cold.  The cookie wasn't too sweet which is good since royal icing is so incredibly sweet, so the combination was perfect.  

I can't recommend these cookies enough!!!  I can't wait to have an excuse to try these out again!

Chocolate Chip Roll out Cookies

Recipe from The Sweet Adventures of SugarBelle

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 large egg yolk

2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups mini chocolate chips

Cream together butter and sugars until light in color and fluffy.  Add in egg yolk and vanilla, beat well.  Slowly incorporate flour and salt mix until incorporated.  Mix in chocolate chips.  Place dough in medium bowl and cover with plastic wrap.  Refrigerate the dough for 1 hour.  

Roll dough out onto parchment paper covered with flour and cut out shapes.  Place cookies on parchment paper lined cookie sheet.  Refrigerate cookies for 15 minutes before baking.  Bake for 10 minutes.   Remove from oven and cool completely.  

Once completely cooled frost with your favorite icing!  

ENJOY!

Shared on Sweet as Sugar Cookies

M&M Cookies

These cookies were another recipe that I decided to make for February's Baking GALS.  I thought that pairing these with Valentine's edition M&Ms would make a fun and festive cookie.  The cookie dough was a had a wonderful vanilla taste and with M&Ms both mixed into the batter and pressed on the top you get an M&M in every bite.  


M&M Cookies
Recipe from Beantown Baker

1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup shortening
2 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups M&M's

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream together sugars and shortening until fluffy.  Add eggs and vanilla and mix thoroughly.  Add dry ingredients and blend well.  Mix in 3/4 cup M&M's.  Chill dough 10 minutes.

Scoop onto parchment sheet covered cookie sheet.  Pat down and embellish with M&M's.  Bake 10 minutes.  Cool on rack.

ENJOY!

Chocolate Scotcheroos

I have had this recipe in a special folder on my computer brilliantly called "Recipes to Try", super creative. :)  It seems like this folder keeps growing and growing so when the Baking GALS teams opened up for February I knew where I needed to look for some recipe inspiration.  

I loved Rice Krispie treats as a kid but now when I have one I am always disappointed.  The flavors are just a little too sweet and surprisingly bland for my tastes.  So when I saw this recipe I knew that I had to try it out.  A mixture of peanut butter, chocolate and butterscotch, what could go wrong!    The process was very easy and the resulting treats were delicious!  

I decided to make these in a jellyroll pan so that they were thinner than the normal Rice Krispie treats, I think it makes me feel better about eating them if they are this size!  Thankfully I mailed these over or I think I would have eaten them all!  These were a wonderful inspiration and I think a Nutella Rice Krispie treat is in my very near future!

Chocolate Scotcheroos
Recipe from Kellogg's

1 cup light corn syrup
1 cup sugar
1 cup creamy peanut butter
6 cups Rice Krispies
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup butterscotch chips

Place corn syrup and sugar in saucepan.  Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently until sugar dissolves and mixture begins to boil.  Remove from heat and stir in peanut butter.  Mix well.  Add Rice Krispies and stir until well coated.  Press mixture into jelly roll pan, covered in foil and greased.

Melt chocolate chips and butterscotch chips in a double boiler.  Spread evenly over cereal mixture and let stand until firm.  Cut into small squares and ENJOY!

Wordless Wednesday - Baking GALS

Chocolate Cream Cheese Bundt Cake with Chocolate Ganache

We had to buy a new TV last week - our TV of only four years died on us....

Both of us were really upset because we didn't want to spend money on a new TV, we would like to spend our money on a trip or maybe new boots.....  But since it would cost just as much to fix the TV with used parts as buy a new one, off to Costco we went.  We ended up with a wonderful new TV that makes me feel like I'm at the Laker's game and couldn't be happier with our purchase.

To celebrate we invited the in-laws over to watch the Laker's game and check out our newest addition to the family.  I made my delicious Middle Eastern chicken, hummus and yogurt sauce to snack on during the game and this unbelievable cake to help ease our pain over the loss.

I had to work during the day and needed something easy to pull together, so I finally tried out the Trader Joe's Chocolate Cake Mix that I had in my pantry.  I added a center of cream cheese mixture and topped with chocolate ganache.  This was an idea that I got from my Aunt in a cupcake form but I decided to make it in a no-fuss, bundt cake.  

The result was a wonderfully moist and rich cake that was impressive enough to serve when company comes over!  In total it took about 10 minutes of prep and 40 minutes of bake time.    This would be a wonderful Valentine's Day dessert - sure to make your love think you slaved away!  

Chocolate Cream Cheese Bundt Cake with Chocolate Ganache

1 prepared recipe of chocolate cake, enough for a 10 cup bundt cake

8 ounces cream cheese, softened

1 egg

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

3/4 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup heavy cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Pour prepared chocolate cake into greased bundt cake pan.  Set aside.

Mix together cream cheese, egg and sugar until creamy.  Mix in mini chocolate chips.  Drop evenly on the top of cake mix in bundt pan.  Bake 40 minutes or until cake is set and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.  Cool for 10 minutes in pan and then turn out of pan.  Cool completely.

Heat cream in small saucepan, add in chocolate chips and stir until smooth.  Pour evenly over cake.

ENJOY!

I shared this post on Sweets for a Saturday.