Hi friends! It’s another Tasty Tuesday and this week we are serving up a steak salad!

We are trying to cut back on the bread and sweets in our house (you may have noticed lots of salads here on the blog lately, hah! That is to help out our own diets!)

But we do get hungry, and having “salad” for dinner in concept is a bit of a let down. Unless… you load it up with something really hearty! So this week we cooked up some steak to put on our salad! All of us in our house enjoy steak (though we don’t have it that often). As luck would have it, they had excellent deals on steak at our Kroger the other day!

This is a super easy recipe, but sometimes we forget about putting steak and salad together as a nice summer option.

Of course, you could substitute chicken or shrimp or anything you like in place of the steak. So without further ado, let’s begin!

Ingredients:

• Steak- (we did 1/person, but could stretch that to 1/2 steak/person, or do a large piece of sirloin)
• Olive oil
• Salt & Pepper

Salad Fixings (all your preference- below is what we used- they had a veggie platter marked way down at the store and I used several veggies from that)

• Arugula – Smaller container- used about 1/2 the container
• Baby Spring Mix – Smaller container – used about half the container
• 1/2 Red onion chopped
• 1 avocado – diced
• 15-20 cherry tomatoes sliced in half
• carrots – sliced
• peppers – diced
• broccoli – chopped
• pea pods 
• cucumber quartered then sliced.

Dressing: You can of course use whatever dressing you like, here is a super easy vinaigrette formula.

• 1 part vinegar (we like balsamic)
• 3 parts oil (we use olive oil)
• salt & pepper

Rub olive oil on front and back of the steaks, and salt and pepper front and back. We cooked them on the grill, though you could also do them in the broiler or in an iron skillet.

My husband cooked the steaks while I worked on the salad. The grill was on high, and was really hot, and it took him about 8-10 minutes. He said he likes to sear them first and then turn the heat down to cook the rest of the way if the steaks are pretty thick (these were really thick). Meanwhile, I was on salad duty. Put your lettuce/greens in a large bowl, and add the ingredients below as you chop them.

We added a cucumber, peeled, quartered and sliced.

And an avocado, slice in half around the pit, pull the pit and peel off the skin.

Slice the avocado and then dice it. Then add to the salad bowl.

1/2 red onion sliced and then chopped. I used the mandolin (such a handy gadget!)

I did chop these into much smaller pieces to sort of spread the love around the salad bowl, hah!

Slice maybe 15 cherry tomatoes in half. Add to your salad bowl.

Continue chopping any remaining veggies you want in your salad- I added broccoli, carrots, pea pods and little red/yellow peppers.

Before serving, I will toss the salad.

Next, we need to slice the steak. You want to let it set about 5 minutes before you slice it. Then slice it in thin strips.

You can add the slices to your salad. You could cut it smaller still. We just added the strips.

Notice I tried to keep the other options on the table somewhat healthy, cantaloupe and watermelon. Bread would be fantastic with this. Troy cooked the steak medium rare which is how we like it, but you can of course make it however you like. I have to say, the arugula adds such a great taste to this!

Truth, I ate about half that portion of meat above, and my husband and son were able to eat it all.

Nothing says “summer” like a fresh salad with delicious greens. And nothing says suppertime like a hearty steak. Put the two together and you are talking a fantastic dinner! And I love to heap that bowl up for my family, and ok… for me too! We had this for dinner last night, and are still enjoying the cantaloupe and watermelon and salad! Jake said it’s some of the best he ever had!

Filling up your plate with delicious foods is a lot like filling up your life with not just “stuff” but the really best life has to offer! Things that delight you and bring you joy! A walk on a cool evening with a friend, or playing your favorite music on the radio as you cruise down the street with all the windows open! Or going out to watch the sunset, or head to the gym or go for a nice bike ride! Whatever it is that makes your day great! We can fill our day with the mundane or we can say, “Today I am going to make this day great! With a capital G!” Goodness, it fires me up to just think about it! What do you say we both commit to making every day like the never ending salad bar of life, and fill it to overflowing with the best of the best! Sounds really good to me! I hope you’ll join me!

Have a fantastic rest of your week!

I’ll be back Friday for another post!

Love Always,

Amy

The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams.   Oprah Winfrey