Steak Salad with Healthy Creamy Vinaigrette Dressing

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Guys, I've been holding out on you.  You'll forgive me when I share this recipe with you, I hope.  A few months ago, I came across a steak salad recipe on my friend Mary's blog.  Normally I make salads with chicken as the protein, but this salad recipe inspired me to venture out a bit. 

For this Salad recipe you will need:

• Romaine Lettuce
• Strawberries
• Blue Cheese
• 1 1/2 pounds sirloin steak
• Olive oil
• Salt
• Pepper

For the dressing you will need:

• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
• 1 1/2 tablesppons Dijon mustard
• 1 1/2 tablespoons honey
• 3 tablespoons nonfat Greek yogurt
• 1/2 tabelspoon extra-virgin olive oil

To prepare the steak, lightly coat with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt and pepper on all sides.  Set the oven to broil.  


My oven has a high and low broil setting, so I usually start it on high.  Put the two oven racks on the bottom racks.  Cover a cookie sheet with tinfoil and place on the bottom rack.  Then, put the steaks directly on the rack above.  



Cook for 4-5 minutes on each side depending on thickness of the meat.  I cook my meat medium rare, so if you prefer it more well done, adjust cooking time accordingly.  After five minutes, flip the steak.  Cook for another 4-5 minutes. 

Move the oven racks to the top two racks, putting the cookie sheet between the two racks.  Change the oven temperature to low broil.  Put the steak directly on the top rack.  Cook for 3-4 minutes.  Turn the steak one more time and cook for a final 3-4 minutes. 

 

When the steak is done, remove from the oven and set on a cutting board to cool for about 15-30 minutes.   



Once the steak has rested, slice it into small pieces.  Try not to be too amazed at how wonderfully it has cooked.


Slice your lettuce and strawberries.  Don't forget to wash them!

Let's move on to the dressing.  It's really easy.  Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl or Tupperware that you will use for storage using a whisk.  Voila!  Simple and healthy.  I haven't used store bought dressing in years!



Lastly, tossed the sliced steak with the lettuce, strawberries and blue cheese.  Add dressing to taste.  I've made this salad probably five or six times since August.  I am in love with it.  It is extremely fresh and satisfying.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

worlDCrave: San Francisco

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In case you missed my live blogging, this holiday season I met my dad in San Francisco for a week of eating and drinking our way through San Francisco. Over the week we explored numerous neighborhoods throughout the city, had amazing and adventurous meals, and even took a day trip out to Napa.  

 

Since most of my trip was based on the recommendations of friends and family, I thought it my civic duty to share my San Francisco recommendations with you!  Since I already wrote the reviews, you can click the links to read more about each restaurant or experience! We mostly avoided the tourist spots, so if this is your first trip to SF, you should probably pair this with a more traditional "to do" list. 

I arrived on Christmas eve a few hours before my Dad and beelined immediately for an amazing cafe for lunch on Maiden Lane, right off Union Square.

Mocca Cafe had tons of fresh salads, pastas, sandwiches, and entrees.  It was the perfect place to relax, enjoy the fresh produce that San Francisco is known for, and kick off my live blogging foodie adventure.

Once my Dad arrived, we wandered around the shopping opportunities offered in and around Union Square.  

At happy hour time, we relied on Yelp to find us a place with delicious cocktails. Those reliable Yelpers led us to The Burritt Room - just a few blocks off Union Square on the second floor of the Mystic Hotel.  We never would have found this place on our own, but the drinks were creative and delicious, the bartenders friendly, and the atmosphere inviting - with live music for Christmas Eve.  

For dinner the first night we had a fancy shmancy Italian meal at Perbacco in the Financial District. 

This was high end dining at its best -- high-quality delicious food without the stuffy atmosphere.  Although we were both a little jet lagged, the food was outstanding.  If you're in SF for work or play, this is a perfect place for a splurge. 

On Christmas Day, we hopped on a bus up to the Haight Ashbury district and walked down hippie-lined Haight Street. Even though the stores were all closed, we definitely got a sense of the neighborhood.  

From Haight Street we walked over to Golden Gate Park where we spent the next few hours exploring the trails, Botanical Gardens and Redwood Forrest. 

Our goal was to make it through the park to the Pacific Ocean, but the park was surprisingly huge!  Turns out that map was really not drawn to scale! 

After hours of wandering in the park, we ended up taking the MUNI out to the beach.  There really is nothing like putting your toes in the sand - especially in December! 

As a side note, the MUNI (municipal bus and rail system) is incredible. For $2 a day, we were able to ride all around town and get anywhere we wanted. 

For dinner on Christmas day, we decided to check out San Francisco's famous Chinatown. Apparently, so did everyone else.  It was insane, but totally worth the crowds and the wait.  E&Y was some of the best Szechuan cuisine I've ever sampled.

  
The next day we spent time wandering around the Mission neighborhood. We loved wandering down Valencia Street and checking out the restaurants, coffee shops, and little boutiques.  We first stopped for a coffee at the packed Four Barrel Coffee.  Even though it was the day after Christmas, the huge crowds made me wonder whether anyone in this town works in an office.  

After a little more window shopping we stopped for a burrito lunch at El Toro Taqueria. 

It was absolutely delicious and pretty inexpensive.  

We then wandered over to Delores Park where we watched (from afar) as a lot of hipsters enjoy their day off with picnics and a lot of MJ. 

After the Mission, we took the MUNI over to a neighborhood called Hayes Valley.  The neighborhood is just one small street of shops, but we had fun wandering and each bought some new shades. 

That night we returned to one of my all time favorite restaurants in the world - Frances. 

I ate at Frances once before, in 2010, and it was just as good as I remembered. It's a tiny little place with minimalist decor, but the food speaks for itself. It's California-style American cuisine with a focus on local organic ingredients.  The food is a little pricey, but the wine is cheap.  They offer a carafe of wine for $1 per ounce.  You pay for what you drink- brilliant concept.  

The next day we took a day trip out to Napa for some wine tasting! Read all about our awesome driver and adventure in the wine country here!      

On our last day in San Francisco, we started off by checking out the farmer's market at the Ferry Building on the wharf. 

To say this market had everything is an understatement.  Stalls ranged from fresh produce and flowers, to prepared dips and cheese, to full on prepared meals.  You could take your food over to a picnic bench or dine inside at some of the nicer restaurants.  

After a lot of wandering and a lot of free samples, I settled on dumplings and shrimp wonton soup from a Chinese stall called Chino!

If you are in SF on a Saturday, you absolutely must check out the farmer's market.  

After the Farmers Market, we left the wharf area and made our way over to the Marina and the Pacific Heights ("Pac Heights") neighborhoods. These were both adorable neighborhood filled with cafes, high end boutiques, restaurants, and vintage shops.  We reached both neighborhoods on the MUNI and had a ton of fun just shopping around.

For our last meal we went to TBD in the SOMA (South of Market) neighborhood.  If nothing else, I can say that this was a unique experience.  

I am a little bummed to admit that our last meal in San Francisco was actually really disappointing, but it's just a testament to how intense and competitive the food scene is in SF.  

TBD aside, this was an amazing week filled with surprisingly warm weather, beautiful vistas, quality time with Pops, and lots and lots of delicious food!

If you're planning a trip out to SF, I seriously hope you check out some of these spots!

San Francisco: TBD

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All week I've raved about the amazing food scene in San Francisco.  In a place where all of the restaurants are exceptional, it's hard to imagine the competition isn't stiff.  Understandably, chefs and restauranteurs seem to be looking for ways to make their food and dining experience stand out. Sometimes this works beautifully, and other times it goes horribly wrong.  Apologies in advance for the bad photography, the lighting and my iphone camera didn't work out that well here!

At the recommendation of a chef we met, we made a last minute reservation at a new restaurant, TBD.  The concept, according to the menu, is food inspired by the "primal" means of cooking over an open fire...   Sure...let's go with it.  

The menu is separated by type of preparation: raw, smoked, grilled, etc.  Since the dishes are meant to be shared, we ordered a couple from the various categories.  Each proved lackluster in its own way. 

The scallops, for example, were categorized under the smoked portion of the menu, but were served completely raw.  The waitress explained it was a cold smoke.  Interesting, but not particularly tasty.  They were topped with a frozen fennel granita that only made the cold scallop colder.  

Another strange and unappealing dish was grilled bread topped with butter and seaweed.  The seaweed seemed unneccessy, but added a little saltiness to an otherwise plain dish.  If seaweed wasn't strange enough, the bread was also topped with little sprigs of gel-like capsules. The waitress explained that the "sea beans" were "just a part of the local seaweed."  I know they are trying to be different, but beans filled with salty seawater served on grilled bread?  Someone really should have considered whether this enhanced the flavor of the dish before adding it. 

One of the dishes we did like was a grilled arepa topped with cheese and chanterelle mushrooms.  This was the simplest of the dishes and truest to the original, which is probably the reason I liked it.

We also ordered glazed carrots served over sprouted lentils that were decent.  Although we received about 5-6 small carrots and about a teaspoon of sauce, they were served in a massive serving bowl and only along one wall of the bowl.  I understand the attempt to change the typical aesthetic, but again this seemed to be a silly effort to be different without any improvement in taste or presentation. 

The last savory dish was a somewhat forgettable grilled gulf shrimp.  Served in the shells and with the heads on, these were a lot of work and not really worth  the effort.

The pinnacle of ridiculousness was dessert.  Longing for some sense of normalcy, we ordered the s'mores.  I assumed they would be deliciously cooked over the open flame.  Silly me.  Once again we lost flavor to an unrewarding effort to be unique.  As I should have expected, the s'mores were "deconstructed" and only vaguely recalled the s'mores of my childhood.  Sometimes this type of riff on the original is great , but here the flavors totally missed the mark.  The chocolate on the bottom of the bowl was gooey like caramel but chalky in flavor.  The marshmallow foam-like substance was weak in flavor, and the graham crackers were mere crumbs scattered on top.  There was nothing decadent or particularly sweet in this dessert. 

Perhaps because she sensed my overall dissatisfaction, the waitress was nice enough to bring out a large scoop of their spiced soft serve ice cream.  Again, the scoop was stuck to the inside of one wall of the bowl. Creative or just trying too hard again?  That said, the flavor was one of the better things we ate.

My takeaway is that there is a reason man has evolved beyond the "primal" means of cooking used here. While I admire and generally encourage creativity in the kitchen, taste should always come first.  TBD seems to have lost sight of that.

All this aside, it's a testament to the San Francisco food scene that chefs are working so hard to stand out and make their mark.  There is really no city in the world that has the same vibe as SF, and it was a pleasure to explore the food and culture from so many different angles all week.

-Liz