Balsamic & Rosemary Marinated Steak with Gorgonzola & Arugula

I found a similar recipe to this in Clean Eating Magazine, cut out how to make the marinade and accidentally threw away the recipe....oops, so this was my rendition - turned out pretty well. The original recipe called for bleu cheese crumbles (bleh) so I chose to use Gorgonzola instead!

Ingredients:

• 1 lb top sirloin- trim fat
• 1 cup balsamic rosemary marinade (below)
• 2 tbsp peanut oil
• arugula
• crumbled gorgonzola cheese
• sliced cherry tomato
• olive oil & vinegar dressing

Balsamic Rosemary Marinade

• 1 cup balsamic vinegar
• 3/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 tbsp chopped rosemary
• 1 tbsp garlic powder
• 2 tsp fine sea salt
• 1 tsp ground black pepper

whisk all the ingredients together - refrigerate  (it will make more than 1 cup - so you can save some if you want to use it another time)

Steps:

• Marinate steak in 1 cup balsamic rosemary marinade for atleast 1 hour (I marinated mine for about 2)

• Heat skillet on medium high heat with 1-2 tbsp peanut oil
• Remove steak from marinade, discard, and place steak into skillet

• Heat steak 5-6 minutes on each side
• Remove from skillet, to cutting board, slice steak in thin slices, against the grain.

• Place arugula and tomatoes on plate, top with sliced steak, and top with gorgonzola cheese

• We used the salad dressing on the side as to not over do it.
• It was DELICIOUS- Jeremy loved it - that's always a good sign!
• Enjoy!

I know it's easy to keep all my recipes online - but I have several recipes I have gotten from other places or from my mom and it's nice to have somewhere to keep them - my dad has started a business called "Bearly Memories" in which he sells memories boxes for anything you could think of, and he gave me a recipe box a few months ago. I have started transferring all my recipes over to the cards and taking pictures of the finished products to place in the box - I love it! So if you think about it - check out his website Bearly Memories or find his Facebook page Bearly Memories Facebook page and LIKE it.

Here are some pictures of my recipe box:

Easy Dinner: Chicken Sausage with Tomato, basil and mozzarella ravioli

I didn't really put much thought into this, everything was pre-packaged, but sometimes that's easier! Jeremy loves sausage, and I am not really a huge fan, but when I saw Chicken Sausage, I figured I'd give it a try.

Ingredients:

• 1 package of Al Fresco Chicken Sausage
• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 package Monterrey Ravioli (Tomato, Basil, Mozarella)
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 Jar Tomato Sauce
• Caesar Salad
• Garlic bread

Steps:

• Follow the directions on the packages!
• I put the sausage on a skillet, medium heat, with a tbsp olive oil for about 8-10 minutes until the sides were golden brown

• For the ravioli, I boiled water in a large pot, but barely boiling the water, I added in the ravioli for 5 minutes, drained, and topped with tomato sauce.

The food was delicious, I definitely recommend trying the chicken sausage. And dinner took me about 15 minutes to prepare and cook.

Buffalo Chicken Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

I found this recipe on "Natalies Killer Cuisine," it was an instant favorite for Jeremy (he has even made it for me in the past!!) I have changed a thing here or there, but I have to give credit where it's due!!

Ingredients:
1 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breast
About 1/2 a box of chicken broth (or as much as you need)
1 medium onion - diced
1 bottle of hot sauce (or BBQ sauce, use whatever you prefer)
2 large sweet potatoes
1/2 tsp nutmeg (per potato)
1/2 tbsp butter (per potato)
Cheese to top the potato (optional)

I started off this morning putting 1 lb of boneless skinless chicken breast in the crock pot, with enough chicken broth (reduced sodium of course) to cover just the top of the chicken. I put the crock pot on low (8 hours)

About 2-3 hours later, I checked the chicken, just stabbed it with a fork and it started to shred apart, so I knew it was done. I pulled the chicken out of the crock pot, poured out the broth. Shredded the chicken on my cutting board, returned it to the crock pot and poured a whole bottle of Frank's hot sauce on the chicken (just enough to cover the chicken so it doesn't get dried out....you can of course put as much as you prefer or even use BBQ sauce instead of hot sauce.) I kept the crock pot on low (8 hours) and checked it occasionally to make sure it wasn't drying up...but it certainly wasn't!

About 1 hour before dinner, I cleaned and dried 2 large sweet potatoes, poked a few wholes in them with a fork, pre-heated my oven to 400, put the potatoes on a cookie sheet and put them in the oven for 1 hour.

Right after putting the potatoes in the oven, I diced up a small onion and stirred it in to the chicken ( we like our onions a little crispy, so thats why I put them in so late...but you could put them in whenever, depending on your taste!)

When the potatoes were done (you will know, they need to be soft), I split a small cut down the center, and removed a small square of the skin. I added about 1/2 tbsp. butter and mashed the potato down w/o breaking the skin (it is a BAKED potato after all, not mashed potatoes!) after mashing it up, i added about 1/2 tsp nutmeg for taste (Jeremy doesn't put butter or nutmeg in his potato and says it tastes just as good....just doesn't want the added calories!)

After mashing up the potato, place a heap of the chicken mixture into the potato, top with cheese, and put back under the broiler for 1 minute....(Again, Jeremy doesn't put cheese on his potato, but I still threw his back under the broiler just for a little crisp)

We love this meal and it is now a staple for us!

As a side, I just made a little spinach salad with carrots and tomatoes and vidalia onion dressing. I also broke up some of the dried bread from the bruschetta, into small pieces for croutons. It was delicious!

Appetizer:
Caprese Salad

• Fresh mozzarella sliced up into rounds
• tomato sliced
• a little extra virgin olive olive
• a dash of basil (i used dry basil, tasted just as good as fresh to me)

Bruschetta

Rolled up prosciutto (from fresh market....yum)

Enjoy!