Mexican(ish) steak night

I wasn't really sure what to make for dinner one night two weeks ago but I had a batch of "taco shop guac" in the fridge so I figured I would work from that.  To go with the guac, I grabbed some rice, beans, avocado and a piece of skirt steak.  I don't know why, but I was really craving an egg too so I grabbed two of those and set up a poaching pan as well.

As you can see from the picture, this dinner was nothing too fancy ... just some grilled steak topped with a poached egg and guac, served with fresh avocado and rice & beans.  It's the guac that made this dish what it is though.

Taco Shop Guac
~10 medium tomatillos
2 small/medium avocados
4 cloves of garlic (or 6 if you like garlic as much as we do)
1 jalapeno pepper (seeded or not based on your heat preference)
Juice of 1/2 lime
cilantro (to taste, if you like it)
salt & pepper (to taste)

Husk and wash the tomatillos and also wash the pepper and cilantro (if you're using it).  Peel the garlic and avocados.  Cut the tomatillos into quarters and roughly chop up the jalapeno.

I use my vitamix for this next part, but any blender/food processor will likely work.  First in are the tomatillos, followed by the peppers, garlic, avocado (if you're using cilantro add that here as well) & lime juice.  Start on a low setting and use your built in muddler to begin mixing all of the ingredients.  As the tomatillos liquify, add the salt & pepper and gradually turn up the speed until the liquid is completely smooth.  *If you don't have a built in muddler, stop the blades every so often and use a spoon to push the solid pieces downwards. **If you don't have a Vitamix then the mixture may never be perfectly smooth.

This will keep in the fridge for about 5 days, but if you're like me ... you'll never have a container last that long.  Try and enjoy!

Flank Steak with Blistered Tomatillo Salsa

For the longest time I did not think I liked tomatillos, and not because I didn't like the taste.  They're annoying because you have to take the shell off of them, and they're sticky.  Great reasons, right?

Well, luckily, I've been forcing myself to get over this and do some cooking with them recently which has lead to some pretty awesome results.  For this dinner I wanted something with a bit of heat and flavor to go with strip steak so I fired up the oven to make a Blistered Tomatillo Salsa.

Blistered Tomatillo Salsa
10 tomatillos (husks removed)
8 cloves garlic (add less if you don't have a garlic obsession like me, add more if you are afraid of vampires)
1/2 small yellow onion (peeled and halved)
2 serrano peppers
1 lime
1 avocado
Salt and Pepper

Preheat oven to 400F.  Put the tomatillos, garlic, onion and peppers on a tray and into the oven they go.  They will need to roast for about 20 - 30 minutes, but check every five minutes or so (flip after ten) and remove the individual items as they finish roasting (garlic should be golden and soft, everything else should have a bit of a char on it and also be soft).

You'll want to bring the veggies to room temp, and while this is happening you can decide how much heat you want the salsa to have.  Remove the stems from the peppers no matter what, but then choose to remove some or all of the seeds to bring down the heat (this can be easily done by cutting the peppers lengthwise and using a spoon to scrape them out).

Transfer the room temp veggies (plus any liquid that accumulated in your roasting pan) to your vitamix (or blender) and then add the avocado and the juice of the lime.  Add salt and pepper to taste and then blend until smooth.  Serve and enjoy!