Tonight we wanted to try out some recipes from a great cook book called United Tastes of Texas by Jessica Dupuy.  (Our good friends Jay and Jean Hendrix (Texans, of course) gave this book to us last week.)  There are so many great recipes that it was hard to choose but we settled on Texas Strip Steaks (with a special Texas Meat Rub); Tomato, Avocado and Cotija Salad; Tomatillo Salsa and good ol’ mashed potatoes.  Because Alex had a late soccer practice, Mom helped me out (she’s a pretty good sous chef…almost as good as Alex;).  Everything was delicious.  Thanks Jay and Jean!

The full dinner

The ingredients

To make this dinner I (Max) started by making the dry Texas Meat Rub.  I combined garlic powder, onion powder, ancho chili powder, paprika, salt and pepper.  Then I rubbed it into the steaks, washed my hands, and let the steak rest at room temperature for 1 hour.

Making the spice rub

The Spice Rub

Spice-rubbed steaks

Meanwhile I started on the tomatillo salsa.  I peeled the tomatillos and then simmered them with 1 jalapeno pepper until they were tender. I let that cool and then blended it with garlic, lime juice and spinach (the recipe calls for cilantro but mom couldn’t find it in the grocery store).   Then I added the blended mix back to the saucepan and simmered until it thickened up…finally a little bit of salt and then plated it.

Peeling the tomatillos

Blending tomatillo salsa ingredients

Tomatillo Salsa!

Once the salsa was done, I prepped my salad ingredients and cooked my potatoes for mashed potatoes. Then it was time to grill the steaks.  I grilled them on top of the stove on my grill pan to get some good grill marks and then I finished them in the oven.  While the steaks were finishing, I put together the salad. I combined quartered plum tomatoes and cubed avocado with garlic, lime juice and olive oil.  I let that sit and then put it on a bed of spinach and crumbled Cotija cheese (sort of like a mild feta) on top.  The recipe didn’t call for it but I added roasted papita seeds to add crunch.  It was delicious.

Finally the steaks were ready to serve! And it was time to eat.  Thanks again, Jay and Jean.