Okay, so who doesn’t love a delicious meal that not only looks pretty, but also tastes yummy!?

I know I do!

This last week I went on a craving for roasted vegetables. But all I had in my fridge were peppers, and three heads of cauliflower. Like, what do you do with three heads of cauliflower? So I opened the cheese drawer and found goat cheese. Then it all went crazy from there. I like to consider this dish one of those, “everything BUT the kitchen sink” type of meals. AND it turned out fabulous! Sometimes little to no planning of meals results in spontaneous, yummy, simple dinners! So that’s what this is.

Let me introduce to you, the fabulous grilled sirloin steak with crumbled goat cheese, roasted cauliflower, and creamy avocado.

 

Step number one.

Fill up a large pot with hot water and a pinch of salt, then place on a high heat until boiling. Once boiling pour in organic brown rice, cover, lower heat, and cooking for 40-45 minutes. If you start this twenty minutes before the steak, everything will finish at the same time which will be convenient!

Step number two.

While at your local grocery store, ponder on the different cuts of steak and literally get confused by EVERY single cut. Trust me, I assure you, there REALLY is a difference between every, single, different kind of beef. I know for some of us we wish it would be more simple, but sometimes it’s easier if the cuts aren’t named silly things or way too expensive for your budget. So if you’re looking for something that will cook quickly, still be tender and fabulous, and grill easily, sirloin steaks are the way to go. I know they’re not the least expensive cut of meat out there, but a good sirloin steak is unbeatable. Now, for this meal, you could compromise and use a cut like tri-tip or even cook up a roast and slice that on top of the other ingredients. It’s really all up to your liking. :)

As for my recipe, I chose to use sirloin steaks, and I grilled eight steaks that were anywhere from 4-8 oz. This recipe feeds up to six people easily.

Once I got the steak home safely, I placed them on a cutting board and covered in olive oil, freshly ground sea salt and coarse ground black pepper, some fennel seed, minced garlic, crushed coriander, and red pepper flakes. It doesn’t really matter what order you put your seasonings on, but for the best results, I would suggest putting oil first, then following in the order I just listed the ingredients in.

Generally before I begin the process of seasoning my meat, I’ll preheat my grill to high heat just to get the internal heat above 300 degrees. We’ll lower this heat after we put the meat on. Once the grill is preheating, then I’ll move on to season my meat and gather the other ingredients needed.

As for other ingredients, I chose sweet bell peppers, creamy fresh goat cheese, sweet onions, tomatoes, and creamy avocados.

Once my meat was seasoned, I ran back outside to check my grill. Trust me, I’m really not always graceful in the kitchen. I look more like a hockey player than a ballerina when I cook. But that’s ok. I figured you get more accomplished when you’re focused and efficient..right?

I placed my steaks on the grill by putting the thickest cuts near the back where the heat is most prominent, then continued by putting the smallest cuts towards the front. Once on the grill, I turned down the heat to a medium-high for about 2 minutes just to get a nice grill mark on the underside of the meat. Then, this is where the fabulous part comes in. Haven’t you all seen the nifty diamond shaped cross hatch on your steak before? It’s really not that hard, and if you’re leery of it, trust me. It’s super simple. After two minutes, I like to take a steak with tongs, and turn it ninety degrees, but leaving the meat cooking on the same side. This will allow for the grill marks to overlap and create the diamond shape you’re looking for.

After two minutes, I flip my steaks and turn down the heat to a medium-low heat for about 5-6 minutes, which allows me time to rinse my vegetables and get them sliced. I usually start with my cauliflower just because they will take the longest time to cook. While my steaks are cooking slowly on the grill, I’ll take my cauliflower, rinse it, core it, and cut into rustic pieces and lay the pieces out evenly on a cookie sheet. I’ll drizzle them with olive oil, freshly ground salt and pepper, minced garlic, and crushed red pepper. (You’ll notice that I use this routine for seasoning a lot. I’m one who always believes that the simpler the seasonings, the stronger the flavor of the original ingredient) Once seasoned, I’ll put them in the oven at 425 degrees for 10-12 minutes then check on them. I like mine al dente, which in Italian means “to the tooth,” meaning, I like my cauliflower to be soft, but still hold its shape and have a bite to it.

For my bell peppers, I like to cut them in half, cut out the core, then cut each half in half again. Does that make sense?

Instead of writing a novel I really should have taken pictures, but this will have to do for now. Back to the peppers. Once they’re in quarters, I’ll turn the quarters on the bias and slice thinly, to about 1/6-1/4 inch thick pieces. I’ll put those to one side, then finely dice my sweet onions, and put those to the side as well. I’ll then take my avocado and cut around the outside, take out the pit, and cut each half in half again. I’ll then peel the avocado and take each quarter and slice it into about 6-8 slices, depending on the size of the avocado.

As for the other ingredients, I finely diced my tomatoes and crumbled my goat cheese as best as possible (you can’t really crumble goat cheese because it is such a smooth and creamy cheese, so I just pull apart little pieces to put on top of the dish)

After 5-6 minutes, my steaks should be finished, so I’ll take them off the grill. Generally, I like my steaks cooked to medium. The steaks I used for this dish were around  1 1/2-2 inches thick, so they took about 15 minutes total to cook on a low heat.

At this point, my veggies are cut, my cauliflower should be almost done, and my steak is looking as beautiful as can be. Yum.

My brown rice should be just about done, and dinner is pretty much ready, right? :) Talk about an easy, yummy, healthy, and spring-y dinner!

To plate, I put about 2/3 cup of brown rice in the bottom of a bowl, top with cauliflower and the veggies, then place a few thin slices of meat over that as well as avocado.

Pure. Delicious. Easy. Fabulous.

That’s pretty much how I describe this dinner.

And if you think THIS is a fabulous meal, oh my gracious, you just WAIT for next week’s! It’s going to be even better.

And I know it’s pretty much Wednesday by the time you all see this, but hey, I woke up on Memorial Day thinking it was still Sunday. Ha! Oops.

For the recipe, check out the recipe card at the bottom! Happy eating, Emily <3