Hello!! I have been a vegetarian for a very long time and Johnny very much isn’t lol. However, he eats all of the MorningStar and Gardein products and typically orders out if he’s craving a burger. In our almost half a decade long relationship, I think I have cooked bacon five times and steak once. Twice if you count this past Wednesday! I often get asked if it bothers me to cook meat and it honestly doesn’t so much. I just hate to touch it and also the fact that I’m serving a food that I can’t taste for quality control. I am pleased to report that the steaks I made were top notch according to Johnny and our best boy, Cliff, so that’s not bad at all for a second go! Check it out:

Our bestie has been feeling a little low and Johnny asked me if it would be okay if I cooked a homemade dinner to cheer him up. He is so thoughtful and I was more than happy to accommodate. The guys requested my seasoned baked potatoes and steaks and that seemed easy enough! I decided that if I was going to do steaks, I was going to do it right and wanted to find a mesquite marinade recipe to compliment the potatoes. I clicked around online for a bit and ultimately ended up choosing what was the most simple and had the fewest ingredients from The Spruce Eats.

The recipe for the marinade was easy peasy lemon squeezy and used less than ten items – most of which I already had at home. It needed red wine, rice wine vinegar, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, sugar, salt, and pepper. On Tuesday, I mixed the ingredients and let the steaks sit in zip lock bags until it was time to cook them Wednesday evening. To cook the steaks, I fried them in butter with salt, pepper, and a dash of hope that all would go well…

It went… Fine lol. The meat thermometer I was using wasn’t the best and I couldn’t seem to get a clear read on it. The steaks felt like they took forever to cook and by the time I thought to just cut into it to see what was going on, they were already done and should have come off the heat a few minutes prior. Despite that mix up, I was thrilled that both Johnny and Cliff enjoyed them so much and that the marinade was bold, flavorful, and smokey. They both completely cleaned their plates and that was good enough for me!

The next time we have Cliff over for dinner, I’m going to try cooking chicken for the first time ever so we’ll see what happens!

What is something that you have never cooked before? What is a food that you refuse to eat? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah