Back when I was working outside the home, and a single parent, I was desperately searching for ways to get dinner on the table that didn’t involve spending a ton of money on food delivery. Granted, I am lucky enough to live in NYC, so our food delivery options are legion. And tempting.
Molly Gilbert’s book, Sheet Pan Suppers definitely appealed, as it definitely simplified cleanup, and the idea of putting everything for a meal on a sheet pan sounded easy. I’d heard of “dump dinners” and honestly the term just grossed me out so much that I’d never explored the concept any further.
When I saw the book on a Kindle sale, I picked it up, probably for a buck or two, and because of the simplicity of the concept, immediately cooked a few things out of it, which were very popular with my daughter and my boyfriend at the time.
I’m not entirely sure what brought this book to mind recently, but I dug it up on my iPad, and swiped through the recipes until I landed on the Fajita Flank Steak with Peppers & Onion, which I knew would be popular with all the kiddos.
I picked up all the ingredients at Trader Joe’s (I love that store, probably to an unreasonable amount) for about $25 total (that’s why I love it), and immediately set to making the marinade for the meat.
I misread the recipe, and inadvertently told Georgia, who was helping me prep, to add about four times as much crushed red pepper as the marinade called for, so it was pretty spicy. Which was not a problem for anyone, as despite the varying levels of pickiness in the household, we all like spicy.
Next up, we prepped the peppers and onions, thin slicing them, and then spreading them onto the sheet pan.
We roasted them for a bit with some of the marinade that was set aside, and then added the flank steak.
Lastly, I went to cut up the avocados for a topping, but they were very hard, so after a quick google search, I discovered that you can roast them. I sliced them, drizzled on some olive oil, seasoned them with salt, pepper and some of Penzey’s Southwest Seasoning and roasted them on the rack under the peppers and steak.
The steak took a lot longer than I expected under the broiler, (and I like my meat REALLY rare), and the peppers were starting to singe, so I turned off the broiler and let them roast at a lower temperature for a bit longer.
And here’s the final product:
All in all, thumbs up from everyone. There were no leftovers. I was kinda sad about that the next day.
Next up, Chris’s pick.
Cooking the Books 