This week we tried the last two dinners from our stash. Schlepping kids to and from soccer practice and football practice makes it hard to fix dinner and eat together but we used the dream dinners this week to divide and conquer.
Act 5 – Aztec Steaks with Black Bean Rice
The steaks get rubbed with the Aztec sauce and it rests for 20-30 minutes before cooking it. The black bean rice cooks for 20-25 minutes so you can start this after the meat is marinating. I found that the instructions for the rice, while fine in theory, didn’t work out in practice. The instructions said to bring the rice and beans to a boil and then cover and cook on low for 20-25 minutes. This just resulted in very dry rice that was going to be burned to the bottom of the pan. I added a bit more water, twice and stirred to keep it from sticking (to the non-stick pan). I broiled the beef (again, I added a few more pieces to our three serving batch) and that only took 7-8 minutes. I added corn to this meal and not all of it fit in the bowl I used so I added a tiny bit to the rice and beans mixture, which is why the pictures show corn in the black bean rice. The pictures don’t make the beef look too appetizing because when I turned the meat over to cook, the sauce ended up underneath, but it was fantastic. In fact, all of the beef and fish meals that we tried were great.
Act 6, the Final Act – Chicken Mirabella
If we had to pick a favorite – it is a toss up between the Chicken Mirabella and the Aztec Steak. After he took his first bite, Jasper blurted out – “This sauce is awesome.” The Chicken Mirabella sauce has garlic, olive oil, prunes, capers, sliced green olives, bay leaves and probably a few other things I am forgetting. It was awesome, as Jasper said. I added more chicken to it and there was plenty of sauce in the three serving dish to cover three additional chicken breasts. This meal cooked for 40-50 minutes and smelled great when I took it out of the oven. It made for fabulous leftovers as well (for the one piece of chicken that remained).
Before
After
You can see the descriptions of the other meals we ordered in Act 1, and Act 2,3, and 4. I would definitely order the beef ones again along with the Chicken Mirabella and Harbor House Cod. Anyone interested in booking a Dream Dinner date with me to assemble a few more meals?
