Good Thing

I just got back from being away for two weeks (one of them in Florida--yay!) and have very little food in the house because I haven't had time to go to the store yet.  Thanks to Mother of Ken, I have a well stocked freezer.  So, tonight I looked in the freezer and found some sliced flank steak and I came up with this: 

I put the steak out on the table in the backyard to defrost while I did my workout and then tried to figure out what to do with it (I didn't have fajita ingredients, which is the obvious choice).  Because it was 97 degrees here today, I didn't want to heat up the kitchen or eat anything very heavy.  The end result of my scavenging in the refrigerator and pantry was sliced Yukon gold potatoes mixed with chopped marinated artichoke hearts, fresh scallions, parsley, and chives, and pieces of steak dressed with olive oil, champagne vinegar, salt, and pepper.  Really good--you should try this.  You could even make it without the steak as a side dish.

In other experimenting news, I was really hot and thirsty and I had some key lime juice that I decided to make into homemade lime soda.  You should try this one, too ;-) 

I started with a glass of ice and I added about a third of a cup of lime juice.

Then, I put in the same amount of simple syrup:

Top the whole thing off with club soda:

Taste and adjust lime juice and simple syrup as necessary.  I am seriously considering never buying bottled pop (soda for you East Coasters) again.

I'm waiting for my leeks, shallots, garlic, and tomatoes to grow--hopefully I'll be able to keep them alive until they're ready to eat.  Shallots and garlic look like they'll be ready soon, the leeks have a while before they're ready, and the tomatoes probably won't start producing much until sometime in July.  The problem is keeping everything watered in this heat. 

Anyway, make yourself some potato and steak salad and some homemade lime soda and come back soon for a long overdue "Reminiscing" post.