sometimes we actually cook

Saturday night, we tried a few recipes that turned out well. I'd recommend them, especially if you like latin-flavored cuisine. The main entree was garlic-rubbed flank steak with chimichurri sauce, and the sides were caraotas negras (black beans) and arroz blanco venezolano (Venezuelan white rice).

All of the recipes were from Cooking Light, one of my favorite cooking mazazines. There was a fair amount of chopping involved, but the recipes were pretty easy. I seemed to be in the kitchen for a long time, however it was the  mostly due to the prep work (and the fact that Madeline was trying to help). If you make them, you'll probably want to add some more salt than the recipes call for, and I always up the garlic a little since I love garlic. I also rubbed the flank steak with the garlic/salt/pepper rub and let it sit for an hour or so -- it seemed to soak up the flavor nicely.

I know that red wine typically goes well with red meat, but because of all of the herbs and spices (and the chimichurri sauce had quite a kick!), I paired it with a dry reisling and it was excellent. Also, I paired it with the reisling because I had a bottle open already. Sam had iced tea and he thought that pairing worked out well.

We are going to try to cook a bit more than usual, mostly because we feel the need to use our new double oven, gas stovetop, and the fancy-new Santoku knife that I bought. So, you may hear about other good recipes... or maybe even some recipes to avoid...in the near future.