Caprese Salad

As most of my friends know, one of my favorite restaurants in Fort Worth is Taverna. They make this incredible caprese salad with red and yellow grape tomatoes, and since I've moved I was having a serious craving for it. I had grand plans to use my cherry tomatoes grown in my very own herb garden, until I woke up the next morning and discovered that all my beautiful ripe tomatoes had split skins. According to the internet, it was caused by the monsoon rainstorm that hit us the day before. This made me sad, but I had a backup plan of going to a local farmers market and picking up fresh tomatoes there. When THAT market was closed after work, I gave up and settled for the prettiest tomatoes I could find at the local grocery store. I had to have my caprese salad! Steamy Kitchen had a delicious-looking recipe so I went with big tomatoes rather than the cherry ones.

Steamy Kitchen's gorgeous photo of her salad:

What mine ended up looking like:

Ok, so my presentation skills need some work. But it tasted delicious! Steamy Kitchen has fantastic step-by-step instructions here, so I won't attempt to reproduce them. This recipe only works with FRESH tomatoes and basil so do it while they're still around!

Fajitas!

Continuing our Tex-Mex on the East Coast theme, we attempted fajitas on our new grill. My very nice co-worker donated his old grill to us and we are thrilled and have started grilling up a storm! It's the gift that keeps on giving! I'm convinced that this person will have good karma for at least a year.

Anyway, we couldn't decide between chicken or steak so decided to make both, which of course ended up to be waaayyy too much for 2 people, but the leftovers were welcome. The entire Tex-Mex spread consisted of: chicken and steak fajitas with all the fixin's, grilled corn-on-the-cob, tortilla chips, homemade tomato salsa, and of course Jose Cuervo margaritas.

Here's the grilled meat in all its glory...mmm

I bought flank steak and marinated it in a sauce I used previously on sirloin kabobs. We ended up marinating the chicken in it too so I doubled this batch.

1/4 cup soy sauce
3 tbsp light brown sugar
3 tbsp white vinegar
1/2 tsp garlic powder or mince 2 cloves fresh if you have it
1/2 tsp salt
freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup lime juice
1/4 cup lemon juice

Heat grill to 400F. Grill chicken about 5 minutes on each side and steak for 7-10 on each side, until cooked to preferred doneness.

Fajita toppings of your choice:
Grilled sliced bell peppers Grilled onion strips
Grilled sliced for some heat!
salsa - I made the same roasted tomato salsa as my previous post
chopped cilantro
diced tomato
Mexican flavor shredded cheese
guacamole - the avocados weren't ripe enough in the store to use in our feast :(
sour cream

I prefer the whole wheat tortillas, but any kind will work. Place meat, then cheese, then toppings in the tortilla, wrap and enjoy! Here is a picture of our entire feast!