30-Minute Dinner

I usually have more than enough time to prepare dinner on any given day. Let's face it - I don't have the busiest schedule down here. But tonight, dinner needed to be at 6:30 to fit around Ryan's schedule, and I spent the afternoon at the pool with my friends. I lost track of time (easy to do while you're enjoying the company of great people in a gorgeous, relaxing location) and walked in the door at 5:50. I took a couple minutes to get cleaned up, but we were sitting down to eat right at 6:30. And, on top of that, I came up with a delicious, new (fast) recipe!

My inspiration came from a couple different sources. I watched an episode of Iron Chef last night where they cooked gourmet meals that included maple syrup, and I remembered making a maple-soy-lime juice glaze for salmon a couple years ago. I am still trying to use up the grapefruit we were given, so I decided to combine the two ideas and use a couple steaks I had thawing in the refrigerator. If I had planned ahead, I would have marinated the steaks in the sauce during the day. But I just sprinkled them with salt and pepper and a dash of Worcestershire sauce and cooked them in the oven for about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, I boiled the water for rice, and began working on the glaze.

I combined 1/4 cup of grapefruit juice (the juice of half a grapefruit), less than 1/4 cup of maple syrup, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and parsley. The mixture reduced over medium heat while the rice and meat cooked. Once the meat was finished, I tossed fresh baby carrots with a little olive oil and basil and roasted them for about 15 minutes in the oven. I topped the steaks with the maple-grapefruit glaze, and the flavor combination was fabulous! Amazingly, everything was finished at the same time, and in just 30 minutes, we were enjoying another new favorite meal.