Cheap Steak Dinner and Chocolate Mini Cake Desserts

On Sundays, I tend to relax my eating habits a bit.  We go to church and often have guests for Sunday dinner so a traditional Sunday dinner is often in order---including dessert....it'd be rude not to offer guests dessert right?


This week we didn't have any guests, but the newest member of our family is our Xpress Redi Set Go we got for Christmas.  My husband is absolutely enamored with this thing and he has spent more time in the kitchen in the last four days than perhaps in the last 3 months combined.  Give that man a gadget and he is hooked!


His favorite recipe is Cathy Mitchell's Mini Cakes (Yup, she's the lady from the info-infomercial if you've seen it) with snicker's mini's inside.  I have to admit....they are delectable!  I thought I better figure out how many calories are in them before I do myself in!

So here is a meal plan that includes a traditional Sunday dinner--the meat cooked while we were at church and dessert.  The total calories for the day come out to 1636.






Featured Meal:
Marinated Oven Charcoal Steak with Mashed Potatoes, Green Beans and Multi-Grain Roll

I'm working on my photography skills as we go along here...the meat portion I ended up eating was actually larger than the picture--about a third of the total steak.  The method of cooking is what is interesting about this recipe so let me get to it.


I purchased Charcoal Chuck Steak (i think it is also called arm steak) a while back because it was buy one, get one free, but it has sat in my freezer because I didn't know how to cook it and I HATE tough meat!  We live on a budget and wasting food isn't an option, so I set out to do some research on cooking this stuff---I was skeptical about the option I chose, but it perked my curiosity enough to try it...


First I marinated the steaks (I used the free one too for another meal).  Here is the recipe for the marinade:

Ingredients

• 2 lb Beef Chuck Arm Steak
• 3 tsp All Natural Dijon Mustard
• 3 tbsp Distilled White Vinegar
• 3 tbsp Marsala Cooking Wine
• 2 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 2/3 cup Onions
• 2 cloves Garlic 
• 1 tsp Ground Thyme
• 1 tsp Montreal Steak Seasoning (McCormick Brand)

I marinated the steaks overnight because I knew I had a relatively tough piece of meat to begin with.  The vinegar breaks down the meat and tenderizes it.

Here is the best part---as I was rushing to get ready to go to church, this recipe only requires about 5 minutes of active time--if that!  Here's what you do:

To cook:
Place meat in a broiler pan or a roasting pan. Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

place meat in oven and immediately turn oven down to 475. Cook 12 minutes per pound (for medium doneness).

After cooking time, turn oven off and leave meat to roast in oven for 2 1/2 hours. do not open oven during this time. Meat does not need to be covered or cooked with any liquid.  Here is what the finished product looked like.  It was pink in the middle...about medium doneness.

The meat was pretty tasty, but I did have to warm it up a bit when I got home from church.  it was tender too...especially in the center.  Served with the mashed potatoes, steamed green beans and a roll with jelly this meal totaled 555 calories.  See, you can have your red meat and eat it too!

Now on to dessert....if you didn't receive an Xpress Redi Set  Go cooker for Christmas, I am sure you can make these is a mini muffin pan.   I would guess you would bake them at 350 degrees for about 15-17 minutes...maybe less.  To use all the cake mix, triple the recipe.

Take one cup of dry Devil's food cake mix

1 egg

1/2 cup water

6 snicker's mini's

Mix the cake mix with the egg and water.  Spray muffin cups with non-stick cooking spray, and spoon batter into cups.  Place one mini snicker's into each cup.  Cook (in Redi Set Go) about 7 minutes.  How many calories you ask?  131 for two.  I had one, okay two, with 1/2 cup Blue Bunny Monster Cookie ice cream.  If you haven't tried that---it is a must!  This was a splurge worth taking!

So here is how the day plays out to stick to 1636 calories and have your cake and eat it too.

Breakfast: 266 calories

Thomas' Bagel Thin

with 1 wedge Light Laughing Cow cheese

1 Banana

Lunch: 555 calories

Oven Charcoal Steak* with 

Mashed Potatoes**

Steamed Green Beans

Sweet Multi Grain Roll


*Make extra and use your leftovers in a Steak Pita-wich
**Make extra and use your leftovers in Shepherd's Pie

Dessert: 311 calories
Chocolate Mini Cake
1/2 cup Blue Bunny Monster Cookie Ice Cream

Dinner: 504 calories

Leftover Tortilla Soup (from yesterday)

1/4 avocado

orange

Total Calories 1636