2014 Florida Trip – Really Good Fajitas

During our first week in Florida, we hadn’t done any outside cooking, but when Pat arrived, we finally set up the kitchen – remember we’re more like campers than do-everything-inside-the-coach folks. 

When we left for Florida we tossed some things into the RV from the home freezer and one of them was a skirt steak (hard to come by in our area) with the idea of making fajitas.  Then Mary at Barefeet In The Kitchen posted her recipe for reverse seared steak, and I thought I'd give the marinade a try with the fajita meat.

Since I only had 1¼ lbs of meat I adjusted the garlic and kept everything else the same but the marjoram, which we didn’t have so it got omitted.  Please pop over to Mary’s site for her recipe and a discussion on reverse seared steak (I’m with her and it is our preferred method for steaks and roasts).

Fajitas – Adapted from Barefeet In The Kitchen

Makes 4 nice 8” fajitas

1¼ lb. shirt steak, cut into 4” pieces

5 cloves garlic, minced

1 T. olive oil

1 T. fresh lemon juice

2 t. smoked paprika

1 t. kosher salt

1/2 t. freshly cracked pepper

1. Combine everything but the steak in a small dish. Rinse and pat dry the steaks and then rub them generously on all sides with the spice mixture. Place the coated steaks in a large ziploc or airtight container and let rest on the counter for 1 hour.  (For the thin and flexible skirt steak, I just mixed the marinade in a gallon plastic bag, added the meat, and gave it a good massage.

2. Grill over a hot charcoal fire to your preferred level of doneness then cut across the grain into ½” wide strips.

We had gone to a local farmers market a couple of days before and picked up several items so Bev made up a salsa of tomatoes, tomatillos, avocado, jalapeno, onion, grilled corn, canned black beans, lime juice, garlic, and S&P.  She insisted on doing everything outside and pretended she was Paula Deen at South Beach – I’m sure Bev’s area wasn’t quite as fancy as Paula’s – she probably didn’t even have fishing rods laying on her table.

The salsa was a delicious addition to the fajitas and there is no recipe to post as she invented it as she went along – so the next version will be a little different.

We also had picked up some ripe bell peppers and onions which I pan fried in olive oil.  My plan was to grill them but Paula had already cut them up in such a way as they would fall through the grates and we had no grill pan on board.  Bev commented that she thought they were perfect (caramelized but not mushy) so it couldn’t have worked out better.

So my fajita was a flour tortilla, meat, salsa, and veggies.

Bev said these may have been our best fajitas ever (and she may be right) and a big part of it was the meat, so Mary here is another use for your recipe and thanks for helping with a delicious meal.

I learned I wasn't a very good multi-tasker today when I typed in a Google search on my computer then put the cell phone up to my ear for the answer - duh.

Photos best if enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

1/13/14 meal date