What's for dinner?

If you read my post yesterday you know that I'm going to be doing weekly meals from scratch. If you want to find out what brought this you can read all about that here. 

So, for the first of many dinners I made homemade sirloin steaks with a gravy sauce and optional kaiser bun with a side of fresh, steamed broccoli and a tropical fruit salad. For dessert, I made homemade apple and cinnamon muffins. Everything was delicious and pleased my dinner guests. ;)

If you're interested in trying these recipes as well they'll be posted down below along with photos of the food.

Main Course:

Homemade Salisbury Steaks
Serve 6-7

Ingredients: 

• 2 yellow onions (optional)
• 3-4 pounds of ground beef
• Kaiser buns, Texas toast, or ciabatta loaf (optional)
• salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Season beef to taste with salt and pepper, then shape into 8 patties. I also used an all-purpose season on both sides of the patty. I cooked mine on the grill or you could cook them in a skillet. Cook to liking.
2. I also grilled the onions on the grill as well as steamed some in a foil basket.
3. Remove patties and onions from grill, serve on kaiser bun or not. It's optional and tastes good both ways. I served mine with a beef gravy on top and it complimented the salisbury steaks perfectly.

Tropical Fruit Salad

Serves 6-7

Ingredients:

• 2 ripe mangoes
• 2 small cans of mandarin oranges
• 1 pineapple (grapefruit can be substituted if preferred)
• 1 lime (lime rind and lime juice)
• shredded coconut

Directions:

1. Chunk the mangoes and pineapple. Combine those in a bowl with the mandarin oranges. You can include in the mandarin juice if you wish,  I did. Mix.
2. Grate the lime to get the lime rind in the bowl with the fruit. Then, squeeze the lime to get the juice. Mix.
3. Coconut can be added now or when served to individual liking.

Dessert:

Apple & Cinnamon Muffins

Makes 2 dozen

Ingredients:

• 2 1/3 cup white all-purpose flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 apples (peeled, cored, and finely chopped)
• 1 cup milk
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 8 tbsp butter, melted

Topping:

• brown sugar 
• ground cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Line muffin pan with paper cups.
2. Whisk flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon in a large bowl. Stir in sugar and chopped apples. In a separate bowl, mix together the milk, eggs and butter. Then, gently fold the wet ingredients into the dry.
3. Place the batter into the paper cups. 
4. To make the topping take a few lumps of brown sugar and mix it with about a tsp of ground cinnamon. More of less of both can be added depending on taste and how much topping you want on your muffins.
5. Sprinkle the topping on the muffins and then bake them in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until they are golden and have risen. 
6. These can be served warm or cold and are delicious both ways.

Come back next week and see what's cooking!