Alberta Equals Beef

In case you didn't know, beef is the pride of Alberta. A visit here will more than likely expose you to countless I heart Alberta Beef bumper stickers. We love beef. Sure, there are other things we take pride in, like rocky mountains, whiskey and a whole lot of wheat, but there's certainly a fair amount of Albertans that just love steak.

Except me. We went through a few struggles during that whole vegetarian episode and never fully got re-acquainted during the low-carb one. Don't get me wrong, it's a delicious entr, but it often overshadows anything else that would accompany it because it's just so filling. For example, after finishing my steak, I could not even stuff a single bite of my Broccoli and Cheddar Stuffed Potato into my mouth. I barely managed to get down the Red Wine Sautéed Mushrooms before I felt the need to burp. The mushrooms, by the way, were fantastic. I imagine the potatoes were as well, as I've made similar recipes before with favorable results.

With that said, the Pan-Seared Bourbon Sirloin Steaks were good. The bourbon flavor was a little overpowering, but the meat was exceptionally tender. If I were to do this again, I would likely use similar ingredients with some tomato paste and molasses to make a thick barbecue sauce and throw them on the grill.

I prepared a recipe from The World’s Healthiest Foods website because I've been somewhat addicted to it lately. Obviously this hasn't been very reflective in the dinners of late, but I think it's a fantastic website and am always for new and healthy recipes.

The recipe I made was a dessert, a Healthy Apple Tart. Apples and cinnamon are great together, it doesn't matter what you do with them, but this tart just doesn't work for me. Maybe there are culinary secrets for the no sugar or fat added cooking methods that I'm unaware of, but the crust was impossible and quickly
crumbled apart and the apple part just isn't the same without a bit of butter. There are some substitutions that work wonderfully and I think nut crusts are great, but without something more than dates to hold it together this just didn't work out for me. I imagine my failure to actually layer the apples and just sort of plopping them into the dish didn't help that, either.