So this past weekend was Thanksgiving and I have to confess that I totally dropped the ball on my daily posts. My family was together at my mom’s home on the St. Lawrence River and it was just too beautiful out to be typing away on my computer.

Given that it was Thanksgiving there was A LOT of food (& wine) this weekend. We did eat fairly healthy but (confession #2) we didn’t have any big salad meals. My mom made a delicious soup for lunch one day and vegetarian (no one new it was veggie!) chili another day. We decided against making a turkey because we had done it the weekend before with my dad. Instead we had steak and lobster…not too shabby!

We are all human and time gets away from us at certain points. All that matters is that we get back on the wagon and don’t give up. I am back on my daily salad regime and it feels great.

Steak & Squash Caesar

Ingredients:

1 small head of romaine, torn or chopped into bite size pieces

Thinly sliced red onion

1 tbsp Simply Natural Organic Caesar Dressing

1/4 of a small kabocha squash, skin and seeds removed

2 tbsp Squash seeds, cleaned

1 tbsp coconut oil, melted

1/4 tsp each of salt & pepper

3 oz beef tenderloin

1 tsp ghee

salt & pepper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425°F. Cut squash into wedges and toss in melted coconut oil. Season with salt and pepper. Place on a baking tray and roast for 20 minutes flipping once. Toss squash seeds on the same bowl you seasoned the raw squash in. The remaining oil on the bowl will be enough to lightly coat the seeds. Once the squash is done, place seeds on a baking tray and roast for 5 minutes. Shake the tray every minute or so to move the seeds around and prevent them from burning.

Season steak with salt and pepper (just a light sprinkle on both sides). Grill or pan-sear steak until preferred done-ness. I like my steak rare so it only take a couple minutes per side. It was raining last night so I decided to pan sear mine. I put 1 tsp of ghee in a frying pan and heated it on high. Cook the steak at high temp for anywhere from 3-6 minutes before flipping and repeating on the other side. Remove from heat an allow to sit before slicing into very thin strips.

While the steak is resting, toss lettuce in dressing. Slice steak and place on top of the bed of lettuce. You can cut the squash into smaller pieces or do as I did and just serve it as a wedge.  Sprinkle the seeds around the salad and serve immediately.