On Sunday, August 24, we planned a fun, casual dinner of Grilled Skirt Steaks with Parsley Oregano Sauce from Epicurious and Baked Tostones from skinnytaste.com. Kim tells us how it went.

When we feel like having a quick steak dinner, flank steak or skirt steak are our go-to cuts. They grill quickly and pair nicely with all kinds of rubs, marinades and sauces. I started by making the parsley oregano sauce in advance. I decided to make the whole amount of sauce thinking that it might freeze well (we’ve successfully frozen and unfrozen chimichurri in the past with good results and this seemed similar). Rather than dragging out the blender, I used our mini food processor, which worked out well. My other change to the recipe was using fresh oregano rather than dried and I think it added some really nice freshness to the sauce. I set the sauce aside and then decided to tackle prepping the tostones.

We became hooked on tostones during a trip to Puerto Rico last year and Tony has made them twice—both the traditional fried way and the much easier and incredibly tasty way using the Baked Tostones recipe from skinnytaste.com. This was my first attempt and it was a lot of fun!

I microwaved the green plantains as directed, but I decided to do them one at a time since this was my first attempt and the recipe suggested slicing them while they were still hot. The skins of mine only turned partially black (not completely black as in the recipe) but the texture felt right so I decided to keep going. Slicing them while hot was very easy and quick. I used the bottom of a glass Dijon mustard jar (which was the perfect size) to smash the plantain slices flat and was easily able slide the plantain slices off the bottom of the jar with an offset spatula.

Rather than spraying the baking sheet with cooking spray, I decided to lightly brush both sides of the plantain slices with canola oil. I also sprinkled both sides with salt. I then followed the directions to bake for 10 minutes and then turn over and bake for another 8 minutes. The tostones were a lovely golden yellow, crisp and tasty—and highly addictive!

While the tostones were in the oven, I pre-heated our stove-top grill, grilled the skirt steak about 1 to 2 minutes a side (our steaks were very thin, so they didn’t take very long) and let the steak rest for five minutes.

I then sliced the steak on an angle, plated with a healthy drizzle of the parsley oregano sauce and the tostones sprinkled with a little extra salt. We had a delicious Sunday night dinner that reminded us of our fun trip to Puerto Rico.