I’ve come to realize more and more over the past 2 years how blessed I am to have the husband that I have. Not only does he willingly do all the dishes that I regularly dirty up while cooking, help with laundry and house chores, and cross things off the honey-do list with no complaining (although he’s jokingly warned me not to ask for a 20+ frame collage on the wall), he also is pretty easy to please in terms of meals.

He willingly accepts almost anything I make him – no matter how “healthy” it is or how foreign it is from his childhood “meat and potatoes” meals. In the past 2 years, I can count on one hand the number of dishes he hasn’t been a big fan of…and he still ate the meal and the leftovers anyway.

Although I wouldn’t mind if he did, he also doesn’t have a long list of meals he grew up with that he requests me to replicate – he lets me freely experiment with new recipes and make my old favorites how I wish. Plus, talk about pressure to bring back a childhood favorite! Nothing ever tastes the same when somebody else is trying to copy it.

Howeeeeever, there is that one recipe. The one I hear about every summer: Grilled steak and vegetables that have been soaked in a saucy marinade accompanied by grilled Texas toast (because there has to be Texas toast to complete the meal, according to Philip).  It was the only recipe card he had when we got married, stashed away in one of his cookbooks his only cookbook.

Now that we have a new grill, there were no excuses. I felt I needed to make this delicious-sounding recipe. If this isn’t the quintessential summer meal, I don’t know what is! In fact, I was pretty sure I had had this classic summer Hoerr meal at his parents’ house when I was living in Illinois and saw them more than I saw Philip. With the most minimalistic directions a recipe could possibly have (as in, there were no directions, just a list of ingredients), I set out to bring back the memories of childhood summer nights with this nostalgic meal for Philip.

And I’m so glad I didn’t wait any longer to make it (but I’m also glad I didn’t try making it on our electric grill we had in our apartment, because it wouldn’t have done the meal justice). This meal is so, so good! Even the grilled Texas toast — which admittedly, I reluctantly bought — rounded out the meal quite nicely.

This meal is perfect for hot, summer nights when the last place you want to be is in the kitchen. The prep time is minimal and all the cooking is done outside. Perfect! Really, it’s hardly a recipe at all and I can see why it only had the ingredients on the list. Combine the ingredients (almost all of which are pantry staples!), let it marinate (that’s a given), and you’ve got yourself a meal ready for the grill. Delicious, tender, flavorful, and healthy, too! The soy sauce and garlic in the marinade not only add great flavor, but also do an awesome job tenderizing an otherwise tougher cut of meat.

The wide variety of veggies is an automatic given that they’re healthy. While beef often gets a bad rap, it doesn’t always have to be the health enemy. Lean cuts of beef (chuck, round, and loin are usually good key words to go by when looking for lean cuts) are actually great lean protein sources. Plus, recent studies have found that dietary cholesterol doesn’t play a major role in our blood cholesterol as once thought. Everything in moderation, my friends!

Add this recipe to your go-to marinade for the summer! It’ll become an immediate favorite of yours, too. As for how Philip liked the meal? Based on his responses while savoring each bite, I think I’ve successfully made it taste as good as his childhood memories. That’s success in my book.

The Perfect Grill-Out Steak & Vegetable Marinade

Ingredients:

• 1 – 2 lbs chuck roast, cut into 1″ cubes
• Vegetables of choice, cut into large pieces (red onion, bell peppers, mushrooms, potatoes)
• 2 cloves garlic minced
• 1 Tablespoon brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon dried ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
• 1 Tablespoon oil
• 2 Tablespoons water
• 1/2 teaspoon seasoning salt (Accent or Lawry’s Seasonings)
• 1/4 cup soy sauce

Directions:

1. Combine the garlic, sugar, ginger, pepper, oil, water, seasoning salt, and soy sauce into a bowl; mix until thoroughly combined.
2. In two separate bowls or sealable bags, add the beef chunks and the vegetables to keep separate. Pour the marinade evenly over both. (If you are preparing a large amount of vegetables or beef, double the marinade recipe and divide the marinade between the two bowls). Potatoes will not cook at the same temperature as the other vegetables; if using potatoes, partially cook them in the microwave before adding them to the rest of the vegetables with the marinade.
3. Soak the beef and vegetables in the marinade for one hour in the refrigerator.
4. Preheat grill to 400°. Place vegetables in a vegetable basket and put on grill. Grill for about 15 minutes, or until crisp-tender. Alternatively, distribute them into a single layer onto a baking sheet and roast in the oven at 400°.
5. Place steak onto grill and cook until desired doneness.