Eats: Balsamic-glazed steak with orzo risotta and green beans

This Christmas, Matt's sister and brother-in-law gifted us a fantastic Chicago Cutlery knife set. (It was on our wedding registry, which is even cooler if you ask me.) We'd been working with two hand-me-down knife sets that we'd each had since getting our first apartments in college, so...seven or eight years now? Crap. We're old. Anyway, I was so excited at the prospect of finally working with some stellar knives that I looked up a meal that involved a ton of chopping, slicing and cutting so as to test out as many of the knives in one go as I could. I was not disappointed with the balsamic-glazed steak kebabs and orzo "risotto", both in terms of taste and knife-using-requirements. We even busted out the steak knives, despite the fact that the kebab pieces were small and tender enough to do without. It was just too much fun!


Sometimes I post full recipes here, but this time I'm just going to link them. Mainly because I followed the recipes to a T and didn't really improvise or adapt them at all. I like to follow recipes exactly the first time or two I make them, then tweak as needed if the dish makes it into our regular rotation. I highly recommend both the balsamic-glazed steak kebabs and the orzo "risotto". The orzo came out a bit thicker (and honestly, more risotto-esque) than the picture on the original site, but it was delicious nonetheless. For the green beans, I just threw them in the steamer and set it over simmering water for, I dunno, five minutes? Seven? I like my cooked veggies crunchy, so adjust the cooking time to your preferences. I then just tossed them with a little butter and salt. When you have that many other flavors going on, you need one side to stay semi-simple.

I promise at some point I'll do a post on all the cool photography gear I received/bought this Christmas season. Right now I'm swamped with photo shoots that have allowed me to use said gear, a couple freelance writing deadlines for the bridal magazine, and of course eight billion wedding crafts. I decided to save all the wedding craft posts for after the wedding, partly to help keep an element of surprise for readers who also are attending the big event (hi, Aunt Kathleen!) and partly because I feel like I barely have enough time (less than four months!!) to do the crafts themselves, let alone the photographing/writing that's needed to do posts on them. But just so you have an idea of what to expect: There will be fabric flowers! Wine-bottle vases! A birdcage veil! Pocket invitations! Probably some other stuff that I'm forgetting at the moment! DIY brides for the win, amiright?