Grilled NY Strip Steak + 空心菜

WHAT! We get to have steak while on a diet? 

Yeah, baby. 

Probably meat from the local butcher or farmer's market would suit some, but any packaged steak from stores like Tom Thumb will be just fine.

Now to make your steak dinner "work" with your healthy diet, you've gotta snip off that fat... you are allowed to cry during this part. It's still going to have beautiful marbling. If possible, try to mold your fillet so it's approx 6 oz. for serving size purposes.

Season with a bit of salt, ground pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder. Set aside.

Next is our favorite starchy vegetable to be paired with steak - potatoes! Try little Red potatoes.

Rinse and boil them until soft or to your liking. These are now done, but I mashed my own potato for a change of texture. 

I added a tiny bit of fat-free milk and dashed a bit of this on my single mashed potato, but beware of the heavy amount of sodium:

Now onto our leafy vegetables. This is a Chinese plant called 空心菜/Kong xin cai and it's my MOST FAVORITE CHINESE VEGETABLE IN THE UNIVERSE. It's utterly beyond delicious and I must urge EVERYONE to at least try what they've been missing out on. I (and thousands of others) can absolutely devour a gigantic bowl of kong xin cai and immediately beg for more. Please please go out to your Asian supermarket and get this and I know you'll be sharing my excitement.

This is what it'll look like at the supermarket. It will probably be labeled "Ong Choy." Or look for this Chinese character 心, which means heart. Kong xin cai translates to "empty heart vegetable" due to its hollow stems.

Now that you've bought this leafy treasure, break off leaves and small bits of stems and soak in water for a while. Drain and be sure to shake off as much water as possible.

Meanwhile, prepare some garlic by slicing into small pieces and have oil on standby.

Let's go back to our steaks and grill them, for Kong xin cai cooks extremely quickly.

Have/turn your grill on high heat. Grill fillets on one side for one minute, turn 90° for checkered grillmarks, and close the hatch for another minute. Then flip and grill for one last minute -- or to your preference.

No grill? Just pan fry the fillets with a bit of oil/spray on the stove. You can easily see the deepening line between dark cooked meat and red uncooked meat as it is sitting on the pan, so fry as long or as short as you prefer your steak.

Look at that, you get to eat a thick juicy steak on your diet.

Back to our Kong xin cai! In a wok/pot, saute the sliced garlic and try not to splash your face as you deeply inhale that intoxicating aroma. 

A family member scented the air, ventured to the kitchen, and asked for something, anything. I said no. 

I got this.

 

Now toss in the Kong xin cai, but expect heavy sizzling and splattering, for the moistened vegetable won't like meeting the hot oil. That's why it's nice to try to shake off as much water as possible after soaking.

Immediately begin to fold the leaves and stems into the oil/garlic and you'll see it cooking (wilting and shrinking) within seconds.

Add some salt; the vegetable will begin to produce juice right away. The second photo above this text show some leaves still whole -- that's when you should add the salt, and then continue folding for a few more seconds. Overall, the cooking time is less than one minute. The leaves should be completely wilted.

That juice left in the pot? PURE TASTE BUD ECSTASY. It's simply the best on top of rice, so keep that in mind next time when you're craving an entire meal of Chinese food.

Finally, you've got yourself a fine, rather ethnic-mixed, hearty dinner that's truly healthy as well. That's still just one single Red potato, mind you.

For dessert, sweet summer oranges (or the season's fruit). 

Will you just look at all that on your table, you lucky skinny duck. All finished.

Enjoy~!