Who needs Burgers and Dogs...

When you can have Ginger Flank Steak and Asian Cucumber Salad for Memorial Day Dinner?

Since we were home today, I took the opportunity to make something nice for dinner - even if it was the holiday meant to have burgers and dogs on the grill.

The flank steak recipe is from The Pioneer Woman Cooks Blog - but interesting, as I was putting the marinade together, I realized, it's just abut identical to what I already used - passed down to me from my Sister In Law about 10 years ago. IT"S AWESOME!!!

Then again, I never met a flank steak I don't like - it's my favorite cut of beef if I"m going to eat red meat.

The Salad - WOWSA! So incredible. The recipe came from Cooking Light.

This whole meal, is a make again.

Pioneer Woman's Flank Steak

1/2 cup soy sauce - I used half low sodium, half full sodium

1/2 cup cooking sherry

3 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons sesame oil

2 heaping tablespoons minced ginger

3 to 5 cloves minced garlic (I used 5)

1/2 teaspoons red pepper flakes
1 flank steak

Combine all ingredients in a glass or ceramic dish. Remove flank steak from package and give it a quick rinse. Coat both sides of meat with marinade. Refrigerate for at least 3 to 4 hours.

We let it flavor in the fridge until the last 45 minutes. Then we took the pyrex dish out and let it sit on the counter to come to room temp - a tip we picked up on food nextwork and has proven to be a wonderful addition to cooking meat in our house. We grilled it up for about 7-8 minutes per side and it was perfectly done, medium rare in the middle and a bit crispy on the edges.

Asian Cucumber Salad

2 cups thinly sliced, seeded and peeled cucumber - I did not peel this or seed it, I just used an English Cucumber sliced thin.

1/4 cup thinly sliced red onion

1/4 cup matchstick carrots

1 T sugar

1 T fresh cilantro - I used more about 1/4 cup - we love cilantro

2 T fresh lime juice

2 tsp. fish sauce - we used sweet chili sauce instead

1/8 tsp. salt.

Combine cucumber and the remaining ingredients in a bowl. Toss to combine. Set aside to chill for an hour before serving to let the flavors blend and mello out the onion a bit.