Fire Drill Food - Day 1

My lack of posts lately has been caused by two things: I have been sick, and the Jesusita Fire that has been devastating my home town has put a damper on cooking. For those of you who don't live in California, you might not know how much a fire like the Jesusita Fire can halt all productivity. Not only were we concerned about our fellow Santa Barbarians, but it was over 100 degrees here, and very few of us have air conditioning. On Thursday night, the fire could be seen spreading wildly westward from our kitchen window:

On top of all the fear, the power kept flickering and threatening to shut down as it has in fires past. A power outage pretty much kills all cooking for me, since I have all electric appliances and no outdoor grill to speak of. So all meals that I did manage to cook were very quick stovetop concoctions that wouldn't heat up the house and would hopefully be done before any power outages (which thankfully, never came to fruition out where we live).

The first of the two days that I cooked during the Jesusita Fire, I made what has been known in my family as simply "Teriyaki." The recipe is from one of my grandfather's Hawaiian girlfriends, and it uses flank steak. The teriyaki marinade used with the steak is not your standard from a jar teriyaki and can only be classified as "Hawaiian-style Teriyaki." My family has tried this on chicken before and it just isn't as good. The steak is where its at! I'm leaving the measurements as they are on the family recipe card, but I'll show how much I used, too. I just think family measurements are funny.

Teriyaki (from a girlfriend of Granddaddy)

1 large bottle of soy sauce (I used Kikoman 20 oz low sodium)

4 or 5 cloves garlic, crushed (I used 4)

6 or 7 slices ginger, minced (I used about 3 tsp jarred fresh ginger)

4 or 5 tsp sesame oil (I used 4 tsp)

6+ scoops sugar to taste (I think this measures out to about 3 cups or so)

2-3 lbs flank steak, sliced into thin strips against the grain

In a large bowl, mix all ingredients well until sugar dissolves. Add steak strips and marinate for 1/2 an hour. Grill steak strips until done, just a couple minutes per side.

I don't have nutrition info. for this one because the ingredient measurements are so crazy, but flank steak is one of the healthiest cuts of meat there is. Just be careful if you are watching your salt intake, this is really salty even with the low sodium soy!