Some time back I got a recipe book of things to make with aluminum foil.  This book is particularly good for me because the recipes while for four people are for making four packets of food.  This means it perfectly scales to one for cooking.

Recipe

• 12”x18” inches of aluminum foil
• 1/4 pound of boneless beef sirloin, 1/2” thick, fat trimmed
• 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/16 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/4 green bell pepper
• 1/4 red bell pepper
• 1/8 cup teriyaki sauce

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
2. Sprinkle garlic powder and black pepper on meat.
3. Top with bell pepper
4. Double fold packet with room inside for heat circulation
5. Bake 12-15 minutes on cookie sheet

Portions and variation

I was able to find a packet of 0.8 pounds of boneless chuck cut as three pieces.  Thats 12 ounces, about 4 ounces each (about the ideal portion sizes).

I like peppers.  It was probably about 1/3 of each of the pepper when I added it.  I also like onions and had some pearl onions that I tossed in there.  Pearl onions work very nicely because you can just add them rather than having to cut up a full onion.

The very small teaspoon portions was replaced by ‘just shake some on there’

Prep Time

The recipe book quotes 10 minutes prep time which is about right.  The longest time was cutting the meat for me which was only so because I lacked a good knife.

Cleanup

There is some cleanup of the cutting area – peppers, onions, and the meat.  Aside from that, everything was in the foil packet.  Cleanup was trivial.

Thoughts

I didn’t have the teriyaki sauce, so that was replaced by soy sauce, and not anywhere near as much.  I cooked for 15 minutes erring on the side of overcooked rather than undercooked meat.  This is a combination of safe cooking and thats how I had it at home.  The meat was well done when I ate it.

The chuck cut, while economical the grizzle in one of the pieces I cut made it awkward to eat.  I’ll have to try again sometime later with another cut.  Price wise, that chuck cut was about $1.30 so overall the entire meal was very inexpensive.  Next time I try this recipe, I’ll instead try to dice the meat which should get rid of the connective tissue problem and also cut down on cooking time (making the peppers crisper).  That, and getting a better cut of meat.

For seasoning, tarragon was mentioned as something to try in addition to the rest of the spices.  The dashes I had could go to more than just dashes without any problem.

Another recipe in the book has potatoes, also at 15 minutes.  Might consider tossing a potato in there and see how that works.