These grilled spicy steak pinwheels use a mixture of cotija cheese, grape tomatoes, pepper flakes, and arugula leaves all wrapped up in some yummy thinly-sliced steak.  The drooling starts now...

Ever go out to dinner and have a tasty meal and drinks, only to sit back, throw your napkin on the table, and realize that you could probably make what you just ate at home for ¼ of the price you just signed that tab for, AND you could probably make it better?

Yeah, Hubby and I have those moments epiphanies quite a bit. In fact, we have almost stopped going out to eat all together.

We have realized that in most instances, we can prepare the same dishes that we enjoy while eating out, but for a lot less dinero and we can make it even healthier (gluten-free!) and tastier.

For instance, this grilled spicy steak pinwheels recipe that we grilled up this past weekend...

I threw together a mixture of cotija cheese (a Mexican cheese that easily crumbles and that you can find in your chain grocery stores in the international section for just a couple of bucks), grape tomatoes, and arugula leaves (baby spinach leaves would be another tasty and healthy alternative) and wrapped some yummy thinly-sliced steak slices around it.

Then the drooling started...

We kissed the pinwheels on the grill and topped it off with a smoky chimichurri sauce.

Hubby actually said word for word “This is better than any restaurant could ever do. ANDDDDD….can we have this everyday?”.

There ya have it folks. If you want a delicious and fancy-looking date night entree for under $20 for a table of four, and have just 30 minutes to spare, you can have yourself an awesome steak night - date night too.

This quick mix of cotija and feta cheeses, arugula, and grape tomatoes is the "stuffing" to the pinwheels.

You don't want to fill the meat too full because you won't be able to roll them up.  #SteakFail

We like to place two or three pinwheels on each skewer to keep the grill nice and tidy.

And speaking of nice and tidy, you may want to toothpick-close the ends of each steak pinwheel.  The filling may tend to fall out of the sides until the cheeses have melted enough on the grill.

Don't forget to soak the toothpicks in water for a few minutes beforehand!

Depending on your preference for steak doneness (is that a word?), you may want to slice the pinwheels in half (hamburger-style) and allow the inside sides to cook as well.  We like our steak less-done versus more-done, so we don't do this step.  (Please remember the implications of consuming undercooked meats.  K- thanks!)

These spicy steak pinwheels are so freaking good by themselves, but when we have the chance, we like to drizzle Smoky Chimichurri Hot Sauce and extra cotija cheese crumbles on the top of each pinwheel before inhaling them.