Snow-day Sunday Shrimp Chowder

Yesterday was the first (real) snow fall of the year – and the perfect day for a chowder and warm biscuits.

   Shrimp Chowder

• 3TB margarine
• 1/2 cup diced onion
• 2 stalks celery diced
• 2 carrots – diced
• 400 g (about 4 small) white potatoes chopped into bite sized pieces
• 2 cup shrimp or fish stock (chicken/veg stock will work too)
• 1 tsp Old Bay Seasoning
• 1/2 tsp garlic salt
• 1/4 tsp black pepper

 

• 1 tsp dried parsley

• 1 1/2oz (3 TB) dry white wine
• 1 cup milk (1%)
• 1/2 LB raw shrimp  – peeled and tails off

In a sauce pan melt margarine.  Add onion, carrots and celery, and cook until onion is soft.  Add potatoes and stir. Add the shrimp stock and bring to a boil.  Simmer, covered  for 10 min, removing cover for last 5 min.  Add wine.  Lower heat and add milk. Add shrimp and cover – allow to heat until shrimp is cooked 3-5 min (shrimp will turn pink).  Serve with fresh tea biscuits. EnJoy.

 

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It’s Olive about the Grill

(Yup, you read that right – Olives on the grill… )

With this heat wave hitting us and everyone trying to stay cool I’ve been taking the cooking outside lately.  Here is a family favorite – get ready for grilling!

Shrimp, Olives & Tomato Skewers

Our entire family loves fish but the kids, love Love LOVE shrimp..and olives…and tomatoes.  I buy frozen easy peel raw shrimp and use the shells to make fish/shrimp stock to freeze for later.  If its in season, try picking up your tomatoes at your local farmers market – they are so much sweeter  – don’t forget your garlic too! There are endless possibilities of veggies to add to your skewers (mushrooms, peppers, onions, zucchini, asparagus, etc, try picking up some fresh basil and add a handful, chopped up in with tomato & EVOO mixture!)

Ingredients (adjust quantities to suit)

• garlic stuffed jumbo olives *
• grape or cherry tomatoes
•  raw med shrimp
• minced garlic
• lemon or lime juice
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil (or Oil of choice try Safflower ) Equipment: A grill (duh!), a flipper or tongs,  skewers (we have reusable metal ones, but you can use disposable wooden ones  tip:  if using wooden skewers, soak them in water for 10 min before using to stop them burning. 

Method

1. Preheat grill (if things tend to stick, prior to turning on the grill, wipe grill with a paper towel saturated in a bit of oil. Then turn on grill).
2. While grill is preheating, pour lemon/lime juice over shrimp, toss with garlic to taste (add chili flakes if you wish!).  Toss tomatoes in a touch of oil.  Place shrimp, tomatoes and olives alternately on skewers.
3. Place on (400 degree) grill lid up for 1-2 mins, turn, shrimp will be cooked quickly, the olives & tomatoes will take longer, if you don’t want the shrimp to cook that much, omit shrimp from those skewers and put them on there own (zucchini or onion is nice with them or just on there own to cook).  The skin on the tomatoes will split when the tomatoes are cooked, and you will see the salt on the outside of the olives.
4. Serve by themselves or with a side like rice or quinoa or make it a lighter for one of those really stinky hot days and serve skewers over a  spinach salad drizzled in an aged balsamic vinegar.
5. enJOY.  Hope you love it like we do!

Love to hear your comments! Want to hear more of something? Let me know!

* we get our olives in a the large jars from Costco – I’m not sure where else carries them

Top 3 Easy less than 6 ingredient recipes – Cajun Shrimp Pie (sorta), Penne and Cranberry Apple Pork Chops Recipes!

Here is my quick – using up the leftovers in the fridge recipes.  These are great for that busy season – and to use up any leftovers.

Now I do have to point out that the Cajun Shrimp Pie was originally a recipe my Mom made for us when were kids  and she always called it Cajun Shrimp Pie – why I’m not sure.  Now that I am older and cook I look at the ingredients and other than the thyme … and the shrimp. In any case, I (of course) switched it up a bit, but none the less its great for left over rice.

The Penne Primavera (ish) recipe is an easy way to use up a few left over veggies and lemons.

The Pork Chops – well great to use up that one last apple, and the frozen cranberries in the fridge.

Here we go!  Another culinary mission is a foot!

Cajun Shrimp Pie

I apologize – I didn’t actually take a picture until it was in the oven, and there are a couple more than 6 ingredients in this one but still easy!

Ingredients
Crust
3 cups (a little more or less is fine) cooked rice
2 eggs – beaten
1 TB butter melted

Filling:
1 Cup uncooked med shrimp + 1/4 c salted water (my mom always used 1 small tin of salad shrimp & liquid but we prefer “real” shrimp 🙂
1 small onion – chopped finely
1 cup milk
1 cup frozen peas

2 TB cornstarch mixed with 4 TB water

1/4 tsp Thyme

Optional 4 slices processed cheese

Optional – hot sauce – we use Bayou Butt Burner Hot Sauce (2-3 glubs of it)

In a bowl, mix cooked rice, beaten eggs and butter together and press into a sprayed pie plate to form a “crust”

In a saucepan saute onions, add shrimp (if using uncooked), when onions are softened and shrimp is cooked add milk, and bring to a slow simmer, reduce heat, add cornstarch mixture, and thicken, add peas and thyme and salted water, allow to simmer for a couple of minutes.  Pour into rice crust.  Top with slices of processed cheese (you can try brick cheese, but processed works nicely :))  Bake at 375 for about 25-35 minutes(until slightly browned) and cheese is bubbling.

Prep Time 5 minutes, baking time about a 1/2 hr.   Leftovers make great lunches!  You could also make this into a “seafood pie” by adding crabmeat and scallops to the shrimp mixture.  Play with it – enJOY.   Serves with a salad.

Easy Cranberry – Apple Pork Chops

  Ingredients:

4-5 Boneless Pork Chops (small)
1/2 cup frozen cranberries
1 apple – peeled, cored sliced
1 c apple juice (or cider)
1/3 c  cranberry juice

In a sauce pan, on a med-high heat a little oil or spray with non-stick spray.
Add chops – and brown – don’t worry about cooking them through.  Once they are browned reduce heat to low-med and add juices, and rest of ingredients.
Cover and cook for 5 minutes.  Uncover and cook for an additional  minutes or until liquid reduces a little.  Serve with a baked potato, salad and roasted demonica squash.

Hint the liquid is awesome over the roasted squash.  EnJOY!

Prep time: 5 minutes Cooking time: 15-20 min

Primavera-ish – Clearing out the Crisper Penne

Boil 1/2 or 3/4 box of penne according to directions.
In the meatime:

Heat a saucepan to med- high, add whatever left over veggies (we had some chicken so I threw that in too) you have – we had 2 small fingerling sweet potatoes (peeled and sliced into long slices), broccoli, chicken breast, onion or whatever you have (green beans, carrots, parsnips, asparagus etc) Add the juice of 2-3 lemons, and the zest of 1 lemon, add about 1 c of chicken stock (or veggie stock – I happened to have chicken stock), a ton of basil (1/4 c of dried).  Saute/simmer until veggies are cooked, add pasta and simmer for a few more minutes. Add peas.  Serve & enJOY

Prep Time – 5 minutes  Cooking time: 20 min.

Hope you enJOYed (ok ok I will give the JOY thing a rest 🙂  ) these simple and healthy (well except for the process cheese business) ready to eat in no time meals!  Don’t forget to like this post & leave a comment!

Tried any of my recipes?  I want to know how it turned out leave me a comment!

From my kitchen to yours, Healthy & Happy Eating!

Joy

hey y’all – it’s Gumbo!

Some of my loyal followers here know that I worked a couple of Blues Festivals (Southside Shuffle & Kitchener Blues Festival) over the summer with Mississippi Queen Foods.  If there was anything I learned while working with the Mississippi Queen  a.k.a Connie  herself is that if your going to serve southern to a bunch of BoozeHounds  I mean Blues Fans it had better be good – and if its good people will LOVE it! I tried my hand out at making some Gumbo myself last weekend and have the pictures to prove it 🙂  and damned if I don’t think it tastes pretty freaking awesome!

But first the lesson part of today 🙂  What is Gumbo exactly anyway?  Gumbo is a soup/stew that typically contains 3 different meats,  or whatever you have, with a base is made from a roux,  the “Holy Trinity” of onions, green peppers and celery (the base to a lot of  creole or cajun dishes).  It usually contains Okra, Andouille Sausage (spicy pork sausage native to the N’awlins area) and seafood. Gumbo was born on the plantations where the slave owners would throw the slaves the “scraps” and thus Gumbo was born (hey I didn’t say it had a pretty beginning!) .

When I decided to try my hand at Gumbo I didn’t have any filé (ground Sassafras leaf) which is used as a thickener & to add flavour,  instead I used okra as a thickener.  (If you are wondering where you can buy the filé or other southern groceries here in Canada – take a look at the MQF – General Store.)
The first thing I did was start my stock – you can use chicken stock or water, but I was making my gumbo with shrimp and was peeling them anyway so I went ahead and made my own shrimp stock.

Shrimp Stock

Peel shrimp for gumbo, add peels to a pot of water with a roughly chopped/chunked  onion, a green pepper and a tomato (I used organic ones from my local farmer, Svetec Farms but any will do).  Cover, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until you need it (at least an hour or so), when ready to use, pour stock thru strainer and disregard veggies & peels.

Here’s my recipe!

The Joy of Gumbo (come on – I haven’t made a “Joy” reference for a long time!)

You will need:

Ingredients:

• 1/3 LB chopped  lean bacon (pay more and get the less fatty ones – we use side bacon)
• 2 cups chopped okra (wash, cut stem off and chop

•  1 LB spicy pork sausage
• 10 tomatoes chopped
• 1-2 Jalapeno’s chopped
• 1/2 c butter – melted (or lard 0r bacon fat! yikes!)
• 2/3 c  all-purpose flour
• 2 cups or so chopped onion
• 4 green onions – chopped
• 10 small green peppers diced finely

• 2/3 c celery chopped
• 2 TB parsley
• 3 TB minced garlic
• water
• 8 c Shrimp Stock
• 2 Bay Leaves
• salt & pepper to taste
• 10  dashes Louisiana Hot Sauce (or cayenne pepper sauce)

• 1 Tsp dried Thyme
• 1 1/2 LB peeled uncooked shrimp – large sized
• 1/2 LB peeled uncooked shrimp – small

Cooking Equipment:

• stock pot, sauce pan, frying pan/skillet, strainer

Method

Gumbo is an all day process – or ideally overnight – leave yourself lots of time!
Time saver hint:  Use a food processor to shred or chop your veggies except okra and tomatoes.

1. Brown the sausage in the skillet – preferably use andouille sausage but if you are here in Canada its harder to get – I used a hot pork sausage, removed it from the casing and added cajun spice to it.
2. Once the sausages are browned, discard the fat in the skillet, drain sausage meat on paper towel and set aside.  Add bacon to skillet and. cook until well done.  Remove to paper towel and set aside.
3. Stir the okra into the hot bacon grease and saute for about 5 minutes,  drain the okra in a colander and discard the bacon drippings.
4. In saucepan, add okra, jalapeno and tomatoes over medium heat, and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer the okra mixture for about 10 minutes.
5. In a large stock pot, melt the butter (or lard)  over medium heat, and cook and stir the onion, green onions, green pepper, celery, parsley, and garlic until the onion begins to turn brown.
6. After about 10 minutes, remove the vegetables but leave the butter in the pot
7. Pour a glass of wine.  (you’ll be standing in one place for a while – might as well enjoy it)
8. Stir in the flour, reduce heat to low, and cook the roux, stirring constantly, until it darkens in colour (anywhere from carmel to a milk chocolate colour).
   30 to 45 minutes.
9. Whisk in 2 cups  of water or stock
10. Do not the roux burn.
11. When the roux is the correct colour, Raise the heat to medium; stir in salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, thyme, and bay leaves, bring the mixture to a
     boil and stir in the sausage, bacon, okra-tomato mixture, and 6 more cups of
    stock.
12. Reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer the gumbo, stirring occasionally, until the soup has thickened and the flavors are blended, about 45 minutes.
    Stir in the shrimp, and simmer until they turn pink and opaque, 6 to 8 more minutes. Discard bay leaves and adjust the seasonings, if desired, before serving.

Optional Step but I recommend.  

1. If you can stand it, let the soup simmer for a few hours skimming fat/grease off the top every so often.  Personally, I like to refrigerate it overnight and let the fat form a layer on top, it can then can be easily skimmed off in the morning.

I serve this with Jalapeno Cheese Cornbread Muffins /Loaf. (Yes- I know its a stone and not a cast iron skillet – I couldn’t find my skillet- I sprayed the stone and preheated it previous to adding the batter, it worked pretty well)

Interesting to note: In Mississippi style southern cornbread there is no sugar or honey, the sweeter version is more popular in the north.   I make and prefer the unsweetened classic version but I had extra jalapeno’s so I them in.

You may wish to use filé or offer to anyone that wants a thicker gumbo (although this is pretty damn thick!).  You can substitute the meat ingredients however you wish,  chicken, catfish, crabmeat, crawfish, etc

Try it!  En”JOY” <grin> it and let me know what you think!

I recommend The Bayou Butt Burner Hot Sauce or Melinda’s Habanero Hot Sauce! ( you can order it online from MQF!)

Don’t forget to subscribe to my blog and leave a comment!

Till next time y’all
from my kitchen to yours,  happy & healthy eating

Joy