Spiced Shrimp & Spaghetti Squash

After a long weekend lounging in Florida and eating two desserts a day (hey – it was my birthday weekend, I was entitled!), I felt like I needed a break from the calorie-overload and made myself a healthy, flavorful, two-for-the-price-and-effort-of-one dinner: Spiced Shrimp and Spaghetti Squash.

This super-easy worknight meal that comes together in about 35 minutes was exactly what I needed to get my eating back on track without any feelings of deprivation. It was sweet, spicy, and incredibly flavorful. Plus, it contained a lot of healthy vegetables and protein-rich shrimp.

The most time-consuming part of the dish was caramelizing the onions, which were done using the technique I learned from this recipe for Caramelized Onion & Herb Dinner Rolls. But organization and planning save a lot of time, meaning you do most of the other work while the onions cook: prepare the spice rub for the shrimp, let it marinate, prepare and cook the spaghetti squash, and then finally saute the shrimp in the same pan the onions were cooked in.

Busy week? It’s the perfect opportunity to try this for yourself. Here’s the recipe:

Read more of this >>

Quick Omelette with Shrimp & Peas

Welcome to the first official installment of By the Book on Foodie Reflections! This is where I will prepare a recipe from a cookbook and write about it. Pretty simple, eh? There’s no official schedule to these posts but at least it’s a step in the right direction as I slowly work my way through the ever-growing piles of cookbooks taking over my apartment.

A few things to note: 1) Some of the cookbooks were given to me, others I purchased because I was interested in them; and 2) I’m a little commitment phobic so there’s no schedule or day of the week for these posts — yet. The point is to have fun and celebrate the work that so many amazing cooks put years of blood, sweat and tears into.

First up is The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook by one of the most bubbly food bloggers I’ve come across: Jaden Hair of the blog Steamy Kitchen. I was fortunate to receive a certificate for a copy of her book a few months ago, and was thrilled when it arrived in the mail last week.

I tore apart the package and immediately dove into the book looking for a recipe to try. The only problem was that I needed to pick just one to start with and there were SO many that jumped out at me. In the end I went with the Quick Omelette with Shrimp and Peas for two reasons: 1) it was quick to make – I mean the word is even in the title; and 2) I was freaking hungry!

Oh, this omelette did not disappoint. It was filling and satisfying, not mention a little salty but in a good way, and a little sweet from the peas. Plus I felt energized from all the protein but not weighed down at all, a good thing as this was lunch afterall.

Now, I just have to choose what to make next.

Here’s the recipe:

Read more of this >>

Mardi Gras is tomorrow and since I couldn’t be there to join the festivities, I thought I’d bring some of the strong New Orleans flavors into my own kitchen. I chose my favorite dish that didn’t include crayfish (I just love those little mudbugs, but it’s near impossible to get them fresh here): gumbo with shrimp and andouille sausage.

A great one-pot dish, gumbo is easy to make yet fairly labor intensive. And be forewarned: because of the long-cooking dark roux, you and your home will smell like the fry station at McDonald’s for at least 24 hours. Here are the various stages of roux (the thickener made from flour and oil):

This gumbo has a bit of a kick which will intensify if you reheat it the next day. Serve it with rice and you’ve got a great balanced meal.

I had the great opportunity of visiting New Orleans last April for the IACP convention (see: Eating my way through New Orleans). As I was with a couple hundred foodies, the city really rolled out the red carpet with samples of many classic hometown dishes, everything from jambalaya to calas to po’boys. I was truly smitten with the warmth and soul of the food as well as the people who were truly inspiring.

Eating my gumbo with the popcorn long grain rice I picked up during that trip brought back those wonderful memories, and will have to be enough until I can visit New Orleans again.

Read more of this >>

I recently stumbled across a recipe for mango salad with grilled shrimp on Epicurious.com and decided to give it a try tonight. I changed a few things to fit the ingredients I had on hand (lemon juice for lime, no jalapenos, and dried cilantro rather than fresh) and of course seasoned to taste rather than measured.

In the end, I was mostly happy with the dish served at room temperature, which made it a refreshing dinner at the end of a sticky, humid day. I also think this would be a great summertime picnic dish and could easily be made to serve a crowd. The slight char of the shrimp and subtle flavor of the cumin worked well with the sweetness of the mango salad. The best part hands-down were the shrimp which I allowed to marinate in the cumin, salt and oil (olive rather than vegetable) for 20 minutes before grilling indoors. The one thing I would do differently next time is to be sure to use limes, the lemons just didn’t give it right tang. Oh -and I have I mentioned recently how much I love fresh mint?

Here’s the link to the recipe on Epicurious.com.