Entries Tagged as 'shrimp'

Food From Jen’s 40 Years

June 16th, 2011 · No Comments

Bucking the Reid family tradition of having elaborate games at 40th birthday parties (see Brian, Jill, Chad), Jen opted for a food and drink extravaganza in the backyard. Chad and Jen chose 4 different periods of Jen’s life and prepared food and drinks from each of those phases. What an awesome idea! Luckily the weather cooperated, because there were probably 30+ people there to celebrate with Jen. It was a little chilly, but overall good. I had so much fun stuffing my face on all of Jen’s favorite food and drinks! Plus, so many of our good friends were there. And it was sunny. Sunny! What a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon/night.

Here’s what we had:

First course: Belgium, where Jen was born
Food: Cheese plate
Drinks: Leffe & Jupiler beer, white wine, or gimlets

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Second course: Newport, where Jen grew up
Food: Grilled shrimp, steamed clams & mussels
Drinks: Sam Adams Summer Ale, white wine, or more gimlets

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Third course: Virginia, where Jen went to college
Food: Assorted chips. Premade guacamole, salsa and taco dip.
Drinks: Cheap beer – Bud Light, MGD, cheap red wine, or more gimlets

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Fourth Course: Chicago, where Jen lives now
Food: Grilled sausages (assorted from Paulina Meat Market), baked beans
Drinks: Goose Island Summertime, red wine, or more gimlets

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Fifth Course: Kristin’s Homemade Cake

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Surprise Sixth Course, courtesy of beer. .. much beer.

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Shrimp Tacos With Citrus Cabbage Slaw

October 11th, 2010 · No Comments

I found this recipe for shrimp tacos with citrus cabbage slaw in a 2009 issue of Real Simple in the 20-Minute Meal section. It was super quick to make and was a nice, light, summery, weeknight meal.

Shrimp Tacos With Citrus Cabbage Slaw
From: Real Simple

1/4 cup fresh orange juice
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons sour cream
kosher salt and black pepper
1/4 small cabbage (8 ounces), shredded
1 cup corn kernels (from 1 to 2 ears, or frozen and thawed)
1 jalapeno, seeded and chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 pound peeled and deveined medium shrimp
8 small flour tortillas, warmed

In a large bowl, whisk the orange and lime juices, sour cream, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Add the cabbage, corn, and jalapeño and toss to combine. Let sit, tossing occasionally, for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Season the shrimp with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Cook until opaque throughout, 2 to 3 minutes.

Serve the shrimp with the tortillas and the slaw.

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Grilled Shrimp with Grits and Andouille Sausage Gravy

April 23rd, 2009 · 11 Comments

On Saturday Danny asked if he could come over to our place and cook dinner. Dallas is still out of town so he’d be cooking just for his girlfriend Caroline and me. Danny is a very good cook and has worked in some of the best kitchens around town – Shikago, Green Zebra, Nola’s Cup. Ok, that last one is technically in Oak Park, but you get what I’m saying. There’s no way I was going to say he couldn’t come over and use our grill and kitchen to make me dinner! So, this is what he made:

shrimp_andouille_grits

Grilled shrimp with grits and andouille sausage gravy. The creamy grits cut the spiciness of the sausage. Delicious. I probably hadn’t had grits since I was a kid. Half of my family is from the south and my dad would always make quick grits. I hated them! But these grits were so rich and creamy. . . probably because Danny used like 3/4 of a carton of cream! Let’s just pretend he didn’t. That cream just evaporated out of the carton (into my belly!).

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Shrimp Arrabbiata

February 5th, 2009 · 2 Comments

Shrimp Arrabbiata

We had a bunch of shrimp leftover from when we made spring rolls. I looked around online to see how we could use it up and found this recipe for Shrimp Arrabbiata. Arrabbiata roughly translates to “angry” in Italian. Consequently, arrabbiata sauce is a light Italian red sauce that is given an extra spicy kick by adding peppers to the sauce.

I accidentally bought tomato sauce instead of paste so we just improvised and the results were still good. I also used spaghetti instead of linguine just because it’s what I had on-hand. I was a little too heavy-handed with the red pepper flakes, though. The sauce turned out extra spicy. I think I could have laid off quite a bit and it would have been just as delicious.

Shrimp Arrabbiata

Yield
4 servings (serving size: about 1 cup shrimp mixture and 1 cup pasta)

Ingredients
6 ounces fresh linguine
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 pound large shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup prechopped onion
2 teaspoons bottled minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

Preparation
Cook pasta according to the package directions, omitting salt and fat. Drain and keep warm.

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Sprinkle shrimp with salt; add shrimp to pan. Cook 2 minutes on each side or until shrimp are done. Transfer shrimp to a bowl. Heat remaining 1 tablespoon oil in pan. Add onion, minced garlic, basil, and crushed red pepper to pan; sauté 1 minute. Add tomato paste and tomatoes; bring to a boil. Cook 3 minutes or just until sauce begins to thicken. Return shrimp to pan; cook 1 minute or until thoroughly heated. Add parsley to the pan, stirring well to combine. Serve over pasta.

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Dallas’ Spring Rolls

November 29th, 2008 · 4 Comments

A couple weeks ago we were watching Food Network and for about 10 seconds they showed someone wrapping a shrimp in some sort of wonton or wrap or roll. This got a brain worm in Dallas’ head that he wanted to make it for Thanksgiving… never mind that he never had before and didn’t have any sort of recipe.

Last weekend when we rented car to go to Wisconsin we also ran errands. We ended up going to Costco, Jewel and Whole Foods to get everything we needed… it turned out we were making spring rolls, which I didn’t even realize until we were buying the spring roll skins. About mid week Dallas made a couple rolls and we taste tested.

On Thanksgiving we started making spring rolls. Well, Dallas did most of the work. I just chopped up a few things and prepared the skins. We made a few with different ingredients and sauces and adjusted until we got to something we really liked. In the end we did shrimp marinated in 7 Paths Sesame Ginger Sauce, diced jalapenos, chopped cilantro, chopped leaf lettuce, diced water chestnut and chopped green onion. We tried a bit of Thai chili sauce but it was too hot with the jalapenos. For a dipping sauce we used Iron Chef Sesame Garlic Sauce because it was a bit thicker and it had a sweetness that offset the spiciness of the jalapenos.

What we didn’t think about is how labor intensive the rolls are. Not hard to make, but tedious. I mean, you have to stuff and roll each one and get a technique down. .. which our technique was a little sloppy. .. but at the end? Everyone seemed to love them. It was a fun, unique addition to our meal and was fresh and light in comparison to the other comfort foods that we eat at Thanksgiving.

A couple notes: We got two different kinds of spring roll skins. The ones on the left in the photo below were square and a bit thicker. The ones on the right were round and a bit thinner. Dallas preferred rolling with the thinner round skins.

Not the most attractive presentation, but we layered the rolls between sheets of damp paper towel so that they wouldn’t dry out. Dallas saw online that you were supposed to serve spring rolls within a few hours or they’d get dry. Using plastic wrap and damp paper towel helped keep them moist even until the next day when Dallas and I and Jill and Brian ate the leftovers.

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