September 1st: Shrimp Curry

Back in the Saddle Again


There you have it folks: a hiatus from (full-time, paid) work, and a hiatus from the blogosphere.


SHE’S BAAAAAACK!


I spent a couple of days toward the end of August planning my meals for the month of September, to ease my transition to work, and Olivia's and Sadie’s transitions to school and daycare. Then I went shopping and bought all the meat (now frozen) and dry goods I need to make all those meals, with the thought that I can pick up the fresher items I need on a weekly basis. All good, EXCEPT I forgot minor details, like Shannon, Rod, and Jessie are visiting for a week in September. Some tweaks will have to be made.


For today’s easy, back-to-work, first post-work supper, I chose to make a shrimp curry by Ricardo (of Ricardo fame). Luckily, Greg’s garden is producing an abundance of tomatoes, just in time!

Here's the original recipe:

Shrimp Curry
1 large onion, chopped
1/4 cup (60 ml) vegetable oil
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 teaspoons (10 ml) fresh ginger, finely grated*
4 tomatoes, seeded and diced
1 can 14 oz (398 ml) coconut milk
1 1/2 teaspoons (7.5 ml) garam masala
1 green or red chile pepper, chopped (optional)*
1 teaspoon (5 ml) salt
2 lbs (1 kg) fresh shrimp, shelled and deveined*
The juice of 1 lime
Fresh cilantro leaves, for garnish


In a skillet, brown the onion in the oil. Add the garlic and ginger. Cook for 1 minute. Add the tomatoes, coconut milk, garam masala, pepper and salt. Simmer over low heat for 10 minutes.

Add the shrimp. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 3 to 5 minutes. Add the lime juice and sprinkle with coriander leaves. Adjust the seasoning and serve.


*I made a few changes. (a) I rarely use fresh gingeroot, finding it to be persnickety. I used 1 tsp ginger paste for this recipe. (b) I wanted my children to eat the food, so I did not add a spicy pepper. I did add a sweet red pepper, to up the nutrient quotient. In future I would add some red pepper flakes for a bit of heat. (c) I used half the amount of shrimp, and my curry was, as a result, a bit soupy.

I served this with basmati rice. It was quite good. Would I make it again? Hm. Maybe.

I'm rusty: I forgot to take a picture.

January 4th: Roasted Garlic Shrimp

Simple supper tonight, but so delicious, I didn't manage to save any for my lunch tomorrow. I made rice, and to accompany, a quick pan fry of sugar snap peas with garlic and red pepper flakes. The pièce de résistance, pulling the whole meal together, was this simple recipe I found in the Ottawa Citizen, by chef and food writer Eric Akis:


Roasted Garlic Shrimp


24 medium or large raw shrimp, peeled and patted dry
1/4 cup (60 mL) olive oil
2 tbsps (30 mL) lemon juice
3+ large garlic cloves, halved and thinly sliced
pinch crushed red pepper flakes, to taste
1/4 tsp (1 mL) paprika
sea salt, to taste
1 tbsp (15 mL) chopped fresh parsley


Preheat the oven to 425°F. Place shrimp in a single layer in baking pan with sides.


Combine oil, lemon juice, garlic, red pepper flakes and paprika in a small bowl and pour over shrimp. Sprinkle shrimp with salt. Roast 8 to 10 minutes, or until shrimp are cooked.


Sprinkle with parsley and serve.


Makes 4 servings.

November 4th: Hot and sour shrimp soup

Coincidence! Last year on November 4th, I made hot and sour chicken soup. What are the chances? Two different recipes, but both from Chatelaine and I remember modifying last year's so it more closely resembled this one, which I've been making for years: from March 2007's Chatelaine: Ginger-scented shrimp and mushroom soup. I've made some modifications to this over the years: I use bottled or frozen ginger because I don't have patience for gingerroot, I may or may not use the recommended bamboo shoots, and I often add rice noodles and/or bean sprouts. I decided whilst in the grocery store today to make this tonight (this last-minute decision-making is not the norm for me!) and bought ingredients based on memory. Therefore, this one had no bamboo shoots or bean sprouts, but did have onion and baby bok choy. I really don't think you can go wrong. I'm debating leaving out one of the three tablespoons of vinegar next time.


That's a lot of text for a 10 minute soup!

March 31st: Creamy shrimp fettuccine

Quickie Thursday evening meal from March 2011's Chatelaine: Creamy shrimp fettuccine. Yummy pasta, shrimp and leeks in a light cream sauce, enjoyed by all three of us. As I was making the meal, Olivia declared, "I don't like shrimp!" to which I replied (my standard), "That's okay, you don't have to like it, you just have to eat one." Some time later, as we sat down to eat, Olivia picked up her one shrimp, ate one bite and said, "I like this," to which I replied, "Good, that's your shrimp!" She looked surprised, as though she had never seen shrimp before, and she ended up eating three of them. Bottom line: Don't trust your 3-year old's supposed taste preferences. She clearly doesn't know what she's talking about.

Good-bye, March!

March 24th: Cajun shrimp

I can't for the life of me figure out why this shrimp tastes so incredibly good. It has 5 ingredients, comes together in 10 minutes and tastes like the best thing I have eaten all week. It must be that perfect blend of butter and spice, combined with fresh, perfectly-cooked shrimp, whetted with appetite, equals perfection. Confession: I even used store-bought garlic butter rather than take the time to mince a garlic clove, even though I already had to mince a garlic clove for my salad dressing. Here it is, from March 2010's Chatelaine: Cajun shrimp. Shrimp + red pepper + butter, garlic, Cajun spice + green onions = one delicious supper.

 

The magazine recommends eating this with rice and salad, which Olivia and I did. Great supper. Bring on the weekend.

February 11th: shrimp vol-au-vents

Friday night and I am teaching a class at a club in Kanata: a half hour drive on a regular night, up to an hour and a half on game night. Tonight, happily, there was no game. Since I started teaching this class in January, we've worked out a routine where I teach, Greg takes the class and Olivia stays home with a babysitter. Food for O and babysitter needs to be provided and ideally, we would like to eat too, before or after class, or both. The last few weeks we've been doing take out because Fridays get to be too busy and we can't find time to prepare something. Today, after spending the week eating out in Edmonton, I really wanted to cook, so set aside some time. For the girls, I made a salad and pinwheel peanut butter and jam sandwiches. When we got home from the gym, and after putting O to bed, we finished off the salad and I cooked up some shrimp vol-au-vents. I got the idea for this one from an LCBO flyer, although I simplified it a bit. Weirdly, the LCBO website has a completely different recipe for this than the one I made. Anyway, we decided to toss the recipe, as it was too rich with cream and oil and puff pastry. Good, but too much.

We finished the night by watching Never Let Me Go, which was depressing as all get out, but really good. It's been stuck in my head all weekend.

January 20th: BIRTHDAY EXTRAVAGANZA: shrimp, ribs, pasta, bread, salad

It has happened: my baby has turned 3. And she is so 3: smart, funny, perceptive and a genuinely pleasant person to spend time with. Smartest thing I ever did was having this kid. We had a kick-ass birthday, if I do say so myself: breakfast at Cora's, Cosmic Adventures, Tangled 3D, big nap in the car, then a party with the family. This party had no kid-friendly limitations: Chili-coconut shrimp, Beer & 5-cheese penne, artisan bread, Oven-baked ribs with maple barbecue sauce and a honkin' big salad with lemon and oil dressing. Delicious. Would do them all again in a heartbeat. The only recipe being tossed is the rib recipe, as I already have better. I enjoyed the roasting as a cooking method, though; it was quite simple.

Cora's for breakfast

Cosmic Adventures

Oops! Forgot to take a picture of the shrimp before they were eaten!

Ridiculously cheesy penne

Bread with garlic and a hint of whole wheat

Finger-licking required ribs

Honkin' big salad

Birthday girl

November 25th: easy shrimp stir-fry

Verdict:
Toss: Shrimp stir-fry

A quick reference to this recipe, which I didn't love, but was dead easy and pretty good. I'm doing another shrimp stir-fry next week too; keep your eyes out for that one!

From Clean Eating Mag: Cajun Shrimp Stir-Fry. (Can't find this recipe on the clean eating mag website, but found it elsewhere. Thank you, Google.) I added some baby bok choy* to the pan, and would recommend reducing the time on cooking the shrimp from 3 min to 1.

*Baby bok choy back story:

Wednesday night. I planned to make a dead easy soup, a repeat from November 2009's Chatelaine: Japanese dumpling soup. After the meal, we decided to toss the recipe and I figured it wasn't worth blogging about. However. When I bought groceries on the weekend, I couldn't find the one baby bok choy I needed for the soup, so I sent Greg to Farm Boy to get one. Due to the fact we got into an argument prior to the shopping trip, the message about what I wanted wasn't entirely clear, and he bought a BIG bag of itty-bitty bok choys. We have been eating bok choy every day since, and there is not much of a dent in the bag. Thus, bok choy in the shrimp stir-fry.