Cheater Shrimp Ceviche and Smoked Paprika Pearls and Happy Birthday Mom

Today is my dear Mother’s birthday; were she alive, she would have been 78 years young!

Happy Birthday Mom (21 in this photo), I miss you.

Several years ago we dined at Diego, a lovely Mexican restaurant in the MGM Hotel in Las Vegas and I had a wonderful Ceviche that I have not been able to forget. It was an unusual combination of coconut milk and lime juice that just hit my taste buds perfectly. I adore ceviche and order it whenever I see it on a good restaurant’s menu and have not had the pleasure of these flavours together in one since. So, I thought I’d take a stab at it and create an opportunity to use one of my pearls in the process! Clever, don’t you think?

I’ve made ceviche before, the non-cheater kind but I wanted to put this together quickly for an hors d’œuvres recently and I didn’t feel like waiting for the acid to ‘cook’ the shrimp so I came up with this ‘cheater’ version. You can make the ceviche the old fashioned way, but this really worked out well!

I would have liked to add cubed avocado to this dish but sadly forgot to put it on my shopping list! I’ll remember next time, this is a very quick and tasty recipe.

It’s also rather coincidental in this cyber world how we all post about similar things so I can’t go without mentioning my dear Australian Blogging friend Lorraine who just last week posted this gorgeous recipe about real ceviche. Great minds think alike…please don’t finish the last part of this saying, it kinda bursts my bubble!

It’s just as tasty and doesn’t take long to make.

Cheater Shrimp Ceviche

Makes ~200 mL Ceviche (slightly more than 3/4 cup), or 8 single serve Chinese Spoons

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp coconut milk powder
• 1 tsp fresh ginger, grated finely
• 1 tbsp rosa’s lime cordial
• 2 tbsp lime juice
• 80 g cooked cocktail shrimp, chopped
• 3-4  slices of English Cucumber (0.5 cm or 1/4″ thick) cubed
• 1 celery rib, cubed
• 1/4 cup avocado, cubed
• 1 tbsp cilantro, chopped
• 1 tbsp green onion, chopped
• 1 tsp smoked paprika pearls

Directions:

1. Combine the coconut milk powder, finely grated ginger, lime cordial and lime juice in a measuring cup and blend until smooth with a stick blender.
2. Combine the chopped shrimp, cubed English cucumber, avocado (if I had some) and celery with the cilantro and green onion, toss with the coconut milk dressing to coat evenly.
3. Serve immediately garnished with the smoked paprika pearls.

A refreshing combination of flavours.

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Tuna Waldorf Salad

Thank you for your wonderful birthday wishes, I am so blessed to belong to such a giving community. XOXO to you all!

The same weekend of my birthday, we were invited to another benchmark birthday party at one of our wonderful neighbours; it was a special “Studio 54” theme! What fun is that? And everyone came dressed like the 70’s — it was glam and it was fun. Thank you Iona (and Tom), and I hope you had an amazing birthday.

JT looking cool and hip; his pants usually don’t match my dress, though

Those are curtain grommets decorating my dress!

Can you believe July is almost over? What ever happened to the summer? We’re still in high humidity and high temperatures so our meals tend to reflect lighter fare and foods that don’t need to be cooked or baked to limit the additional heat. This tuna Waldorf is a lovely adaption of the original Waldorf Salad made by Oscar Tschirky, the maître d’hôtel of the Astoria (the predecessor of the Waldorf Astoria) in New York City sometime between 1893 and 1896*. The original recipe is basically apples, walnuts and celery dressed in mayonnaise, but you know me, I try to healthy up the dish so I’ve made some alterations. I also like to serve it on a bed of greens but you can serve it on toasts or a wrap. We enjoyed this fast and easy dish at the cottage during our renos in early July.

Serves 2 as a main coarse or 4 as an appetizer

Ingredients:

• 1 tin albacore chunk tuna in water or stock (to make this vegetarian, you can omit this or used firm cubed tofu in its place)
• 1 cup diced celery (dice all items similar size)
• 1 green onion finely chopped
• 1/2 cup walnuts (you could give them a toast, if you’d like)
• 1 diced apple
• squirt of lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp chopped lemon thyme
• 1/4 cup Greek yogurt (I used fat free)
• 1 tbsp mayo (I used full strength)
• 1 tbsp lemon juice (I added more lemon juice to imitate the tart flavour of the mayo, so I didn’t need to add more mayo)

Directions:

1. Drain the tuna and set aside.
2. Add the apple to a small bowl and squirt a bit of lemon juice on it to prevent it from oxidizing.
3. Add the celery, green onion, walnuts and apple to a bowl and combine well.
4. Combine the Greek yogurt, mayo and 1 tbsp lemon juice and stir well. Add it to the vegetable fruit mix and coat evenly.
5. Add the chunk tuna and stir until equally distributed.
6. Serve on a bed of greens or toast.

I have no idea why I shot the celery and nothing else, but since I had it, here it is!

It was nice enough to sit outside even though it was a very overcast weekend.

I know many of the lovely readers of this blog have cottages or summer homes, so I thought I would pass along a little something I invented to help keep the mice off the cutlery in the drawers. Even though the mice don’t tend to enter the cottage during the warmer months, I cannot be 100% sure they are not having a hay-day dancing or whatever all over my cutlery, so I tend to wash them before use (as well as after use). I created this little invention to keep the buggers away from the cutlery, and I specifically chose plexy-glass so it would infuriate them as much as they infuriate me! So there, bugger mice, dance away because you can’t get there from here!

The plexy-glass is cut to fit the parimetre and is glued with a bonding agent to the drawer without interfering with the roller mechanics. It is hinged about 1/3 the way out so that you can easily lift the other two thirds and balance it on the counter for easy access the cutlery.

*from Wikipedia

I’m taking a little time off over the next few days so if I am absent from your blog, I do apologize, but I need a bit of a break. See you soon.

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Smoked Salmon Tartare in Endive Spoons

We’re all about cocktails and with cocktails you need hors d’œuvres, of course! These little bites are very tasty and rather refreshing and go great with a vodka martini. And the best part, you’ll have no spoons to wash because with this clever recipe your guests can eat the spoons!

You can even eat the spoon!

Smoked Salmon Tartar in Endive Spoons

Serves 2

Ingredients:

• 60 g Smoked Salmon, chopped roughly
• 10 Endive leaves washed
• 1 tbsp chopped dill
• 1 tbsp chopped capers
• 1/2 chopped green onion, green part only
• 2-3 tbsp lemon juice

Directions:

1. Mix all ingredients together well. Taste, season as required
2. Spoon a small amount of the mixture into each endive spoon.
3. Arrange on a decoratively shaped plate, refrigerate until ready to serve.
4. Cheers

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Simple red cabbage slaw

It’s seven in the morning and I’m posting a recipe from my bed at the cottage! It still amazes me! What I really should be doing is going for a half hour swim, but the air is a bit nippy – hmmm, comfy bed or chilly swim?

Simple red cabbage slaw
2-3 cups finely shredded red cabbage
1/2 finely shredded celeriac (celery root)
1 green onion finely chopped
About a dozen or so mini cherry tomatoes sliced in half
3 tbsp low fat mayo
2 tsp Dijon mustard
2 tbsp lemon juice
Salt to taste

Combine all vegetable ingredients and mix well.
Combine all wet ingredients and mix well.
Toss the slaw with the dressing to coat well, refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Serve chilled.

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