Shrimp Lemongrass Soup (Tom Yam Goong)

This winter we ate a lot. I mean, we ate a lot of soup. Who am I kidding, we did eat a lot, but we also ate a lot of soup. I became quite proficient at some of our ethnic favourites, this Thai Lemongrass Shrimp soup being one of them. I reverted back to an old favourite recipe from an Australian cookbook a friend gave me years ago, Bay Books Cookery Collection, Thai Cooking Class, written by Somi Anuntra Miller and Patricia Lake. It is a well-illustrated cookbook with some great background, techniques and lists of ingredients for successful Thai cooking. In fact, it is my GoTo Thai cookbook. I have tweaked the recipe to resemble that of a favourite Thai restaurant.

Makes about 500 mL soup

Ingredients:

• 500 mL chicken stock
• 8 pieces fresh galangal
• 8-12 Fresh Kaffir lime leaves
• 2 pieces of 2 cm lemongrass, sliced in half lengthwise
• 60 mL lime juice
• 15 mL fish sauce
• 2.5 mL chilli paste
• 5-10 g of cane sugar
• 8 fresh shrimp, peeled and deveined (skins reserved)
• 10 fresh cremini mushrooms, cut into quarters
• 80 g vermicelli rice noodles
• 2 Campari tomatoes, cut into 6ths
• Chiffonade of Cilantro leaves, Thai basil and thinly sliced green onions to garnish

Directions:

1. Bring the chicken stock, galangal, Kaffir lime leaves and lemongrass along with the shrimp skin to a slow boil and then simmer for 30 to 60 minutes. Strain out the stock so that it is clear and without any bits.
2. Add the lime juice, fish sauce, chilli paste and cane sugar and continue to simmer until sugar has completely dissolved. Taste for balance and add a bit of lime juice or sugar to balance if required.
3. Boil water for the noodles, completely cover noodles in the hot water and allow to soak until al dente. Rinse in cold water to stop from cooking further.
4. Bring the soup to a slow boil and add the mushrooms and shrimp and cook until the internal temperature of the shrimp is 120° F.
5. Meanwhile, preheat the bowls (it’s winter and they cool down incredibly quickly). Reheat the noodles by running them under super hot water.
6. Assemble the soup: add half of the heated noodles to each bowl, top with 4 shrimp in each bowl and spoon the hot liquid over the noodles and shrimp, dividing the mushrooms equally between the two. Add a cut tomato into each bowl and garnish with the chiffonade of cilantro and Thai basil and green onions.

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Shrimp Bundled in Chickpea Flour Twigs

Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian readers!

I am my Mother’s daughter; case in point, Mom was famous for bringing unusual food items into our home. Often we would stand around whatever ‘it’ was wondering what on earth we were expected to do with ‘it’, definitely not eat it! But yes, we were obliged to try it and sometimes it worked out very well (kiwi in the early 70’s (see notes) for example became a fast favourite and sometimes it did not. Lychee fruit for example, or what we sarcastically named “Eyeball Fruit” did not have a happy ending. Mom was pretty sure you could eat this raw, right out of the peel but we made her try it first anyway. She didn’t die immediately and wasn’t offended by it but my brother and I (under 10) were skeptical and hesitant to try it. We did eventually try it but it wasn’t a favourite — although we had some good giggles with the name, Eyeball Fruit.

JT and I were out grocery shopping and I came across Chickpea Flour Twigs and true to form, I grabbed a pack and tossed it into the cart. By now (almost 30 years) JT has learned not to question, just accept it — more often than not, it will become something tasty for him, anyway. Upon my return to the house I did a little investigating and discovered that this unusual treat is a snack food; to be honest, I wouldn’t know how to eat it…it’s so tiny and crumbly (if any of my readers know how to eat this, please let me know in the comments). But it reminded me of an elusive Greek dough called kataifi (shredded Phyllo dough which I haven’t been able to find) so I thought breading shrimp with it would work out well. Also I got a new social media client and they dropped off a bunch of their product so I decided to use coconut flour in the breading instead of all purpose flour. It worked out very well. It turns out that the Chickpea Flour Twigs are deep fried so they are quite rich and rolling the shrimp in them made a nice crunchy textured batter with a mild chickpea flavour.

A Kitchen Inspirations Original Recipe.

Makes 8 shrimp bundles

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup coconut flour
• 1 egg whisked with a splash of water
• about 1/2 cup of chickpea flour twigs
• 8 shrimp, tails off, cleaned
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Pre heat an oven to 375°F and line a baking pan with a silicon mat.
2. To three separate bowls, add the coconut flour, the egg whisked with water and the chickpea flour twigs.
3. Lightly dredge the shrimp in the coconut flour and then soak in the egg wash, back to the coconut flour an again in the egg wash. Now roll lightly in the chickpea twigs. Lay onto the silicon mat. Repeat until the shrimp are all bundled nicely in the chickpea twigs.
4. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the twigs are even more golden and the shrimp is cooked through.
5. Serve with a tamarind dipping sauce (I combined store bought tamarind sauce with rice vinegar, green onions and chopped cilantro).

A tasty treat for cocktails. Who drank my cocktail?

 

Notes

• I usually repeat the flour dredging and the egg wash because it makes a nice crispy batter, particularly when baking in the oven instead of frying.
• Toronto in the 70’s (I can only attest to this point forward) was fairly mungie-cake; exotic meant spaghetti and meatballs for most. Chinese takeout was pretty much the only asian food out there, fortunately, we have evolved and we can source any ethnic food on any day of the week and it’s likely to be quite authentic.
• To be entirely honest, I don’t think I’ll make these again, the nutritional content of the chickpea twigs is not in my healthy realm but it was a fun treat.

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A new Shrimp and Scallop Ceviche with WW points

Spring has been slowly emerging, taking its dear sweet time, but today, it’s finally going to be 17°C (62.6°F). Even on Tuesday, the sun was shining and it was actually warm enough to sit outside in the sun with a cup of hot coffee. We’re cautiously hopeful for spring, although there is still some ice in our backyard believe it or not. Stubborn ice that just won’t give up. One of our radio stations has a repeating ad that goes something like this: “April, you have just one job: melt the GD ice so spring can finally show up.” Seriously, just one job! Can it be THAT hard? Yes, we are frustrated! But at least it’s starting…

I’m beginning to think about summer foods, lighter fare and this is a quick and delicious recipe I came up with for lunch about a month ago; I think it may have even been snowing at the time (a month ago). The bright, fresh flavours contrasted against the peppery arugula will make a sensational meal on a super hot, humid day (soon, please be soon). Definitely making this lovely dish for the cottage, it’ll be perfect for eating on the dock, wearing shorts and a light T!

A delightful combination of shrimps and scallops cooked in lime juice

Shrimp and Scallop Ceviche

Makes 1 small serving (to make a meal of it, increase the weight of shrimp and scallop to 100 g in total).

Ingredients:

• 30 g shrimp*, cubed rather small
• 20 g scallop*, cubed rather small (similar size to shrimp)
• 1 tbsp lime juice
• 1/4 tsp non-calorie sweetener of your choice
• 1 tbsp cilantro, minced
• 1 green onion, minced
• 1 stalk celery, cubed
• 5 cm (2 inches) English cucumber, cubed
• 1/4 apple (or Jicama)
• 5 cm (2 inches) English cucumber, cubed
• 100 g Arugula

Directions:

1. Combine the lime juice and the non-calorie sweetener of your choice and mix well.
2. Make sure you cube your seafood into equal sized cubes so that they ‘cook’ at the same rate. Combine the cubed shrimp, scallop, cilantro and green onion with lime dressing and toss well. Set aside in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to one hour.
3. When the seafood has become opaque, add the celery, cucumber and apple and toss well. Serve over arugula or lettuce of choice

The apple adds the sweetness that the jicama would have.

*’cooking’ seafood in citrus does not kill off any parasites, so you should be very careful with the choice of seafood — it should be fresh, or boil in water until done and prepare the salad just prior to serving.

Based on 1 small serving

Based on 1 small serving.

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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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Another Seafood Paella; Spooky Story Series Continued

October is slipping through our fingers very quickly. Socially, we are already booking into November which never ceases to amaze me. Blogs are filling the virtual world with comforting fall recipes, halloween decorations and stories. My dear friend Kelly (a fellow Canadian who recently moved to California , the delightful writer and creative genius of Inspired Edibles) made a comment on my last spooky story about a haunted house tour in London she participated in several years ago and that reminded me of my own haunting experience in the UK. So I would like to continue with the Spooky Story series on my humble blog (to be honest, I had no idea I had so many of them!) Please pardon the photos in this post of our trip to the UK, they were before digital cameras and I simply took an iPhone photo of them for this post!

It was about 4 years into our marriage and JT and I were vacationing in the UK; we rented a car and drove from  town to town from the south-west to the south-east culminating our adventure in London for a few days (as a side note: we saw the Queen Mother speed along in her Rolls Royce while we were walking to Buckingham Palace). We specifically chose to stay in old mansions and guest houses on this trip, it was not only budget friendly but it also was much more fun than the large international hotels.

Bibury Court Hotel

This was high fashion in 1990! Well, at least my hair was high.

One such town was Bibury which is a quaint little picturesque town in the heart of the Cotswolds. We stayed at a very large, very old manor house Bibury Court Hotel, incidentally the same manor house that JT and his dear Mom stayed in several years earlier. “The hotel is found on the edge of the famous village of Bibury, once described by William Morris as ‘the most beautiful village in England” taken verbatim from their website!

On these holidays, one of the things JT really loves to do is visit old castles and there were plenty of them in England; of course his favourite part of the castle was always the dungeon! As you can well imagine, my young self was not thrilled at such prospects, but as a good young wife, I accompanied him through many a dungeon throughout England and each one gave me the willies — some worse than others.

After our visit to Warwick Castle, I was particularly spooked. Not sure why, but as soon as I entered the very ghoulish dungeon I had an uneasy feeling and some very cold air wafted over me (of course, dungeons are cold and damp so that wasn’t entirely unusual).  The uneasy feeling was so overwhelming that I was unable to spend more than a second in the dungeon and we had to cut our time short. We retreated to our lovely manor house on the edge of town.

This was the creepiest room by far in the dungeon.

We rented a lovely room which was pleasantly decorated and reasonably spacious for the time. But the view was something to be desired, particularly by someone who was recently spooked by dungeon spirits; our room over looked the grave yard (cue scary music). JT was nice enough to see if there was another room facing a different direction but sadly they were fully booked so we were stuck. I said it didn’t bother me, but you know it did.

We had a lovely dinner in the converted restaurant coach house and an after dinner drink in the quaint little bar tucked in beneath the grand old staircase in the manor house. And then it was time to retire. I tried not to think of the old cemetery, but it weighed heavily on my mind.

That was the window that the wind and ghosts were pouring in from. The grave yard was directly outside.

Eventually, I drifted off to sleep but it wasn’t a restful sleep. As I lay curled up on the comfy bed, snuggled under the generous duvet, the large windows facing the grave yard at the foot of the bed flung themselves open and the curtains wafted menacingly in the cold fall winds sending a chill throughout the room. But it wasn’t just wind blowing in; there were ghosts…lots of them. Apparently that is the moment I jumped out of bed and screamed to shut the windows. Of course, the windows were not open and nor were there cold winds nor ghosts blowing in. Occasionally, when I am stressed I talk in my sleep and the only way to console me is to agree and remedy, however ridiculous it may be. JT learned this lesson with the bed spiders (sorry Chgo John, that’s a whole other story). So JT simply got up and pretended to whisk out the ghosts,  close the windows and lock them down tight, explaining what he was doing along the way.  That seemed to be good enough for  me and I was able to continue my sleep with the consolation that the grave yard and ghosts were on the other side of the locked windows. The next morning, JT took quite the delight in telling me the story but I had no recollection!

I’m sure it was the heavy, meat laden meal I had that night which no doubt contributed to my restless night; had I chosen something lighter, such as vegetarian Paella, I may not have had such vivid dreams of ghosts and grave yards!

I have documented several paella recipes on my blog (please see here, and here)

A traditional Paella Pan is essential to make this authentic dish

Seafood Paella with Salmon Chorizo

Original recipe from Matiz La Bomba Paella Rice on back of bag. This particular bag of rice was a beautiful gift from our biscotti neighbour, wasn’t that thoughtful? This was only the second time I made this dish the authentic way on top of the stove. Nothing was even remotely over cooked!

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

• 1/2 c dry white wine
• 1 tsp saffron
• approximately 650 g of seafood, I used Shrimp, Bay Scallops, Salmon and Cod
• 1 Salmon Chorizo (for recipe, please click here)
• 4 cups vegetable or fish broth, warmed
• 1/2 vidalia onion, chopped
• 1 red pepper, chopped
• 1 cup diced tomatoes (I used unsalted)
• 3 large cloves garlic, minced finely
• 1/4 c green peas
• 1/4 c sweet corn
• 3/4 cup of La Bomba Pealla Rice
• 2 tbsp EVOO

Directions:

1. About 1 hour to 1 day prior tocooking the Paella, add the saffron to the white wine and refrigerate.
2. In a Paella Pan, on medium heat, add 2 tbsp EVOO and sweat the onions until translucent, about 5 minutes.
3. Add the chopped red pepper and cook for 3-4 minutes. Add the garlic, diced tomatoes  and white wine saffron mix and simmer for another 5 minutes. This is the Sofrito.
4. Add La Bomba rice and stir until the rice is thoroughly covered with the Sofrito.
5. Slowly add the broth to the paella, moving the rice around gently until it is evenly distributed throughout the pan. The instructions indicate not to stir the rice after this point.
6. After about 10 minutes of simmering, add your selection of seafood into the mixture, evenly distributing and gently burying it within the rice. After 15 minutes, add the peas and corn and cook for another 10 minutes.
7. Once the broth has been completely absorbed, remove from heat and cover with a lid or aluminum foil and allow to sit for 10 minutes.
8. Serve in the Paella pan garnished with lemon and lime wedges (which I forgot!).

The rice is short grain and soaks up the vegetable stock like a risotto rice would, making a deliciously creamy dish;jl

Our neighbours were kind enough to bring us back authentic Paella rice called La Bomba.

I even used Saffron from Morocco! The dish was perfect in every way.

I thought you might enjoy some photos from the Thanksgiving weekend in Muskoka:

Unfortunately, the colours were just past their prime.

Some of the golden colours were still quite beautiful.

The scenery made for a beautiful drive.

A few leaves still hanging on for dear life!

Sunrise from the boat house at my brother’s place

The setting sun still produces an incredible effect in the sky.

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Cajun Grilled Shrimp with Grilled Pineapple and Mango Salsa on Grilled Jalopeño Cornbread

I totally agree. And by ‘right’ I’m sure Ms. Midler is referring to pointy stiletto’s wouldn’t you say? (Charlie, Kristy, Liz and Lorraine?)

Speaking of shoes, my dear friend Monica was recently at Fallsview Casino and spotted this store that specializes in life-sized chocolate shoes. It’s like I’ve died and gone to heaven!

Chocolate Shoes…could life get any better?

And coincidentally, we had Rae and Monica over for dinner and I always like to make something special when we have company so when I saw the recipe on Bam’s kitchen, I knew I HAD to try it. Bam made the entire recipe gluten free, sugar free, dairy free and egg free, but I didn’t have those restrictions so I improvised.

The flavours are subtle cajun and although you can add as much heat as you wish, I used fresh jalopeño chilies with the veins and seeds cut out to reduce the heat. The grilled pineapple adds a wonderful sweetness and the grilled jalopeño cornbread is a lovely base for the dish adding subtle smokiness from the grilling. I used an old favourite recipe for the cornbread, Fred’s Not Here Jalopeño Cornbread it packs a lot of flavour and the recipe can be halved easily — I didn’t do that because I wanted the extra. Also, for the night of the dinner party, I served 10cm (4 in) round cakes, but the muffin size is a much better proportion (hence my presentation in this post). Thank you Bam for the inspiration.

Serves 4

The fresh flavours worked very well together.

Fred’s Not Here Jalopeño Cornbread

Makes 12 regular muffin-sized cornbreads or four 10cm cakes plus 6 regular muffin-sized cornbreads

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 medium ground corn meal
• 1 1/4 all purpose flour (I’m going to try using quinoa flour next time)
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 red and 1/2 green finely diced jalopeños (if you like things spicy, add cayenne to your taste).
• 1/2 cup finely chopped green onions
• 1 1/2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 400°F. Spray non-stick cooking spray generously into each muffin cavity.
2. Sift cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl.
3. Blend eggs, milk and oil in another bowl.
4. Stir wet ingredients into dry.
5. Fold in the shredded cheese, jalopeño and onion.
6. Spoon to fill muffin cavity and bake for 25 minutes or until firm and golden.

Grilled Pineapple and Mango Salsa

Makes about 1 1/2 cups of salsa

Ingredients:

• 3 thick slices of pineapple
• 1 good size Mango
• 1 scallion, finely chopped
• 1/2 red and 1/2 green finely diced jalopeños
• zest of one lime
• juice of one lime
• 1/4 cup finely chopped cilantro

Directions:

1. Dry off the pineapple and grill the pineapple until you get some good grill marks (takes about 10-15 minutes per side). Set aside to cool
2. Dice the mango into 1 cm or 1/4 inch dice. Add the finely chopped red and green jalopeños, scallion, lime zest and lime juice. When the pineapple has cooled, dice it in a similar size to the pineapple, mix into the mango.
3. Add the chopped cilantro just prior to serving. Serve cold.

Cajun Grilled Shrimp

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup lime juice
• 3 tbsp EVOO
• 2 tbsp honey
• pinch of salt
• dash of cumin
• dash of corriandre
• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
• pinch of cayenne
• 16 large shrimps

Directions:

1. Clean shrimp and remove the shell, leaving the tail intact.
2. Mix all the ingredients together and pour over the shrimp, marinate for about 1-4 hours (marinating too long will cause the acid of the lime juice to ‘cook’ the shrimp).
3. Heat the grill to smoking hot! Grill the shrimp until no longer opaque. Keep warm.

Assembly:

1. Cut the crown off the cornbread muffins so that both top and bottom are flat. Brush both sides lightly with softened butter.
2. Grill corn bread muffins on both sides so good grill marks are achieved and it heats the cornbread through. Place one cornbread round on the centre of each plate. Add the chopped cilantro to the salsa and pile it on top of the cornbread, don’t worry if some fall to the side, it actually looks better that way.
3. Mound the shrimp on top of the salsa and garnish with a little coriander leaf.

Notes:

• Cornbread may be made in advance and stored in an airtight container.
• Freeze left over cornbread for another occasion.
• The salsa is fantastic on burgers, so save some for another time.
• The cornbread tops can be saved in the freezer for another recipe, like stuffing!

This one had too much coriander garnish and not enough salsa on the plate

Actual Photo from the dinner party; bad lighting and perhaps a glass or two of wine made it blurry. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

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“Irish” Fish Chowder with Oat Scones a St. Patrick’s Day Celebration

Did I mention that I prepare my posts well in advance? Here’s proof!

I know I’m a (lot) late for St. Patrick’s Day, but perhaps you will bookmark it for next year or any time. The Friday before St. Patrick’s Day I saw a lovely post for Beef and Guinness Pie at my friend Karen’s Back Road Journal and even though I can’t tell you how tempting it was, I had to resist making it as we’d already had beef a few times that week and I usually like to keep it to once per week, maximum three times per month. So when she suggested we pop over to Colin Bofin’s blog, an actual Irish dude in Ireland, I was all over it! Colin prepares a Guinness Stew that has the most irresistible dumplings and I’m certain that his home has incredible aromas when he prepares this dish. Still having had too much beef that week, I started to wonder through Conor’s blog and I came across a lovely Irish Seafood Chowder and Scones. I couldn’t help but think that I had found my St. Patrick’s Day recipe. Thanks Conor, I’ll be stopping by your blog for inspiration again.

Colin made his own prawn stock from scratch (actually, they look more like our langoustines) but I remembered I had a bag of lobster carcass in my freezer and I knew I had the ingredients for my stock. At the time, we were still off eating fresh salmon because I wasn’t sure what the influenza implications were, so I used a tin of salmon instead. I also omitted the potato and cut down the carrot just because I’m still trying to reduce my carbs. The broth is a luxurious, creamy, velvety broth with much resemblance to the Provençal Fish Soup I made in October 2011; I cannot resist adding tomatoes and saffron to fish soup, it’s such a compelling flavour combination for my taste.

Don’t be fooled, there is an incredible amount of flavour in the carcass of a lobster, even if someone already ate all the good bits!

An incredible smooth, creamy fish velouté

A few chunks of seafood added to the centre spices up the soup and adds an incredible texture and flavour; the Shrimp was so sweet.

“Irish” Fish Chowder

Makes ~1.5 litres of stock

Ingredients:

• ~542 g lobster carcass (or you can use the actual beast with the meat). Use only larger bits of shell (the smaller one’s may jam up your blender) or wrap the entire carcass in cheese cloth to contain
• 260 g celeriac, chopped finely
• 250 g onion, chopped finely
• 160 g carrot, grated
• 2 bay leaves
• 4 cloves of garlic, smashed
• 1 tomato
• 200 g skinless, boneless canned salmon (or use fresh)
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1 tsp saffron
• 2 L water
• sea salt to taste
• 1-2 tbsp canola oil
• 50 g per serving mixed seafood, such as shrimp, calamari, crab, whitefish, mussels and such

Directions:

1. Soak the saffron in 1/2 cup of white wine. Set aside.
2. Heat the canola oil in a large stock pot. Sauté the onions, garlic, carrot and celery root. Turn the heat down.
3. Add the lobster carcass, bay leaves, salmon and saffron wine and stir well.
4. Drain the oil or water off the salmon and add it to the pot.
5. Cover with 2 L of fresh cold water and turn the heat up.
6. Gently simmer for about 1 hour or until vegetables are soft and the broth is fragrant with the ingredients.
7. Strain the liquid into a large bowl with high sides.
8. Remove all the bits of shell from the strained vegetables. Return the vegetables to the broth and blend until smooth and creamy with a good heavy duty immersion blender. Strain through a fine sieve, reserving the pulp. Add cup of the strained soup to the pulp and blend again with the immersion blender, you will be surprised how much more of this pulp can be blended down fine enough to be pushed through the sieve. Press through the fine sieve again into the reserved strained soup. Return this liquid to the soup pot and begin to boil it down to reduce to about 1.5 L. What you want to end up with is a thick, flavourful chowder.
9. When you have the consistency you want, add the mixed seafood (about 50 g per person) and cook through. Ladle the hot chowder into lovely rimmed bowls and pile 50 g of mixed seafood into the centre of each bowl, serve with warm oat scones and butter (pop over to Colin’s blog for the scone recipe).

The oat scones were wonderful with a small pat of butter oozily melting into them.

The oat scones had more texture than a regular scone and was perfect for dipping into the soup.

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Egg-elskiver Foo Yung

The Eastern Seaboard got dumped on again by Nimo and Toronto wasn’t spared this time. A total of 30cm (12inches) covered the city over 28 hours! Could have been worse. Here are a few shots for your enjoyment. Hope you were spared the carnage!

The view from the office

View of the backyard, the morning after

My dear friend Norma (at Garden to Wok) reminded me of a recipe I wanted to try. Norma posted Egg Foo Yung in April last year and I was so struck by it that I made it shortly after, with much success! Norma kindly suggested that next time I try it in the ebelskiver pan that Barb posted about. As you know, this Christmas Santa Barb generously bought me very own Ebelskiver pan and even though I’ve been giving it (and my arms, since it is cast iron) a good workout, I decided it was time to expand the horizons of the humble Ebelskiver pan. Last week, I needed dinner and thought, what an opportunity! So, I pulled out the pan and made Eggelskiver.

Very nicely shaped Eggs in this delightfully light broth

I followed the original recipe exactly, with the exception of the cooking time, since these were a bit thicker, they needed a little oven time (350°F) for about 12 minutes until the egg and seafood are cooked through. Because the round part is at the bottom, they get a gorgeous golden colour without having to flip so don’t bother! I put a few chili flakes onto the soup as garnish.

This casualty was just as tasty as it’s perfect cousins. I thought it was a good opportunity to show the texture. Sweet shrimp and scallops really rounded out the dish (no pun intended; OK, the pun was intended).

I will definitely make this again, thanks Norma for the suggestion, I almost like these better than the original!

I like the size of these balls, you could have one or all four.

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Another Tapas Dinner Party

I released the polenta squares too early! So annoyed with myself so I thought I’d follow it up with some more tapas. I wrote this post before our trip thinking that I’ll be swamped and jet-lagged when we get back, so glad I did because I so am all of the above. Work is nice and busy, I got a great little freelance job in and I’m ready for bed at 8pm most nights! I’m not complaining, just giving you the lay of the land.
I had mentioned that I love tapas dinner parties, so the Sunday before our holiday we had friends Rae and Monica over for a simplified tapas dinner party; their two youngest girls went to a concert close by and they needed to kill a few hours, so we said, come on over! We didn’t have a lot of time, so I had to abbreviate the standard 3×4 courses, so we only had 4×1 courses in total. It was plenty of food. In fact, I had to forgo one of the planned courses; fortunately tapas are make as you go so nothing went to waste, we just had it for dinner later in the week.

I’m also trying Instagram on my iPhone 4Gs, not quite as nice as the Canon, but pretty close. It really does better during the daylight as opposed to night. I never use the flash, mainly because my 3Gs never had one, so I really don’t miss it. What do you think?

Abbreviated Tapas Dinner Party

Sawsans Flat Bread with Tapenade and John’s home made Ricotta

Because you fold the tapenade and ricotta into the dough, it makes it flavourful throughout

Chilled cucumber shooters with greek yogurt. I made the soup with vegetable stock as we had a vegetarian in our midst.

Very tasty little shots

Sizzling garlic Shrimp with cilantro and lemon with home made spelt fajita shells

I thought I made too much food…not

Gluten-free Honey Ginger Cake with fresh figs, candied ginger slices and edible rose petals

No one was gluten-free, but I had some left over cake from the previous night

Lyon and Paris also had to be broken down into two parts, too much stuff to talk about, you’ll see why. I’ll need a vacation from my vacation!

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Shrimp Ceviche with Grapefruit, Avocado, Cucumber and Corn

I had an incredible ceviche salad some time ago that Sissi of With a Glass reminded me of with her lovely recipe for her Hot & Cold Rice Bowl with Shrimp, Avocado and Cucumber. This salad combined the wonderful creamy avocado with the tangy citrus of the refreshing grapefruit. I decided I needed to serve something a little off the beaten path for a dinner we were having with our good friends Rae and Monica a couple of Saturdays ago and came up with this refreshing and flavourful recipe that was inspired by our recent trip to NYC. Norma (Garden to Wok), that lettuce you see in the photo is home grown.

To keep things on the healthier side, I didn’t use flour tostadas but instead substituted them with whole wheat flax fajita shells, cut into triangles and broiled for a few minutes to make them crisp, like crackers.

Our first lunch in NYC inspired this recipe. The lettuce you see is home grown.

Serves 4 appetizer portions

Ingredients:

• 150g raw shrimp (20-30 per lb count), shelled, deveined and chopped into equal bite-sized portions
• 1 small ripe avocado, finely diced with about 3 tbsp lime juice sprinkled on it or you can dice the avocado just before serving
• 1 grapefruit, peeled and sectioned, seeds removed, juice reserved.
• 1/4 cup of frozen corn (defrosted)
• 1/4 cup of finely diced cucumber
• 2 tbsp toasted unsweetened coconut
• 1/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
• 1/4 tsp sesame oil
• pinch of cayenne pepper
• pinch of sugar or honey
• 1 lime cut into wedges
• 4 tbsp avocado paste (recipe can be found here) or use guacamole
• 4 lettuce leaves, washed and stored until serving (we had curly lettuce)
• 1 small fajita shell (we always have whole grain flax)(use gluten free for a GF version)
• 2 tbsp cilantro, chopped roughly
• 1 tsp fresh mint, chiffonade finely
• salt to taste

Directions:

1. Mix the juice from the grapefruit and lime juice in a jar with a lid; taste and add sugar to taste. Add the cut shrimp (raw) pieces and coat well. Refrigerate until the shrimp is entirely opaque (it took my shrimp about 4 hours as I left them in about 1/2″ chunks)
2. In another covered jar, mix the grapefruit, corn and cucumber. Reserve in the refrigerator.
3. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Coat the fajita shell lightly in EVOO. Cut into 8 even triangles. Bake each side until the shells are golden, flipping when done. Allow to cool.
4. When you are ready to serve, add the shrimp (and liquid) to the reserved grapefruit, corn and cucumber and mix; add the sesame oil, cayenne pepper, sugar or honey, salt, cilantro and mint. Stir well.
5. Place one lettuce leaf on each plate. Spoon equal amounts of the ceviche into each leaf. Garnish with a lime wedge and sprinkle with the toasted coconut. Take two of the toasted fajita shells and smear a bit of the avocado paste on each one and stack one on top of another. Garnish each plate with one stack of two.

Notes:

1. Ceviche is seafood cooked with acid. It does indeed cook, but it you are squeamish, then pre-cook your shrimp by boiling it until done. Don’t soak it in the grapefruit/lime mix as it will continue to cook and you will have rubbery ceviche. Simply reserve the shrimp in the fridge and dress when you are ready to serve.
2. This recipe calls for a balance of salty, sweet and sour. I keep my ‘dressing’ separate from the raw shrimp so I can taste it until I am satisfied that it is good.

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Piri Piri Shrimp My Way

Firstly, I would like to add a disclaimer that Kristy from Eat, Play, Love Our Family Food Adventures is not paying me to blog about her recipes (unless she wants to, of course ;-)). It’s just that there are some recipes that click for me, and her choices are often those kinds of recipes. Recently she and the kids made a Piri Piri Shrimp, in a post called Heating Things Up that really caught my interest for a few reasons: garlic and lemon juice, heat and shrimp! Of course, JT and I are still on the low carb, sugar, fat diet for another day or so I’ve had to modify the recipe (not that it wasn’t unhealthy to begin with, it just did not fit the chemical profile we are restricted to). So Kristy, I hope you don’t mind, but I did change it up a touch, hopefully not altering the recipe’s taste. Thanks again for a another flavourful dinner (and incredible lunch the next day!).

Roasting the hot peppers doesn’t really take ALL the heat out of them.

Serves 3 (dinner and 1 lunch, each 100 g protein)

Ingredients:

• 1-2 Serrano chiles
• 4-5 cloves of garlic
• 1 tbsp smoked paprika
• 1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 tbsp vinegar
• 1/3 cup low sodium vegetable stock (I used vegetable stock as it is slightly sweeter than chicken stock, because I replaced the wine vinegar with white vinegar)
• hand full of roughly chopped parsley
• hand full of roughly chopped cilantro
• 300 g (10.5 oz) uncooked, deveined, and peeled shrimp
• lemon wedges (oops, I forgot)

I forgot the lemon wedges.

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven on high broil. Cut the chile peppers in half (don’t bother removing the seeds and stems, they come off easily after roasting). Place the chiles on a lightly sprayed (with fat free cooking spray) baking sheet and roast until blackened, Kristy says about 10 minutes (I didn’t time it).
2. Trim the stems and remove the seeds (the seeds are the really hot bits)
3. In your immersion blender container, combine the chiles, garlic, paprika, lemon juice, vinegar, vegetable stock, parsley and cilantro and purée the ingredients until smooth.
4. Pour 1/4 of the marinade over the shrimp, cover and refrigerate for a minimum of 20 minutes, or up to 24 hours (see note).
5. Heat a large cast iron grill pan on the BBQ (had to involve JT in the cooking, you know how it is). Spray lightly with fat free cooking spray and when hot enough, cook shrimp until done (pink both sides).
6. Serve over greens with a few sweet red peppers drizzled with a bit more of the sauce (but reserve the remainder of the sauce because I have a GREAT IDEA for it for Saturday!)

Notes:

• Citrus can cook seafood quite easily (ceviche is based on this) so if you do leave the shrimp marinading for more than a few hours, check it to see if it’s cooking (starting to turn pink). Otherwise you may end up with rubbery shrimp.
• The Piri Piri sauce was INCREDIBLE — perfect for my taste, JT said it was OK, but perhaps he was just uninspired because the shrimp was served on greens (I live on greens so it was second nature to me) next time, I’ll serve his on Quinoa or Whole Wheat Couscous.
• Roasting the peppers did not minimize the heat, so beware. I adore it and JT found it tolerable, but it could be too hot for some.
• You may wish to add a teaspoon of agave nectar (or some red pepper coulis) to help subdue the heat, I did for JTs dressing but not for mine.
• The sauce is definitely better the next day so you may wish to make it up in advance and let it sit. I used this sauce in a dish I prepared last Saturday for Cinco de Mayo.

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Gluten Free Shrimp Balls

It was St. Patrick’s Day on Saturday and we always go over to Andy and Mark’s Irish Pub, The Roy to celebrate. Andy was a production artist who worked where I work. A few years ago, his partner Mark was down-sized and that’s when they started seriously thinking about opening a pub. Mark is of Irish decent and they named The Roy after Mark’s dad who passed away a year or so earlier. The pub is in a cute little up-and-coming area in the east end of Toronto called Leslieville; Andy and Mark have lived there for about 7 years, maybe more. Andy quit working with us shortly after they opened the pub, and it’s been doing very well. They serve house-made, honest pub food. It’s not expensive and it’s good and you can always be sure that you will get a smile and a hug when you visit.

We invited my friend Kim (boss and neighbour) to join us on our patronage to The Roy so she dropped by the house for a cocktail and a bite (I always serve some food with booze) before we headed over. Late last week I was over at Tracey’s Culinary Adventures and noticed a Shrimp Burger she blogged about and I thought it sounded interesting and way, way back, Greg at Rufus’ Food and Spirits Guide told us about his Mom’s Maryland Crab Cakes…I knew I had to combine the two somehow and make a delicious protein packed appi! Isn’t that what inspiration is all about?

These tasty little morsels were pan fried in a little canola oil

I wanted a protein packed appetizer because we were about to indulge in some drinking..maybe even more than one! And no one wants a HO, at our age! One would think we would know better!

I pan fried some and found the frying did not add to the flavour to any degree, so I baked the rest of them. I made the recipe twice and rolled them around in sesame seeds the second time.

These tasty morsels were baked in the oven

Makes about 12 balls about the size of a melon baller (one bite)

Ingredients:

• 65 g raw shrimp, cleaned, de-veined and tails removed, chopped coarsely
• 1 tbsp cilantro, coarsely chopped
• 1/4 tsp lemon zest
• 1 tbsp fat free mayo
• pinch of cayenne
• 1/2 tsp Worcester sauce
• 1 green onion coarsely chopped
• 2 tbsp egg whites (or one whole egg)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup + 1 tbsp chick pea flour
• 1/4 cup black and white toasted sesame seeds

Directions:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 375°F.
2. Add all of the ingredients except the chick pea flour and the sesame seeds into a mini food processor and process roughly, you don’t want to make the shrimp into a paste, just smallish pieces.
3. Pour contents into a small bowl and stir in the chick pea flour, adding enough to allow the mixture to form into a ball (cookie dough consistency).
4. Roll around in the sesame seeds and place on a cookie sheet about 5 cm apart. Bake for 17 minutes or until they are golden.
5. Serve hot with traditional shrimp sauce (ketchup and horseradish).

Now I don't mean to be rude, but that is MY martini — hands off!

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Titanic Hors d’œuvres: Canapés à l’Amiral

My friend Angela is having a Titanic Anniversary Party (April 14 is the 100 year Anniversary of its sinking) and she is going all out. We will all come in period clothing (hopefully I will have photos!) and I will provide some of my heirloom silverware and serving dishes and some crystal (I inherited many lovely things of that time period from my MIL, fortunately for me, my SIL is not much into cooking or entertaining!). It sounds like it’s going to be a real blast.
I wanted in on the fun, so I asked Angela if I could help out and she kindly offered an hors d’œuvres and a dessert, both of which sound really fun to make. Of course, I needed to practice and test our the recipe so I will blog about my contribution to this momentous affair!

Canapés à l’Amiral are little toasts covered in a “shrimp butter” with a butter sautéed shrimp on top (oops, I forgot the roe as finishing, I shan’t do that for your evening, Angela!). The “shrimp butter” was delicious, and JT bought a beautiful whole wheat baguette with sesame seeds from Cobs near our home – the seeds just added the right amount of texture to the toasts! And the sweet shrimp on top was a wonderful bite with the creamy “shrimp butter”. The roe would have been a nice little burst of texture and saltiness…darn, I wish I had remembered because I do have some in the fridge!

Please help yourself to an hors d'œuvres.

Canapés à l’Amiral

Makes 20 canapés

Ingredients:

• 1/2 thin baguette
• 1 tsp lime juice
• 10 small shrimp, halved lengthwise and sautéed in butter
• Fresh Italian flat-leaf parsley
• 2 tbsp flying fish roe

Ingredients Shrimp Butter:

• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 large shallot, minced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 8 oz shrimp in shells
• 1/4 cup brand
• 4 oz cream cheese, softened
• 2 tbsp butter, softened
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1″ vanilla bean pod, cut lengthwise (dash of vanilla)

That martini is MINE! Hands off.

Directions Shrimp Butter:

1. In a skillet, heat oil over medium heat; add shallots and garlic; cook stirring often for about 5 minutes or until softened.
2. Increase heat to high and add shrimp in shells and sauté, stirring 3 to 4 minutes or until shells are opaque.
3. Transfer this mixture to a food processor. Return pan to stove and pour in the brandy, add the vanilla bean pod; cook stirring for about 30 seconds or until brandy is reduced to a glaze. Remove the vanilla bean pod and scrape into shrimp mixture in the processor.
4. Process the shrimp mixture until finely chopped. (YES, the shells are still in there! It’s about the flavour). Add the softened cream cheese, butter, tomato paste, salt and pepper and process until smooth. Press through a fine sieve and set aside.
5. Slice baguette into 20 thin slices (about 6mm or 1/4″) and toast under broiler for about 1 minute per side or until lightly golden. Set aside.
6. Melt butter in previously used skillet and cook shrimp halves until opaque. Drizzle lime juice over shrimp halves and reserve.
7. Place shrimp butter in a piping bag (or just slather on like I did) and pipe onto toasts equally. Top each one with a cooked shrimp half, a parsley leaf (or cut parsley, like I did) and top each canapé with an equal amount of fish roe (which I forgot to do).

Are you doing anything special for April 14th?

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Left Overs – a clever addition to the Carrot and Courgette Moroccan Salads

Happy Saturday, dear readers! This is a full weekend of chores…some more fun than others, but you shall have to wait for tomorrow to find out. Plus, tomorrow I am going to introduce you to a dear friend who has just started blogging, we’re going to make one of her first blog-recipes tomorrow! I am very excited about it.

Today is my blogging friend, Charles of Five Euro Food, birthday, so I’d like to take this moment and wish him a very happy birthday. Charles has been a loyal commenter since I have discovered the pleasure of reciprocal commenting (OK, it only took me 4+ years!). You have certainly enriched my blogging experience beyond my expectations. Happy Birthday Charles, and many many more!

If you have made any of the Moroccan Salad recipes, you will by now understand the mass quantity of salad you are left with. We have been eating Morrocan salads all week; dallop on this, mixed into that, etc, etc, etc. You can well imagine that we are now a little tired of the same thing :-(!

This week we decided to reinvent our Quinoa Tabouleh recipe; we used RED and regular Quinoa which added colour to an already beautiful salad. And we added the left overs of the Carrot and Courgette (zucchini) Moroccan Salads. We grilled our shrimp and then I made a very simple green sauce with lemon juice, parsley, cilantro and garlic (a tip of the hat to Chimichurri Sauce). It was DELICIOUS. I loved the added flavours that the Moroccan carrot and zucchini brought in and I loved the colour of the red quinoa. If you haven’t already tried tabouleh, you MUST. And making it with quinoa just adds the extra healthiness that we need (and it’s gluten free!).

Reinventing Quinoa Tabouleh

Some other Quinoa recipes I’m sure you will love (sorry if I missed your recipe, some of you didn’t have ‘search’ built into your home page!):

• Quinoa Stuffed Squash from Cooking Healthy for me
• Taste Food has a Tabouleh recipe to check out
• Greg from Rufus’ Food and Spirits Guide has a traditional Tabouleh recipe to check out
• My friend Divya at Flavour Fiesta has a great Quinoa with Mushrooms and Broccoli recipe

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Shrimp Briouat

This past weekend we had our good friends Barb and Kevin over and we thought what better way to give them a taste of our Moroccan experience than to serve a variety of Moroccan delicacy’s that we learned how to make in our cooking classes. The hors d’œuvres for our Moroccan meal comes from our very first class in our Ryad Dar Les Cignones (The Storks – we had an old dilapidated palace across from the hotel where actual enormous storks made their nests!).

This is our lovely Chef at Dar Les Cignones

Our beautiful Chef (sadly, I cannot recall her name) at our Ryad showed us how to make these delicious pillows of Phyllo Pastry (which she actually made herself, although I won’t!) stuffed with a richly spiced shrimp mix. She did not give us a little printout like Maison MK did, so I had to go by memory and find a similar recipe on line and made some minor alterations. The photo below is the one taken with the iPhone4 with the flash at the Ryad. I tried to fix it a bit in Photoshop so it doesn’t look as cold and harsh. The funny story around the briouats is that the Chef specifically asked me if I wanted them deep fried or baked, and I opted for baked ‘pour la santé’ I said. And low and behold, we are served deep fried briouats! They were very tasty non-the-less!

Our baked Briouat with Dar Les Cignones Fried Briouat in the background

Baked Shrimp Briouats

Makes 26 5 cm (2 inch) triangles

Ingredients:

• 300 g shrimp, peel on
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup yellow onion, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon sweet paprika
• Pinch of cayenne
• Large pinch of saffron threads, revived in a little water
• 1/4 cup fresh panko (or bread crumbs, I had panko)
• 5 sheets of phyllo dough
• 1/2 cup olive oil

Directions:

1. Chop the shrimp into 1/2 cm bits, doesn’t have to be even or pretty.
2. Heat a splash of oil in a pan and sauté the onions, add the shrimp and cook through.
3. Add the garlic, tomato paste and spices and stir until you can smell the aroma.
4. Remove from heat and add the panko, mix well.
5. Allow to cool completely and add the fresh parsley and cilantro leaves. Mix well.
6. Take 1 sheet of phyllo at a time, cut into 4-5cm strips. Drizzle with olive oil.
7. Add about 1 tsp of the cooled filling to one end and fold tightly as shown in the diagram.
8. Pre-heat oven to 350 ° F. Bake triangles for 12-15 minutes or until golden. Serve immediately or allow to cool and freeze.

Folding takes practice, make sure you have lots of phyllo on hand!

Baked Shrimp Briouat

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Last Gasp of Summer: Spicy Shrimp Salad

The sun is setting earlier and the temperatures are not reaching the highs that July gifted us. A tree in my neighbourhood has already begun to change colour which means the evening temperatures are dipping lower and lower. The Canadian National Exhibition has been in full swing for a 9 days already. And with that Autumn is fast approaching on Summer’s heals. Sadness at the loss of yet another year pokes at my heart, but as soon as my feet grow accustomed to wearing full shoes and socks, I become excited to dive into my fall wardrobe and of course, my wonderful collection of boots. BBQs, chilled soups and refreshing salads are soon to be replaced by warmer, heartier foods and with that, the house becomes alive again with the wonderful aromas of autumn foods. But I digress. I still have time for one more salad!

A couple of bloggers I follow were recently on the East Coast enjoying the plentiful sea foods offered out there, so I began hankering for a simple shrimp salad. Of course, I’ll make enough to have for lunch at work tomorrow.  And as usual, I’ll take my inspiration from Epicurious, but adding my own twist.

Spicy Shrimp Salad

Spicy Shrimp Salad

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 1 pound cooked medium shrimp, peeled, de-veined, tail off (I hate messing with my fingers when there is a dressing or sauce all over them)
• 1/4 cup mayonnaise
• 2-4tbsp lemon juice
• 1 small red bell pepper, diced
• 1 small yellow bell pepper, diced
• 1/2 cup chopped green onions
• 1/2 cup chopped celery
• 1/2 cup cucumber, diced
• 1 avocado diced (lightly sprinkled with the lemon juice so it doesn’t turn brown)
• 1/2 cup mini tomatoes, halved
• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
• pinch of cayenne
• 1/4 tsp cumin
• 1 garlic clove finely chopped
• 2 garlic scapes, finely chopped
• Handful of baby arugula, per person

Directions:

1. Combine mayonnaise and seasonings in large bowl, add shrimp and avocado and gently mix well to coat.
2. Create a bed of arugula and add the vegetables in the centre. Spoon on top the shrimp avocado mix. Garnish with green onions and chopped scapes.

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Quinoa Tabbouleh and Grilled Lemon Garlic Shrimp

I love Tabouleh – absolutely love it. But bulgar is still a carb, so I don’t make it often. Recently I thought of Quinoa, why not? Searching for recipes, I found that I wasn’t the first to think of it. Oh well! I usually add any veg I have in the house, keeping in mind that you eat with your eyes first – I think it looks like jewels! And it’s a delicious, healthy salad – if you’re hungry, add grilled shrimp or tuna!

Serves 4

Quinoa Tabouleh with Lemon Garlic Grilled Shrimp

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Quinoa
• 2 cups water
• 2 tsp sea salt
• 2 celery stalks
• 1/3 each red, yellow and orange peppers
• 2 green onions
• 10-12 Kalamata olives or sun-dried olives
• 1 vine ripened tomato, seeded
• 1/4 cup frozen corn (may be omitted)
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
• 6 mint leaves
• 4-6 cloves finely minced garlic
• 1/2 cup lemon juice
• Sea Salt
• 10 grilled shrimp seasoned with lemon juice and garlic (juice of 1/2 lemon, 3 finely minced garlic cloves, sea salt to taste, 3 tbsp EVOO, well stirred; marinate shrimp for no more than 1 hour)

Directions:

1. Add salt to water and boil.
2. Toast Quinoa for a couple of minutes in a dry pan – moving around so it doesn’t burn (when you hear it pop, count to 5 and remove immediately)
3. Add Quinoa and cook for 12 minutes on a soft boil, or until all the water is soaked into the Quinoa.
4. While cooking the Quinoa, add minced garlic to lemon juice, allow to sit.
5. Remove Quinoa from heat and add lemon juice and garlic mixture, mix well. Allow to absorb and cool.
6. Chop all veg into similar sized pieces (I like about 1/4″ dice).
7. Chop parsley and mint finely.
8. When Quinoa has cooled, mix everything together. Serve with grilled shrimp!

Oh YUM!

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Coconut Shrimp

Remember that all-time favourite, deep-fried restaurant version? Well, I’ve changed it to a much healthier oven-baked version! Enjoy!

Coconut Shrimp

Ingredients

• 2-3 uncooked shrimp per person
• 2-3 tbsp white flour per shrimp
• 2-4 tbsp egg whites per shrimp
• 1 tsp honey per shrimp
• 2 tbsp unsweetened coconut per shrimp
• sea salt to taste

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 400°F.
2. Line a baking sheet with parchment (for easy cleanup)
3. In three separate bowls, put the flour in one, the coconut in another and the egg whites and honey in the last one.
4. Whip the egg whites and the honey until slightly frothy.
5. Completely dry off the shrimp.
6. Dredge each shrimp in the flour first until well coated.
7. Now dip each one into the egg and honey mixture.
8. Repeat dredging into the flour mixture next until well coated.
9. And repeat into the egg and honey mixture until thoroughly coated TWICE.
10. Now roll into the coconut until it is entirely coated.
11. Lay the shrimp carefully onto the lined cookie sheet.
12. Repeat step 6-12 until all the shrimp have been coated.
13. Bake for 8-10 minutes (depending on the size of your shrimp – my fav’s are the 21-30 per pound) until cooked thoroughly and the coconut is just starting to turn a golden brown.
14. Serve with a sweet and sour dipping sauce (and lots of napkins!)

Sweet and Sour Dipping Sauce
Makes about ½ cup, enough for 12-16 shrimp. Like any sauce, the longer it sits the better it tastes!

• ½ cup lime juice
• 2 tbsp honey
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 tsp fish sauce (or salt if you don’t have fish sauce)
• ¼ tsp chili paste (the Thai version)
• 2 tbsp cilantro leaves finely chopped

Directions

1. Put all ingredients but the cilantro into a blender (or container for the emersion blender) and blend until smooth.
2. Strain into a decorative bowl and garnish with cilantro leaves.

The photo shows the shrimp sitting on the Lee inspired slaw and a papadum, but they are very tasty on their own as well.

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