Baked Stuffed Shrimp

Recently I have been trying to be super good about my eating habits.  My weekday lunches have been poached chicken and salad.  The dressing is just oil and vinegar, diluted with a bit of water, and shaken until emulsified.  Yup, my kitchen is exciting folks!

Weekday breakfasts are equally inspiring.  In a mason jar I combine milk, quick oats, a touch of honey, and some fruit.  Shake to combine and then let sit in the fridge overnight.  My cold oatmeal is less about being in on the latest healthy breakfast trend and more about being the fastest breakfast prep on the planet - unscrew top and insert spoon.

Dinnertime roles around and I let myself off the hook a bit.  I am not an anti-starch person.  Potatoes and I get along rather well and I do not intend for the two of us to ever break up.  However, there are times when I feel food abuses my love of starch.

The prime example is the baked stuffed shrimp.  I see it on restaurant menus or it comes as a dinner option of the wedding rsvp card and I initially think, oooo shrimp!  Then I think, oooo gross stuffing.  Baked stuffed shrimp gets put down in front of you and it's dripping butter in all the wrong ways, the shrimp is rubbery, and the whole thing falls far short of the mark.  Thankfully, I usually remember all of this before I order it.

I found myself thinking about baked stuffed shrimp a few weeks ago.  With the farmer's market in full swing and the weather finally heating up, my mind began to drift to thoughts of water and its contents - seafood! I had bravely attempted swordfish and all of its smelliness.  Now I wanted something I bit easier.  Nothing is simpler to cook than shrimp.  Of course, I realized I wasn't in the mood for simple.

Baked stuffed shrimp isn't simple.  It requires prep work and more ingredients than just a pan, some butter, and a few shrimp.  But, I decided it was time to find a better stuffed shrimp recipe.  Sadly, even Pinterest failed me until I stumbled across a recipe for stuffed squid.

This recipe called for stuffing the tentacles with spinach, tomatoes, and feta.  It sounded wonderful and the perfect substitute for the normal stuffing on shrimp.  I wanted to give mine a bit more Mediterranean flair, so I added kalamata olives.  The result was a baked stuffed shrimp fit for summer!

Mediterranean Style Baked Stuffed Shrimp

Ingredients:

2 lbs. Jumbo shrimp

2/3 lbs. spinach - raw

1 tomato - diced

1/4 c. kalamata olives - sliced

2 oz. feta cheese crumbles

1 egg - lightly beaten

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375F.

Steam spinach in the microwave for about one minute.  Transfer to a heated skillet with a bit of oil and cook for an additional 3 - 5 minutes.  Remove pan from hot burner and let sit as you prep the shrimp and the rest of the stuffing.

Shrimp need to peeled, leaving the tail and that first attached segment.  Carefully butterfly the shrimp, giving yourself a platform to hold the stuffing.  

Once the spinach has cooled down, drain excess liquid.  Place it in a bowl and add the diced tomatoes, sliced kalamata olives, and feta crumbles.  Mix together and then add the beaten egg.  Mix again.  The egg is simply acting as a binder for all of your ingredients.

Place about a tablespoon of stuffing onto each shrimp.  Bake for 20 minutes.

I loved everything about this recipe.  It was nice and fresh with really great flavors.  The olives and feta gave the dish a nice tangy bite.  Most importantly, nothing overpowered the shrimp.  This is a perfect light recipe for summer!

Dandelion Greens

I enjoy using the farmer's market as a way to push my own cooking boundaries.  There are always vendors selling items I've never tried before and the person who grew it is almost always right in front of me.  If I'm curious about the best way to prepare something or what it will taste like when cooked, they have the answer.  This is what led me to pick up dandelion greens when I saw them being sold by Blue Skys Farm.

Blue Skys always has fantastic produce and flowers and always seems to surprise me with their weekly market offerings.  For a few weeks, at the start of the farmer's market season, they were selling bags of dandelion greens.  I had never tried them, never even realized they were edible, but there they were.

I asked what a person would do with dandelion greens and immediately everyone around said I could add them to salads or saute them with other greens.  I probably should have been on guard when the vendor said she didn't really like them, too bitter for her, but I went ahead and bought them anyway.

Once home, I started searching around on the interwebs to find recipe ideas.  Many articles cited the dandelion greens' bitterness as either its attraction or detraction.  After reading about how bitter they can be, I decided it was best to cook the heck out of them and let them stand alone.  Since I had never tried them before, if they were still too bitter for my liking once cooked, I didn't want to ruin an otherwise perfect dish.

Thankfully, my decision to err on the side of caution proved smart.  I boiled them first in salted water for 10 minutes.  While they drained in a colander, I heated some olive oil in a skillet then cooked a sliced garlic clove for about a minute.  I transferred the greens to the skillet and cooked them for about 5 minutes, until they were thoroughly wilted.

I gave them a taste test and realized they were still way too bitter for my taste buds.  I ended up sacrificing a handful of pea shoots in an attempt to cut the bitterness.  They were added to the skillet and cooked for about 2 minutes, just long enough to wilt the leaves but leaving a bit of crispness to the stems.

The meal wasn't a complete waste.  I had an excellent piece of swordfish as the main component. And, overall, I was glad I tried them.  Now I know that dandelion greens are not my cup of tea.

Carrot Top Pesto

Yup, you read that right...carrot top pesto.  I've never really been a fan of pesto.  Growing up, pasta sauces came in either red or white, never green.  Plus, I really like a thick sauce that you can drown your penne in.  That's not really an option with pesto, so I never jumped on the pesto bandwagon.

This recipe hasn't made me do a 180 where pesto is concerned.  However, I do like adding to my arsenal of recipes and I don't like to be wasteful.  Now I can buy carrots with greens attached at the farmer's market and they might just find their way into the food processor instead of the trash bin.

The farmer's market is actually where I heard about this recipe.  I was eavesdropping on the woman in line in front of me.  I didn't have much choice, there is not much personal space at a crowded produce table and I was waiting to pay for my arugula. I don't remember if the carrot purchaser asked if there was something she could do with carrot greens or if the info was randomly volunteered, but I walked away with the need to investigate further.

I found more recipes than I would have thought were out there, but they all followed a pretty basic set of ingredients.  They all contained some sort of nut, either basil or parsley, and olive oil.  What really got me interested was the variety of nut choices.  I always though of pesto as strictly calling for pine nuts, but with the carrot greens pesto some people people suggested not only pine nuts, but also almonds, macadamias, or even cashews.  I settled on a recipe with cashews because I have a thing for them. It's the nut I always save for last when eating mixed nuts.

Carrot Top Pesto

Ingredients:

1 c. carrot leaves

1/2 c. fresh parsley leaves

1/4 c. unsalted roasted cashews

1 clove garlic

1/2 c. olive oil

1/4 c. Parmesan cheese

salt to taste

Directions:

Pick the leaves from the larger stems of the carrot greens, until you have 1 cup.  Press down the leaves a pit in the measuring cup as you add them, you want a full cup of leaves.

Once you have the leaves from the carrots and the leaves from the parsley, add them to a food processor with the cashews and garlic.

Grind ingredients together with about 7 to 10 pulses or until coarsely ground.  

Turn the processor on and slowly add the olive oil.  Add the Parmesan cheese and pulse until incorporated.  Salt to taste.

Now I will freely admit to not having the world's best processor, so my version is probably a bit coarser than what other people might get in the end.  Regardless of how it turns out, it makes a great addition to your favorite pasta.

DIY Gin

Gin and tonic is basically my jam come summer time.  It's hot and sunny out - there is a G&T in my hand.  However, as any imbiber knows, hard liquors are expensive.  Then I found out you can make gin at home...thank you knitting club ladies!

Some of you may already be getting nervous.  Have no fear.  Homemade gin is about as simple as it gets.  All you need is your foundation alcohol and your spices/herbs/aromatics of choice.  Let it set for several days, strain, and drink.  No, I'm not kidding.  At the base of it, that is all it took.

Obviously no recipe of mine is complete without a little stress.  But, if you adhere to the PSA that follows, you will avoid my near mishap.  Beware the size of your bottle.  I wasn't really thinking the whole process through and I used a bottle with a thin neck.  Well...what happens to cinnamon sticks after they've been steeping in liquid for several days?  They swell.  What does a swollen cinnamon stick do?  It gets stuck in the neck of the bottle.  Luckily a little patience and a thin knife did the trick.

A couple of tips before I jump to the recipe.  I did a bit of research and some recipes I found advised using decent vodka while others said it's best to use the cheap store brand.  I went with the cheap store brand that was also labeled as a grain neutral spirit.  I was out to make myself some gin, not make some infused vodka.  I happen to be a Tanqueray fan and Tanqueray is a grain neutral spirit, so that solved my first conundrum. Next, unless you are okay with destroying a britta filter, your gin will be brown.  I'm quite positive the coloration is a result of the juniper berries.  It doesn't affect the taste and once it's mixed with tonic you won't even notice.  The recipes that go low tech will have you strain the gin through a cheesecloth.  I went with a mesh strainer for the first pass and a coffee filter for pass two - it worked just fine.

Homemade Gin

Ingredients:

750 mL 80 proof vodka

1/4 c. juniper berries

6 cardamom pods - coarsely crushed

2 bay leaves

1 cinnamon stick

3 4-inch pieces of grapefruit peel (just the peel, no pith)

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in an air tight glass jar.

Please don't mind the stove.  It happened to be a particularly gloomy day
and the best place for a pic was the kitchen.

Let sit for 1 week in a dark place, shaking the bottle each day.

Strain first through a mesh strainer to catch the larger pieces.  Then do a second pass through a coffee filter.

What you have left is your own personal craft gin.

Homemade vs. Tanqueray Taste Test

Based on taste and aroma, I would guess that Tanqueray is made with orange peel, while mine gets its citrus flavor from grapefruit.  The difference is subtle but still detectable.  Both have a similar spiciness in taste and aroma.  Mine has a distinct cinnamon flavor while the Tanqueray does not.  I am curious to know what difference would be made by substituting a couple of teaspoons of crushed cinnamon for the whole stick. Finally, and most importantly, mine is just as refreshing with tonic over ice!