New Orleans Cajun Shrimp Pasta

Some like it hott......and I'm one of them!

This was lip burnin, nose runnin  Hhhhhhhhottt!

Ingredients (Large serving for 1):

1/4 Onion sliced

1 Shallot sliced

1 Garlic Clove minced

1 Sm Tomato seeded and chopped

1 Lemon wedge

4 Tbsp Green Onions chopped

1 Can Chicken Broth

10-15 Raw Peeled & De-Veined Shrimp

Blackened Seasoning

Crushed Red Pepper

Penne Pasta

Olive Oil

• In a saute pan add garlic and olive oil, heat pan and add shrimp coated in blackened seasoning
• Cook on one side for about 2 min, remove from pan, place in bowl and cover with foil
• Add onion, shallot and tomato to the pan
• De-glaze with fresh lemon juice and then add 1 can of chicken broth and a dash of red pepper flakes
• Simmer down by about half and add green onion
• Add in cooked penne pasta and cooked shrimp along with all juice from the bowl of shrimp
• Bring to simmer for about 2 minutes and serve!

(My favorite blackened seasoning...has to be the "redfish".  It's the best!)

ENJOY!!!!

Brussels Sprouts w/ Caramelized Onions and Shallots

I love Brussels sprouts and just had to include them in my Thanksgiving menu. 

This was a simple, but delicious addition to our meal. 

In a combo of olive oil and butter saute:

2 sm. Onions

5 Shallots

Sprinkle with salt and a little sugar

Saute until tender and caramelized.

Clean sprouts, pull off bottom layer of leaves, cut off butt (for lack of a better term)

and quarter the sprouts. 

Blanch them in a pot of boiling salt water for 2 minutes. 

Remove and drain in colander.

To the caramelized onion pan add 2 T Butter and blanched sprouts.

Saute everything together and season with S&P. 

Serve and Enjoy!

Cheesy Marinara Noodle Bake

I'm still not feeling very good at all. When I'm sick the only thing that makes me feel better is comfort food. Today's craving was spaghetti! I made a quick marinara sauce, mixed it with 3 cheeses, noodles and baked it to bubbly goodness! It really hit the spot!

Sauce:
Olive oil
1 shallot
2 roasted garlic cloves
Sauté for a couple mins
Add:
1 lg. can crushed tomatoes
1/4 fresh chopped basil and oregano
Dash red pepper flakes
Season to taste w/ S&P and a little sugar if your tomatoes are to acidy
Simmer to 10-15 min

Mix you favorite cooked noodles in a bowl with mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses, lots of marinara sauce and top with fresh sliced mozzarella!

Bake or broil until the mozzarella starts to get brown and crispy! Top w/ more fresh basil and dig in!

Soup For One

I really love soup but I don't like making a big pot of it.  Having the same soup five days in a row does not appeal to me.  I bought one of these pressure cookers and it makes making soup for one SO easy and quick.:  LINK 

While cooking the above ingredients soak your dry beans.  I will put a scoop of beans in a cup every night to soak for the next day (I think beans are important for health).  Sometimes I forget so I do a quick soak.  Boil some water, put in dry beans, remove from heat, let sit for an hour, drain and lastly rinse.

OK.  Beans soaked.  Spices simmered and also drained.  Put the above ingredients and the below ingredients back into the pressure cooker and cook for 5 more minutes after bringing up to pressure.

In real human time I'd say simmer for for about 30 minutes.  Great Northern beans cook fairly quickly.  In pressure cooker time it's really only five minutes.  I bring it up to pressure, set timer for 5, then turn off the heat.  20 minutes after that you open the pan and viola!

Just another picture of my ingredients.  I'm really loving parsnips lately.   

Isn't it beautiful?  It may seem like a lot of work for one bowl of soup, but it really wasn't.  Once the broth was done and the beans soaked I only had the stove on for ten minutes.  I'm glad I experimented with star anise some more.  I'm learning less is more with that ingredient.  This soup was so flavorful I didn't have to add any more salt.  The parsnips are sweet enough to play off the spiciness of the Sarancha.  

In case anybody is wondering this is 6 Weight Watchers points as done by their current recipe builder.

Southwest Turkey Soup

Using the second half of the turkey stock and meat I picked off of the bones, I made this spicy spoof on white chicken chili.

Ingredients:
Turkey broth and shredded meat
1 can drained corn
1 can drained great northern beans
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can salsa (I used my fresh salsa but jared salsa would work)
Season with salt, pepper and cumin
Simmer for about an hour

Serve with shredded cheese, crushed tortilla chips and fresh green onions (mine came straight from my kitchen window experiment). I would have also added sour cream if I had it, but I didn't.

Turkey-N-Noodles

Not feeling so hot and couldn't think of anything more appetizing than a hot bowl full of noodles. I boiled the turkey carcass from Thanksgiving and have a rich pot full of stock. Shredded turkey, stock, onion, roasted garlic, carrots, red skin potatoes and egg noodles.

Perfect!!

And growing......

Thanksgiving Dinner

Bruschetta Appetizer

Cranberry Salad

Sweet Potato Hash

Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes w/ Truffle Butter Turkey Gravy

Brussel Sprouts with Carmelized Onions and Shallots

Homemade Dressing with Mushrooms and Leeks

Grandmother's Yeast Rolls

Turtle Pumpkin Pie

Itallian Bread Dressing with Mushrooms and Leeks

Keeping mostly with the traditional dressing my family is used to, I just added a couple additional flavors... mushroom and leeks. 

The day before cut the crust off 3 loaves of Italian bread.  Cube and let dry out for at least 24 hours or dry in the oven on low without allowing it to brown.

Dice into a soup pot:

3 Celery stalks

1 Sm Onion

2 Garlic Cloves

2 Leeks (well cleaned)

1 pkg. Baby Bella Mushrooms

6 sprigs of Thyme chopped

10-15 Sage leaves

Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper

Saute over medium heat until all ingredients are tender - about 15 minutes

Use the giblets from the turkey to make a broth to use in the dressing.

In a sauce pan w/ the giblets saute until tender:

1 sm. onion

2 garlic cloves

Olive Oil

6 sage leaves chopped

S&P

Add: 8 C Water - Simmer down by about 1/3rd

Season to taste with S&P

 

Combine broth with vegetables and pour over bread cubes.  I had to add a little bit of turkey stock from a can to wet down the bread enough.  Place dressing in an oven safe dish and bake @ 350 for at least 1/2 hour to heat through. 

Cover with turkey gravy and Enjoy!!!

Grandmother's Yeast Rolls

This recipe took most of a day to prepare.  It was a day I will never forget.  It means so much to me to know how to make my Grandmother's rolls.  These are the most delicious, addicting rolls you will ever eat.  It is well worth all of the work to prepare them.  Guaranteed!!!

1.  Sift 5 cups of flour onto wax paper

2. In a pot on the stovetop add 1 C Milk, 1 C Water, 1 stick of butter, 4 Tbls sugar and 1 Tsp Salt

Over low heat melt the butter completely and heat just until it starts to boil.  Remove from heat as soon as you see the start of a boil. 

3. Crumble 1.2 oz fresh yeast when liquid is room temp.

4.  Add 2 beaten eggs

5. Remeasure and sift in 5 C flour

6. Stir together, cover with a lid and let rest for about 2-3 hours 

7. Get together rolling pin, flour and dough

8. Stir down the dough and pour onto a floured service.

9. Flour the top of the dough

10. Roll the dough out to about 1/4" thick

11. Using a glass rocks cup dipped in flour to cut rounds

12.  Dip each round about half way into melted butter

13. Pull dough to oval shape and fold in half with butter inside, place in buttered pan with space between each roll leaving room to rise.

14. Refrigerate immediately until you are ready to let rise and bake.  They will rise to about twice the size.  Bake @ 425 for 5-8 minutes, just until the tops of the rolls are golden brown.  Serve hot out of the oven with butter and jelly.  My Grandmother loves to serve them with apricot jam.  The yeast smell that fills the house is unbelievable.  It is a must on the Thanksgiving menu!!!  

Ingredients

5 C flour plus flour for rolling

1 C Whole Milk

1 C Water

4 TBLS sugar

1 tsp salt

2 eggs

1.2 oz fresh yeast

2 sticks of butter

Cheesy Mushroom Panini

I made the bread because we had some left over yeast from making my Grandmother's yeast rolls for Thanksgiving. It turned out like a focaccia w/ roasted garlic, mozzarella, provolone and parmesan cheeses in it. I want to make it again before blogging because I was deliriously tired and I'm not really sure how I made it. Oops! But at least it was a good outcome!

For the filling I sautéed baby Bellas, onions and shallots in olive oil and of little dash of white truffle oil. White truffle oil is mines favorite ingredient. It adds such a unique delicious flavor. I can't wait to experiment more with it.

In the same pan I grilled the bread with mozzarella and Gorganzola cheeses and added the sautéed veggies. Flip, grill, melt the cheese and prepare for heaven in sandwich form.

I could eat this every day!!!

Pumpkin Spice Shooter

•1/2 Kahlua
•1/2 Baileys floated on top
•spoonful of Goldschlagger
Light on fire and sprinkle with cinnamon

Root Vegetables For One

1 carrot, peeled and cut into big pieces
1 parsnip, peeled and cut into big pieces
1 celery stalk, cut into big pieces
1/4 fennel bulb, cut into strips

Coat all the above with olive oil and a drizzle of agave syrup

Put in roasting pan and sprinkle oregano and a little crushed red pepper on top

Bake in oven on 375 for 30 minutes

This was very tasty.  This is also the first time I tried a parsnip.  They cook just like carrots.  They taste kind of like a carrot and a potato had a baby together.  Has an earthy sweet flavor.

The above picture is the before I baked them picture.  I didn't remember to get an after picture until I was done eating them.

Cheeseburger Pizza

This one is my husband, J's, invention.  He is very proud of himself.  I must say it is delicious and he is tickled I'm putting it on this blog.  He took a picture for me and emailed it to me with sighing once.

1, 9" Extra Thin Pizza Crust (we get ours at Sofo's here in Toledo)
2 tablespoons of pizza sauce and 1 tablespoon of ketchup mixed together
1 ground hamburger patty with a sprinkle of Seasoned Salt and pepper, cooked
diced onion
Colby Jack shredded cheese

Pile those ingredients on the crust and bake in a 350 degree toaster oven for about 6 minutes

diced dill pickle
drizzle ketchup
drizzle mustard

Put those on the halfway cooked pizza and then bake for another 5 minutes or so until done.  These crusts bake up crispy like tortilla chips.  So good.

It truly tastes like a cheeseburger!

Turtle Pumpkin Pie

My sister in law, Summer, made the most delicious pie for desert today.  It was a perfect light ending to a heavy glutenous dinner.  This picture doesn't do it much justice.  Just know that if a desert is on my blog, it must have been really good.  I am not a desert girl and very, very rarely make my own.  This one I will probably make some day!

Turtle Pumpkin Pie

1/4 c. caramel sauce topping

crust

1/2 c. plus 4 tbls spoons pecan pieces

1 c. milk

2 pkg. (4 serving) Vanilla Instant Pudding

1 c. canned pumpkin

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg

1 tub (8oz.) cool whip, thawed

REFRIGERATE 1 hr. top with more pecans and drizzle caramel on top. store leftovers in refrigerator

Food for Thought on Thanksgiving

-Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving!


-If you made a list of all the things you could be thankful for, the list would undoubtedly be longer than your misfortunes.


-I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new." Ralph Waldo Emerson

HAPPY THANKSGIVING ALL! 

May your stuffing be tasty
May your turkey plump,
May your potatoes and gravy
Have nary a lump.
May your yams be delicious
And your pies take the prize,
And may your Thanksgiving dinner
Stay off your thighs!

Gorgonzola Honey Butter Bread

I made something similar last weekend! I had all of the left-over ingredients and decided to try it a little different this time. Very happy with the outcome!

::Slice French Baguette Thin

::In a bowl mix butter, Gorgonzola cheese and honey in equal amounts

::Spread on bread slices and bake @350 just until the spread melts and begins to brown on the edges.

Yummmmmm!

Tis the Season!!

Great Lakes Christmas Ale seems to never be in stock so experimenting with some others is a must! This one is delicious!!!

Truffles are hard to find....

My Thanksgiving feast is complete! White Truffle oil was my last ingredient! Yet another reason that I am a Maxx-inista!!!