Tag: shrimp

Low Carb Caribbean Shrimp Bruschetta

done3

Last year at this time my family and I were just coming back and recovering from an amazing trip to Jamaica where we celebrated my sister and brother-in-law’s wedding!  There was sand, there was surf, there was a beautiful beach chair and tropical drink waiting for me daily, ahhhh.  I’m not gonna lie, it was nice!

Although I won’t be traveling to the Caribbean this year, there is always a vehicle to get me back there if just for a few moments… FOOD  Food glorious food can really take you anywhere in the world and with this dish I am transported right back to those white sand beaches and clear blue waters!

If you are looking for a fancy shmancy appetizer to serve at your next cocktail party or if you are having a fun and festive Caribbean style get together, this dish is easy, delicious and can totally be made ahead and built just before serving!  AND its low carb, gluten-free and super healthy!

Start with a ripened plantain.

Taking the peel off is not quite as easy as with a banana.

Slice thinly on an angle.

Deep fry in veggie oil.

Drain fried plantains on a paper towel.

Immediately salt.

Grab some bacon.

Cut bacon into three segments.

Sprinkle shrimp with some Jamaican Jerk Rub. This one is by Pampered Chef.

Pan fry in either butter or veggie oil.

Now you have three elements ready to go.

Gather these ingredients for your caribbean style pico de gallo.

I am using my Pampered Chef Manual Food Processor today because I want to be able to control just how processed the ingredients get, I want a small dice, but I don’t want to liquefy.

Dice up your tomatoes, red onion and peppers. For this, I am using sweet peppers, but you can totally use jalapeno peppers or even ghost peppers if you want to really go Jamaican!

Place the onion, tomato, peppers and cilantro in the food processor.

Process lightly.

Add the squeeze of half an orange.

Continue to process.  Add in kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper.

I added in some Portuguese hot ground pepper. (Pimenta Moida)

Cover the fried plantain with the pico de gallo.

Add a piece of fried bacon.

Add a little more pico de gallo.

Add your shrimp right on top and sprinkle with a bit more cilantro.

Low Carb Caribbean Shrimp Bruschetta

Yield 12 Bruschetta

1 ripened plantain, sliced and deep-fried in 2 cups Canola Oil

12 medium shrimp, peeled and deveined with tail on

4 pieces of bacon, cut into thirds and fried until just crisp

For Pico de Gallo:

1 plum tomato, roughly chopped

1/2 red onion, roughly chopped

3 sweet peppers, roughly chopped

1/2 small orange, juiced

1 small handful cilantro

1 Tbs. Pimenta Moida (Portuguese ground red pepper)

1 tsp. Pampered Chef Jamaican Jerk Seasoning, plus more for shrimp

kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

Deep fry 12 slices of ripened plantains, set aside on paper to drain.  Season shrimp with a sprinkle of Jamaican Jerk seasoning and salt. Pan fry with butter.  Set aside.  Pan fry bacon until just crisp, set aside on paper to drain.

For salsa, add in tomato, peppers, cilantro, onion, Pimenta Moida and Jamaican Jerk Seasoning and a pinch of salt and black pepper to taste into a food processor.  Process until a fine salsa is made.

Build your bruschetta = 1 plantain, 1 tsp pico de gallo, 1 pc. bacon, a little more pico de gallo, top with shrimp. Garnish with more cilantro.

 

Ratatouille with Shrimp & Buttered Egg Noodles

 

done2

I truly love to garden. My father and my grandfathers always kept beautiful gardens.  More than the gardening itself though, I love the produce that comes out of the garden… But, I must confess since I have had my two little cherubs, I haven’t really found the time needed to keep up a good garden… I used to produce beautiful tomatoes, hearty cucumber plants, shiny purple egg plants, and squash that would last right through to Thanksgiving! That was pre-kids though…  I have had a couple of half-hearted attempts since then, but there is something about being 7,8 and 9 months pregnant in the summer heat that does not really endorse the sweat that goes into maintaining a good garden.  And so that started it off… I will do little project with my kids, like planting peas or digging up potatoes, clipping fresh mint… but next year I am determined to have my full fledged garden once again!

Luckily, I live in an area where there is no shortage of farm stands or Farmer’s Markets! Yay me!  So, although it’s not quite as satisfying as growing something yourself and turning it into a delicious life-sustaining meal… it’s still pretty great and I get to support the local farming community along the way.  This meal is a prime example of how to turn gorgeous in season produce into something really quite amazing.  If you have never tried Ratatouille, I suggest you do!  Chock full of 5 different veggies that are all in season right now, Ratatouille is great way to either put those home grown goodies to good use or to support your local economy and eat a healthy and nutritious meal at the same time!

A traditional dish developed in the French country side, Ratatouille is meant to use up whatever vegetables a farmer might have on hand.  I prefer to limit that to these 5… eggplant, zucchini, pepper (bell), onions and tomatoes (EZ-POT).   It is great as a side dish or a main dish if you are a vegetarian, but my most favorite way to enjoy this dish is over a bed of buttered egg noodles and topped with some beautifully grilled shrimp.  Let me show you how I do it…

Start off by preparing your vegetables. I am chopping these onions pretty large, about the size of a half dollar... so you will either need one large onion as I have here or two medium.

Start off by preparing your vegetables. I am chopping these onions pretty large, about the size of a half-dollar… so you will either need one large onion as I have here or two medium.

One sweet bell pepper will do it and be sure to keep the size relatively the same as you did the onions.

Keeping the veggies all around the same size, chop your zucchini.

Aren’t these mini egg plants just beautiful? I found these at a local Farmer’s Market and I knew I needed to figure out some way to use them!

They are so small that most of them, I simply cut in half, but the larger ones, I quarter.

Grabbed these beautiful Roma tomatoes at the Farmer’s Market too.

That’s it for prepping your veggies, now let’s move on to the cooking… You will need one medium heavy bottom pot, I am using a enamel coated cast iron pot. You will also need a bowl used to keep the sautéed veggies as you go through each step.

Start with some olive oil in a nice heavy bottomed pot… You will continue to add in just a tablespoon or so of olive oil before each sauteing each vegetable.

Saute vegetables one at a time and remove from pot when through with each one, reserving them for the end. I start with my onions.

Next I move on to my zucchini. I have removed the perfectly cooked onions so they don’t get over cooked.

After removing my zucchini, I add in a bit more olive oil and saute my mini egg plants. I continue this process next with the peppers and the tomatoes.

Once the tomatoes have been sautéed, add in all the reserved veggies… Then add in the fresh herbs and taste for salt and pepper… add if needed. Simmer for 10 minutes and serve hot. (at this point you could also add 1 clove of garlic, minced)

Add in a couple sprigs of thyme. Mine is young thyme from a little plant I have in my kitchen, so no need to remove the leaves, if you have a heartier plant, just remove the leaves and chop a bit.

My Rosemary is also from a plant in my kitchen, but is a bit more hearty, so I removed the leaves from about half a sprig and chopped them before adding into my pot.

After simmering for 10 minutes, this should be your end result.

Now to get some quick shrimp going…

Simply sprinkle some Hungarian Paprika (if you don’t have the Hungarian variety, just add about a 1/4 tsp of cayenne pepper to 1 Tbs. of plain paprika). Add on a sprinkle of kosher salt and your prep is done. These are easy peel, deveined shrimp.

Lay them out on a hot grill pan that has been drizzled with a bit of olive oil.

When they start to get pink, after about a minute, flip each one and cook another minute or so.

done1

done4

Recipe for Ratatouille with Shrimp & Buttered Egg Noodles:

(serves 6-8)

For the Ratatouille:

1 large onion, large diced

1 medium zucchini, sliced and halved

1 small eggplant (or 8 mini eggplants), large diced

2-3 Roma tomatoes, sliced and halved

1 sweet bell pepper, large diced

2 sprigs fresh Thyme, chopped

1/2 sprig Rosemary, chopped

kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper

10 Tbs. olive oil

For the Shrimp:

1 dozen large shrimp, deveined and easy peel

2 tsp. Hungarian paprika

kosher salt to taste

1 Tbs. olive oil

For the Egg Noodles:

1/2 package broad egg noodles

6 cups salted water

1/4 stick butter

Kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper

1 clove garlic, minced (optional)

Directions:

In a medium heavy bottomed pot set over medium heat, saute each vegetable in 2 Tbs. of olive oil separately keeping the tomatoes for last.  After each vegetable is sautéed, set aside and reserve.  After the last vegetable is sautéed, the tomatoes, add in all the reserved vegetables.  Add in herbs and salt and pepper and simmer for ten minutes.

Add Hungarian Paprika and salt to shrimp in a small bowl.  Then, in a hot grill pan drizzled with 1 Tbs. olive oil, grill shrimp on both sides until pink throughout.

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil.  Add in noodles.  Cook to package specifications.  Drain… Add in butter salt and pepper.

On a platter… Lay out egg noodles first, then layer on the Ratatouille and then top with shrimp.  Serve, enjoy!

*Note: Ratatouille itself along with the shrimp are gluten-free… use rice noodles in keeping with the set up of the dish or serve without noodles.

Shrimp Mozambique (Camarão Moçambique)

9 Comments

done2

 

Although this meal can feed a number of people, I decided to make this dish for my husband as a surprise dinner at home after the kids were tucked into bed.  It was our Engage-aversary, 9 years since he popped the question, what better time for an elegant meal?  But, it was a Tuesday night, he was working and I had charge of two toddlers all day and evening… so needless to say my energy was not at its peek.  I needed a quick meal that was just fancy enough for my little candle lit affair… I had some shrimp in the freezer and everything else in the pantry… so, I thought why not?  The dish was delish as always and we got to celebrate and have an adult date night right in our own dining room.

I grew up eating Shrimp Mozambique.  And to eat Shrimp Mozambique is to love Shrimp Mozambique. In my family and in my little area of New England, Shrimp Mozambique is a mainstay.  We serve it every Christmas and several times throughout the year for different gatherings and parties.  Elegant in its presentation, exotic in its flavor and almost magical in its ability to transform a dinner into a party!  All this and you might think this is going to be a long drawn out and expensive recipe that is hard to understand and even harder to follow… but you would be all wrong on all counts.  In fact, Shrimp Mozambique is not only quick and easy, but pretty reasonable to make at home especially if you can pick up this size shrimp on sale for $6.99 for a 2 lb. bag like I did in the freezer section!

With under 10 ingredients, most of which you will be able to find in your pantry… onions, garlic, salt etc. it’s super easy to throw together. And from start to finish you can have this meal on the table in under 30 minutes. The two ingredients that are key in this dish are the Azafran (but this can be easily subbed out with saffron) and the crushed red pepper.  Crushed red pepper is a wet jarred pepper that is usually ground and cured with salt.  You should be able to find it in your Portuguese or Spanish section of your market.

Melt one stick of butter into a pot.

Finely dice 1/2 a large onion or one whole medium onion.

Add onions into your melted butter… you will want to get these started before you add in the garlic as they have a longer cook time than garlic and the last thing you want is burnt garlic!

You will need about 6 cloves of garlic.

Smash your garlic before mincing, it helps to release lots of the flavors on everyone.

Mince garlic.

Once the onions have started to soften, add in your garlic.

You will want to be sure to stir frequently.

Azafran seasoning is similar to saffron, but only about 1/5 the price.4

You will need one packet per pound and so in this case we are making two pounds, so we will need to add two packets.

Add in two packets of the Azafran seasoning.

Add in one heaping Tbs. crushed red pepper. (I think this photo is so cool… my pepper was in the fridge and the pot is really hot causing that white smoke you see around the pepper)

I’ve always been partial to this size shrimp for this recipe. If you like bigger shrimp, go ahead and use it, but this works well for parties, family dinner or anytime.

You can put them in the pot straight from the freezer, no need to pre-soak. I should mention that I leave the peel on, I feel like half the flavor of this dish comes from that peel… I know it can be a bit of a pain to peel while you eat, but it is sooo worth it… and hey, it will slow you down too! Take some time to enjoy your meal!

Stir to coat the shrimp with all the spices and color.

Add in one bottle of beer any run of the mill domestic will do. (If you are allergic to gluten, you could substitute about 1 1/2 cups of dry white wine or just a gluten-free beer)

Be sure the shrimp are coated. Add in a pinch of kosher salt.

Cover and bring to a boil over high heat, when it comes to a boil lower heat to a simmer and cook for 8-12 minutes and then immediately remove from heat.

The last thing you want is overcooked, mushy and mealy shrimp. Do not over cook this. Shrimp cook really quickly, the smaller the shrimp the faster the cook… I am allowing 8-12 minutes for larger shrimp and to cook off the alcohol in the beer.

There… perfectly cooked shrimp! Now, don’t forget to taste for salt, add another pinch if needed.

For a party, I like to keep white rice separate, but for a dinner party or meal at home, I like to plate my shrimp right onto a bed of cooked white rice.

done3

done4

Recipe for Shrimp Mozambique (Camarão Moçambique):

(serves 4-6, dinner —- serves 10-15 party)

2 lbs frozen, deveined, easy peel shrimp (do not remove peel)

1 stick butter

1/2 lg. onion, finely diced

6 garlic cloves, smashed and minced

1 Tbs. crushed red pepper, heaping

1 beer (12 oz)

2 packets Goya Azafran Seasoning

kosher salt to taste

Directions:

In a medium pot, melt one stick of butter.  Add in onions, saute for about 5 minutes.  Add in garlic, saute an additional 5 minutes.  Add in a pinch of salt.  Add in Azafran, stir.  Add in crushed red pepper, stir.  Add in frozen shrimp, stir to coat shrimp in sauce.  Add in beer, stir, cover and bring to a boil.  Once it comes to a boil, lower to a simmer and cook for 8-12 minutes. Taste for salt, add if needed.  Serve over a bed of white rice.

Enjoy!

*note – Gluten-free adjustment, use gluten-free beer or white wine in place of beer.

Grilled Shrimp Scampi

4 Comments

done3

Easy entertaining is all about good preparation.  I have a book club with my mom, sisters and some very close friends.  Last month was my turn to host and I am just getting around to sharing with you all my menu…

Dinner for 8: All Grilled Menu… 1st Course – Grilled Romaine Salad topped with bacon, avocado and a homemade buttermilk ranch dressing.  2nd Course – Grilled Shrimp Scampi over linguine Fini and a Grilled Tostada.  3rd Course – Grilled Pound Cake with strawberries and grilled peaches dressed with a simple syrup and topped with homemade whipped cream.  Um… yum.

Grilling food is a great way to take a classic menu and give it a smoky twist. Grilling your fruit helps to bring out natural sugars in the caramelization process.  And grilling things like your lettuce, keep your guests on their toes!  And if you have everything prepared ahead of time, grilling keeps you out of the kitchen and outside with your guests!

Today we will start with the main course.  I didn’t focus on cooking the linguine fini, just follow the package instructions for that.  We will cover the Grilled Shrimp, the scampi sauce and the Grilled Tostada.

Start with your marinade:

Add in about 1-2 cups of dry white wine. This depends on your prep bowl, you need enough to cover the shrimp.

Add in a few slices of lemon and the juice of about 1 lemon.

Add in a few slices of lemon and the juice of about 1 lemon.

Add in some dried red ground pepper.

Add in some dried red ground pepper.

Add in a healthy pinch of kosher salt.

Stir all together and let marinade for about 20-30 minutes tops

Just before your guests arrive, skewer your shrimp and set aside. Having the shrimp on skewers helps to portion it all out.  Be sure to reserve the marinade liquid, it will be used in the next step.

For the scampi sauce:

Start off by melting one stick of butter into a large skillet… Remember, this is going to feed 8 people! (Be sure your skillet is really big, because all your pasta is coming in here a little later)

Thinly slice one whole onion.

Saute the onion until translucent over medium heat.

For the scampi, you will want about 8 cloves of garlic roughly chopped… I like one per guest.

Chop up some parsley and add in to your skillet.

Add about one cup of the reserved shrimp marinade in to the skillet.  Allow this to come to a simmer for about 5 minutes… you want to cook off both the alcohol from the marinade and the raw shrimp juices that made their way into that marinade. To this add in your drained pasta.  Allow it to cook together for a few minutes.

Place all your pasta in a large serving bowl and shave some parmesan cheese and some torn parsley over it.

Continue with the shrimp:

Grill your shrimp until you get nice grill marks on them and they turn pink. Don’t over cook them, that’s easy to do. Just 3-4 minutes on each side should do the trick. Also add lemons to your grill… I do one half a lemon for each guest… so I did 4 lemons.

For the Tostada:

For your Tostada, start with one loaf of french bread. (Italian is ok too)

Slice your loaf of bread on a bias.

Melt in a stick of butter into about a half cup of olive oil. remember this is going to feed 8 people!

Melt in a stick of butter into about a half cup of olive oil. remember this is going to feed 8 people!

You will need three cloves of garlic.

Using your garlic press. Press all three cloves of garlic into your warmed butter and oil.

Using your garlic press. Press all three cloves of garlic into your warmed butter and oil.

Last step in your garlic butter oil is to add about one teaspoon of kosher salt.

Last step in your garlic butter oil is to add about one teaspoon of kosher salt.

Brush one side of the bread liberally with garlic butter oil… I only do one side because I really like the flavor of the unbrushed side as much as the brushed side… If you want to do both sides, go for it.

Set aside the bread until your guests arrive.

When you place your shrimp on the grill, you can place the bread oil side down on the grill.

done1

 

From here people can either serve themselves… or you can plate each.  To plate:

On each person’s plate be sure to place pasta, a grilled lemon and a tostada. The shimp doesn’t take long to cook at all.

done2

Recipe for Grilled Shrimp Scampi with Garlic Tostada:

(serves 8)

Shrimp:

4 lbs. shrimp

2 lbs. linguine fini, cooked to al-dente

2 cups dry white wine

1/2 cup parsley, chopped

8 cloves garlic, chopped

1 tsp. kosher salt

1 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes

1 onion, thinly sliced

1 stick salted butter

5 lemons, divided

1/4 cup parmesan cheese, shaved

Tostada:

1 loaf french bread, sliced on bias

1 stick salted butter

1/2 cup olive oil

3 cloves garlic, through press

1 tsp. kosher salt

Directions:

For the shrimp:

Marinade – Combine wine, juice of one lemon, lemon slices, salt, red pepper flakes and shrimp.  Allow to marinade for about 20-30 minutes.  skewer. Set aside.  Reserve marinade.

Scampi sauce – Melt 1 stick of butter into a large skillet.  Saute onion until translucent.  Add in garlic, saute another minute or so. Add in parsley. Add in 1 cup of marinade liquid.  Simmer for about 5 minutes.  Add in drained pasta.  Allow to cook together for a few minutes.  Transfer to serving bowl and top with torn parsley and parmesan cheese.

Shrimp – Grill on each side for a couple minutes until pink on either side.

Tostada:

Thickly slice french bread on the bias, set aside.

In a small sauce pan melt butter with olive oil.  Add in garlic that has been run through a press. Add in salt.  Simmer for about a minute over medium heat.  Turn off and allow to cool for a few minutes.  Brush one side of each slice of bread liberally with garlic butter oil.

Place oiled side down on the grill for about 3-4 minutes per side.

Serve along side pasta.

Enjoy!