Shrimp & Spinach Stuffed Portobellos

Sometimes, when I have way too much time on my hands, I think about how it was discovered that certain foods are edible.

I'm sure everyone's thought about who the first guy was to eat a chicken egg - imagine his wife's face when that happened. "Honey, what are you doing? Don't play with that. Stop bothering the chicken! What are you doing with that frying pan...? OH MY GOD."

Similarly, the potato (once deemed poisonous), escargot (Seriously, who thought that one up? Whoever you are though, thank you!), and caviar seem equally as unappetizing when the attempt is made to look at them as if you'd never seen them before. Who's going to pull up a plant, see some weird looking round tuber thing stuck to its roots...and then decide to put it in their mouth? Also, how many raw potatoes were eaten before it was discovered that they're way better cooked?

All that being said, the mushroom is another one of these mystical, extremely tasty foods that frequently makes its way to our dinner plates that, at any point in our culinary history, could easily have been discarded as poison - or just plain gross. I mean, picture it in your head, walking through the damp woods your boot kicks over a bit of leaf litter revealing a spongy, brown plant. It's covered in dirt and leaves, possibly some kind of protective mucus - who's first thought is, "Gee, I should put this in my mouth"? (I know that question mark isn't where it's supposed to be - sue me.)

Again, whoever it was that tried them first - thanks. Because mushrooms are insanely delicious. Especially when they're stuffed with spicy shrimp, cheese, and spinach and then baked until they're hot and bubbly with yummy goodness.

My brother-in-law gave me the idea of pairing shrimp with sriracha - a spicy Asian condiment - while I was in Florida. For this idea I will be forever grateful. It's quite possibly my new favorite thing in the world. If you've never tried sriracha (pronounced sir-a-cha), or never tried shrimp cooked in a little butter and sriracha - you must immediately drop everything that you are doing and go make some right now. NOW.

I decided that instead of using ridiculous amounts of mayo or cream cheese to hold it all together that I'd use Laughing Cow Cheese. It's a spreadable cheese (great on Wheat Thins) that's only 35 calories per serving. I used the Garlic & Herb one - they're pretty tasty. I keep those and the little Babybel cheeses in the house at all times. They're been a great snack while I've been trying to lose weight (23 lbs. so far! 10 more, I'll be at 120, and life will be good!). Now that I recognize the versatility of the spreadable ones though, I definitely won't be giving them up when I quit trying to lose weight.

Even if you don't try the whole recipe, for whatever reason, I cannot stress this enough. Every single person in this world (except those allergic to shrimp) should try shrimp cooked in sriracha.

It will change your life.



Shrimp & Spinach Stuffed Portobellos

Serves 2

8 oz frozen spinach, thawed and drained of all water
1/4 small onion, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
2 Laughing Cow Spreadable cheeses
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 Babybel Light, cut into small pieces (substitute mozzarella or other light cheese)
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
10 large shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon sriracha
2 portobello caps

Preheat oven to 375 F

In a medium mixing bowl combine spinach, onion, garlic, cheeses and mayo. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Set aside. In a skillet over medium-high heat melt the butter. Cook the shrimp until just pink, toss with sriracha. Set aside. Place the portobello caps gills side up in a casserole dish. Bake at 375 for 10 minutes. Remove from oven. Top each cap with half the shrimp and half the spinach mixture. Return to oven and bake for a further 15 minutes, or until the spinach is heated through and the cheese is warm and bubbling.

Nutritional Estimate

This is a nutritional estimate, I do not claim it to be exact - although it is pretty close.

1 serving equals one whole stuffed portobello cap

Calories: 245
Carbohydrates: 15g
Fat: 15g
Protein: 18g

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CORRECTION 6/27: I am a numbskull and forgot to include the tablespoon of butter in my nutritional estimate. Therefore, the new estimate is:

Calories: 296
Carbohydrates: 15g
Fat: 20g
Protein: 18g

I would also like to point out that in omitting the mayonnaise saves 180 calories and 20g of fat, effectively halving the fat content of the recipe. This would make each cap only 206 calories and 10g of fat.

Lemon-Pepper Shrimp

This is another recipe courtesy of my MiL (Marinating MiL? The MiL who marinades? hmmm...)

It's quite the quick and tasty treat, especially when grilled with some mushrooms. It was a rather nice recipe to break out the hibachi for the first time this year.

The only problem with using a hibachi is that they're such a pain to get lit it almost seems like a travesty to not use it for as much as possible while it's going.

Cue the s'mores and my healthy lemon pepper shrimp dinner soon turned into a rather disappointing calorie count for the day.

Nonetheless, this recipe is outstanding. Nice tanginess, a good deal of spice, but not too much.

I added a tablespoon of Dijon mustard.

It was yummy.

Lemon-Pepper Shrimp Marinade

1/2 cup lemon juice
1 tablespoone extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon fresh ground black pepper
1 teaspoon white pepper
4 teaspoons rosemary
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

Mix and let shrimp marinate for at least one hour. Grill. Devour.

Fresh Spring Rolls

Oh Fresh Spring Rolls, are you Thai? Are you Vietnamese? Are you some sort of creation thought up by crazy Americans and passed off as authentic Asian cuisine? Tell me your secrets!

Though I have no idea where these tasty treats hail from, and after at least three minutes of exhaustively googling them I came up with no conclusive evidence, I still love them. The first time I had them was on one of my first dates with Mr. TA before we got married. He really likes Asian cuisine, all kinds, and he took me to this really cute little Thai place in Washington. We had Phad Thai, Chicken Satay, Mangoes with Coconut Sticky Rice, and Fresh Spring Rolls. Everything was delicious and Mr. TA and I were well on our way to everlasting mushiness - or more typically driving each other as crazy as possible. We like to keep things fresh.

So, more importantly, fresh spring rolls are a rice paper wrapper filled with lettuce, an assortment of herbs, chicken, and shrimp. Many recipes also require the addition of other vegetables like carrots or cabbage and many times noodles are added. I prefer to stick to the style we first had on our date, so I use only lettuce, basil, cilantro, mint, chicken, and shrimp. Top it off with some out of this world peanut sauce and you're good to go.



Speaking of peanut sauce, talk about a crapshoot when you're looking for a good recipe, eh? I've made peanut sauce countless times, and I've never been quite satisfied with any of them. They're either too sweet, too peanutty, too spicy, or too oily. I like my peanut sauce to contain a myriad of flavors - heat, sweetness, spice, and of course the peanuts. It needs to blend effortlessly into a flavor that complements the dish it's adorning, not covering it up. Peanut sauce isn't really an Asian creation (invented by crazy Westerners), so it's little surprise it's now basically the Asian ketchup. We throw it on everything, and instead of adding an additional level of flavor, it masks everything else until all we can taste is the peanut sauce.

I'll pass.

That's why I attempted to create my own recipe completely from scratch. Usually when I attempt something like this it ends in an Epic FAIL. This time, it actually worked. It's the best peanut sauce I've ever had - restaurant or otherwise. It was one of those recipes that as I was mixing everything I knew that it was either going to be the most amazing thing I've ever created - or lump of goo not fit for the neighbor's cat that keeps pooping in my flower beds.

And believe me, at this point I'd feed that cat all sorts of weird crap. That's right, poop in your owners house - not my chrysanthemums.

I've heard that working with some Asian ingredients and techniques can be a little intimidating for some, so I've included some step-by-step photos to guide through the process. They're really so simple, I can't think of any reason for not trying them.

Fresh Spring Rolls

Makes 6

For the Rolls:

6 sheets rice spring roll wrapper (available at any Asian market)
6 leaves green or red leaf lettuce (romaine and iceberg are too firm, they may tear the wrapper)
1 cup cilantro leaves
1 cup mint leaves
1 cup basil leaves
12 shrimp (preferably 25-30 ct.), raw, shelled and deveined
10 oz chicken (1 medium boneless, skinless breast), cut into small strips about 1 oz each
4 tablespoons butter, divided

For the Peanut Sauce:

1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
1 teaspoon red curry paste
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon palm sugar, grated
1/2 tablespoon rice vinegar
1/3 cup coconut milk

In a heavy bottomed skillet over medium-high heat melt two tablespoons butter. Add the shrimp, season to taste with salt and cracked pepper. Cook until pink and opaque throughout. Remove from skillet and set aside to cool. Melt the remaining two tablespoons butter and add the chicken strips. Cook completely. Remove from skillet and set aside. Turn off the heat, but keep the pan on the burner (gas stoves may require lowest flame). Using the residual heat, melt the peanut butter for the peanut sauce, in effect deglazing the skillet with the peanut butter. Add remaining ingredients, combine thoroughly and let meld for at least two minutes - adjust to taste if necessary. Remove from skillet into a ramekin or other small dish and set aside.

For assembling the rolls:

Start with your rice wrappers



This is what they look like when they're dry, out of the package



In a wide, shallow dish ( I use a large pie plate) fill halfway with hot water (from the tap is fine). Soak the wrapper for about 45 seconds, lift it out of the water carefully and let excess water drip off. Now it will look like this:



A quick tip, dry to keep your work area as dry as possible. It needs to be moist, but if the area is soaking wet the wrapper will stay soaking wet too - and it needs to start to dry out a little as you're working or when you start the rolling it will be too slippery to stick to itself. Keep a kitchen towel handy and wipe down the surface after every roll.

Start the assembly by placing two cooked shrimp, side to side in the center of the wrapper.



On top of the shrimp, layer the herbs in equal amounts and top with a strip or two of the cooked chicken.



Top with a lettuce leaf. Now, start to roll it like a burrito. Flip the edge nearest you over the top of filling, pull taught, and fold in each side.



Now just keep rolling until it's sealed.



If you're awesome you end up with the shrimp showing through the top of the wrapper. However, I am not awesome, and after rolling all six of mine I still didn't get one to work properly - so they look all plain and boring like this:



Now you're all finished. You can serve them whole or cut on the diagonal.



Top with the peanut sauce, but not too much...



Now devour at will.

Tidbits from December

I'm a delinquent.

I know.

Because I'm lazy.

As is evident from my complete lack of posting.

Because I'm a delinquent.

I know.

The holidays themselves weren't particularly stressful. Actually getting to our destination, however, really was. Mr. TA and I were going back East to see family, our flight arriving in Baltimore. We were to leave our tiny airport, connect in San Francisco, arrive in Baltimore around midnight and be done. Easy peasy, right? Not so much. We arrive at the airport, bright eyed and bushy tailed (except that I detest flying. I'm claustrophobic. The thought of being crammed in a tube with a bunch of gross, dirty people I don't know makes me a basket case.) with plenty of time to board our plane.

Except the ticket agent can't find our reservation in the computer. At all.

Oh yeah, because that's not a disconcerting way to start off a trip. Not at all.

After about 5 minutes, and some jerk anxiously toe tapping away behind us (no doubt petrified at missing his flight that didn't depart for over two hours - jerk) she finally finds us. After several anxiety-inducing "Well that's odd." and "Hmm, isn't that strange?" comments she does locate our reservations. But only for one portion of the flight. Hmmm. Not great. But, in all fairness, it's something that's happened to me before. Our airport is very small, only offering flights to a very few select locations. I've experienced this before, not receiving seating assignments until arriving at a larger airport, and I was a little anxious, but having oberved this previously and it working out fine, I put it out of my mind.

That is, until we arrived in San Francisco.

We had a two and a half hour layover, but with no seating assignment we were worried about not getting our flight at all, so we immediately rushed to the ticket counter for our departing flight. To be greeted by the rudest ticket agent in the entire universe. I think if this airline had bitch training this guy must have been the star pupil. After witnessing him get into a heated verbal altercation with a very short, bald man demanding his attention, Mr. TA and I overheard that the agent was refusing to help anyone waiting in line. He was servicing the flight to New York that had just left that particular gate, and though he had the ability to help those leaving for Baltimore, he refused. What a nice chap. Christmas season has really got this guy in the spirit, eh? We were to wait until the staff arrived that was assigned to the Baltimore flight. The staff that arrived at boarding time. 40 minutes before the flight was scheduled to leave.

To make an extremely long story short - we didn't get on the flight. The lovely not-to-be-named airline (rhymes with Tunited Tair) had egregiously overbooked the flight by more than a dozen people. Isn't that lovely? Oh no, it's not a technical malfunction. Of course it's not the weather. Nope, it's just an extremely greedy airline that allows seats to continually be sold on flights that no longer have them available. Aren't they nice? It was a lovely conversation.

We ended up staying overnight in San Francisco at a rather nice hotel, had a lovely dinner, a nice breakfast the next morning, and a mediocre lunch at the airport the next day - all on their dollar. Plus a free upgrade to first class for our flight, plus two free roundtrip tickets to use within the next year.

Now, when most people heard that part of the story, they say, "Oh, well at least that made up for the inconvenience."

I completely disagree.

Sure, the free stuff was great. Sure the free flights are going to let me see my sister twice this year. But you know what would've been really great? Actually getting on the damn plane in the first place.

I think this would be a good time to point out that I am one of those "It's the principle of the matter" type-people. Sure, the airline more than compensated us for our trouble. But there never should've been any damn trouble in the first place. How dare a company knowingly sell a service that they know they can't provide? They knowingly inconvenienced hundreds, possibly thousands of people, just to what? Increase their available capital? Sure, on our flight to Baltimore there were only about a dozen people who got bumped. But the next day, on our flight into Dulles, there were over a hundred people, that's a right 100 people, that were bumped off of that flight. Just a few days before Christmas. There were whole families stranded. Women were in tears. It was truly a disgusting display of greed by this airline. I know for a fact that I will never voluntarily patronize this company again.

But, in the end, we made it to our destination unscathed. Tired, yes. Grumpy, yes. In desperate need of a change of clothes, yes. But unharmed. And the two weeks away were long, but nice. I'm a big homebody, so being away is at once relieving and disconcerting. I relish my privacy. I like my bed. I like doing my own thing whenever I want. I like deciding in the middle of the day that I want to go for a four hour hike or try out some crazy new recipe. I like cursing until the walls practically bleed and yelling at the TV (internet news broadcast, for us) whenever I think someone's a moron. Which is often. And not something appreciated by people whose house you are staying in. So it was nice to be home.

Now that that is over with, here are some photos from the last couple weeks that I don't feel like doing individual posts on.

First up is the most delicious steak I've ever put in my mouth.

Ever.



MiL and sFiL were kind enough to ask me to cook dinner for their anniversary, brave souls that they are. I've been known to thoroughly muck things up when cooking in other people's kitchens. Thankfully that didn't happen this time. Except for burning the ever loving crap out of my finger whilst mashing a potato.

Don't ask.

But seriously, doesn't this baby just make your mouth water?



These are the filet mignons available at Whole Foods. Yes, the ones that are $27 per pound. It's worth it. Get some. They're prepared using this method. If you are a meat lover, or even someone who only occasionally enjoys red meat like myself, then you are seriously doing yourself a disservice by not trying this out. This steak was a perpetual mouth-gasm. No lie. If you put steak sauce on this I will hunt you down with a meat mallet.

I paired it with some sautéed green beans and some Yukon Gold potatoes, Jacques Pepin style (or at least they are according to that brunette harpy). It was delicious. Except make sure that when you squish the potatoes you don't get burning hot potato flesh all over the knuckle of your middle finger. Because it hurts really bad. And it makes a huge blister. Not that I would know, or anything.

Up next are some tasty Vegetables Provençal prepared by the MiL.



I'm not sure what was in them. I know it was layered zucchini, yellow squash, tomato, and some carrots with cheese and other stuff. I wasn't paying attention. I was on vacation. Being lazy. And someone else was cooking for me. Good food. Yay. (Just so you know, that's a typical thought strain for me. 'Good food. Yay.' I'm a simple creature.)



They were tasty vegetables. Needed some salt, but I think everything needs some salt. So that may have just been me.

Next in line were some fresh shrimp rolls I made for New Years Eve.



We did a sort of Hors D'oeuvres dinner. MiL made some crab stuffed mushrooms and some kind of bacon-roll thingy. I was lazy and just made these. I stole these from Jen on use real butter. Hers looks better than mine. Because she's like the kitchen goddess. Get her recipe here.

I had seen these a while ago on her blog and wanted to make them, except when I was at the store buying ingredients I couldn't remember what all was in them. So the orange-y component I remembered ended up being julienned carrot instead of supremed grapefruit. Go me. But they were still delicious.

I used a vegetable peeler to take nice long, thin slices from an Engish cucumber, marinated them in a little rice vinegar, and then rolled up some shrimp (using Jen's straightening technique), avocado, carrot, and clover sprouts. They were out of this world delicious. Eat them. You'll love them.



And this is the Soy-Dijon marinated salmon referenced in this post.



And so wraps up my leftovers from December. Next up is a review on some tasty chocolates. That I tasted weeks ago.

I'll get to it eventually...

Greek-Spiced Baked Shrimp

I am addicted to Gourmet magazine's Gourmet Everyday section. Every month I eagerly await the arrival of the mag, set myself down with whatever tasty beverage-of-the-minute I'm craving, and pore over that baby like it's fine literature. I subscribe to Bon Appetit as well, I just haven't quite developed the appreciation for it that I feel with Gourmet. I've found so many great recipes in Gourmet that I'm pretty sure at this point I'll be a subscriber for life.

This month's luscious find was Greek-Spiced Baked Shrimp. It has an unusual (for American cuisine at least) combination of spices, cinnamon, allspice, and red pepper flakes with a sprinkle of dill over the top. I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about it, but figured it was worth a shot. I shouldn't have hesitated, because it is most definitely one of our favorite new meals. Mr. Totally Awesome and I downed nearly the whole recipe in one evening, sopping up the juices with some herbed-butter bread. The interplay of piquant tomato sauce, salty feta, and the fresh shrimp was just right.

I did switch a couple things up, I used tinned diced tomatoes instead of chopping up whole tinned tomatoes - that seemed like a useless extra step - and I was all out of fresh dill, so I just sprinkled some dried over the top after baking. With the dried it was tasty, I can only imagine how much better it is with the fresh. I'm a sucker for fresh dill.

For a quick and easy weeknight meal, Gourmet hit a home-run on this one. I urge you to try it out with some nice big 15 count shrimp. I used little bitty 25 count guys and they were nice, but I bet some big-ass prawns would seal the deal like no other.



Greek-Spice Baked Shrimp

1 medium onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
3 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon hot red-pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1 (28-ounce) can whole tomatoes in juice, drained, reserving juice, and chopped
Pinch of sugar
1 1/4 pound large peeled and deveined shrimp
1/4 pound feta, crumbled (2/3 cup)
2 tablespoons chopped dill

Preheat oven to 375°F with rack in middle.

Cook onion and garlic in oil with 1/4 teaspoon salt in a 4-quart heavy saucepan over medium heat until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in spices and cook, stirring, 30 seconds. Add chopped tomatoes with juice and sugar and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened, about 20 minutes. Remove from heat.

Season shrimp with 1/8 teaspoon salt, then stir into tomato sauce. Transfer to a 2-quart shallow baking dish and top with feta. Bake until just cooked through, 18 to 20 minutes. Serve sprinkled with dill.