Craving Crab

In my constant quest for variety, I've learned to obey my cravings. It usually leads to something good. A few days ago, I got a great deal (surprise, surprise) on avocados at Aldi.  They were perfectly ripe, so I needed to use them before they turned the corner. As I contemplated those little dark green orbs, crab entered my mind.  The idea was born.  Crab Louis.

Mayo, green olives, chili sauce, horseradish & lemon make a tasty dressing. Capers for garnish and tang.

 I made a dressing with chili sauce, mayo, chopped green olives, a little horseradish and lemon juice. Then, I just piled crabmeat into the cavity of the avocados, added some boiled shrimp over shredded lettuce and drizzled with dressing. I topped it all with some capers because everything is better with capers. 

Crab, shrimp, avocado and Louis sauce on a bed of lettuce. Parfait, n'est ce pas?

Super fast, super easy, super delicious. We're still in April, but the temps are already getting close to the 90 degree mark, so cold food is certainly welcome this time of year. With my leftover crab, we are looking forward to crabcakes and/or bisque later in the week.  Poor us!  Crab all week long.  

Yet another good salmon

Around here, we eat salmon as often as possible.  We eat it for the obvious reasons...it's good for us, it's versatile, it's tasty.  However, I think the main reason I continue to cook it often and try new recipes is that my 8 year old loves salmon.  I mean, she really loves it. Glazed with honey & vermouth, smoked on the grill, broiled with Dijon and bread crumb topping, any way you can come up with.  I found a recipe on Pinterest months ago for a teriyaki salmon with sriracha cream.  The photo is just beautiful and I have been going back and stalking my own Pinterest board to see the picture. My hold up in making it was that I didn't have any sriracha and when cruising through the grocery store, the thought of sriracha just never popped into my head.

Well, recently, I paid a little visit to one of my favorite places, the Chef'Store.  As I wandered slowly through the aisles, I spotted the sriracha.  Ah hah!  I snatched up a bottle and headed straight for the checkout.  I knew what we were having for dinner that night.  I got home, pulled up Pinterest and got started.  I made the teriyaki sauce from scratch, as outlined in the recipe, but I think you could easily get away with using prepared teriyaki, so don't let that deter you.  It was all very easy to prepare and the result was dynamite. I really love this girl's site too. It's called Damn Delicious and she's got tons of awesome recipes posted there.

Results for the Akre house?  Thumbs up from the little one and an exchange of cool guy nods between me and the hubster.

I think this looks just beautiful!

 One thing I'll say is that this makes way more sriracha cream than 3 people will eat at one sitting.  Probably more than even 6 people would use.  So, whatever could I do? 

Sriracha cream sauce ingredients

 I came up with an EXCELLENT use for the leftover sauce, if I do yell so myself in my shouty capitals. I fried up some green tomatoes and drizzled with the sauce.  You may have felt the Earth move a little that day.  Or, perhaps you heard the loud Hosanna! as I bit into that first one.  Crispy, tart, almost holy fried green tomatoes with an obligatory sprinkling of salt and that spicy sriracha deliciousness mixed all up in 'dere. 

I want another plate of these right now!

As I contemplated the success of this pairing, I began to imagine how else I could use up this divine leftover sauce. Some of my ideas were as a dip for boiled shrimp, mixed with cabbage for a spicy slaw on a fish or shrimp taco or even to shake up a chicken and waffle dealio.  So, don't worry about the amount of sauce this makes.  You'll find all kinds of great uses for it.  I'd love to hear about them.

Crawdads!

My brother-in-law accepted a really great job offer back in the fall.  IN TEXAS. 

This is amusing on one very obvious level.  My sister lived in Colorado for many years.  Her best friend is a Colorado native.  One thing we know about Coloradoans, they LOATHE Texans.  This may sound silly, but one of the first thoughts that went through my sister's mind was "oh, crap, what's Amy gonna think?"

Well, they are alive and well in Houston, specifically the Clear Lake area.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with Houston like myself, the Clear Lake area of town is where NASA is located. I mean, really.  I think it's pretty groovy that on a day to day basis, my sister is now traveling down Space Center Blvd and NASA parkway, etc. The other surprising thing is that Houston is coastal.  Now, before you all think I'm stupid, let me explain. I'm a map geek.  And, while I've always realized Houston is near the water and right across the water from New Orleans, I never realized that Houston has contact with salt water. It's freakin' awesome!

The first night we were there, Katherine and Darren kept talking about taking us to "the place under the bridge."  After I realized they weren't referring to a soup kitchen, I was intrigued.  It's a cool place called Outriggers and it is, in fact, under a bridge and right on the water.  

It is a casual place with an awesomely seafood heavy menu.  Mom and I ordered the same thing: the shrimp/avocado appetizer, which was just the right size dish I needed that night.  It was spicy grilled shrimp served on top of 2 avocado halves, which were seated on shredded lettuce.  All was drizzled with a terrific remoulade.  My dad ordered an oyster Po-Boy, which was the one dish of the night that didn't score any points.  Dad said it was way too much batter and not enough oyster.  

My sister ordered shrimp tacos and my brother-in-law went for the Tilapia Veracruz.  His dish looked wonderful, but I was so busy with my shrimp remoulade, I forgot to bug him to give me a bite!  But, the star of the night was what my Wunderkind ordered...crawfish.  According to Katherine, it seems to be crawfish season in Texas.  She said everywhere you go, you see people even steaming and selling them on the side of the road!  Of course, I immediately asked my baby-child if she was interested in having "crawdads" since she devours them each year at the Crawfish Festival in our neighborhood.  I was quickly reprimanded by Katherine..."we" call them crawfish.  Well, you know what happened next, right?  I refused to call them anything but crawdads.  After all, they ARE crawdads.

The only thing I wish I'd thought to ask was what type of spice, or level of spice they cooked their crawdads with.  They arrived at the table, and it was evident that they had a pretty good coating of spices on the shells.  Nonetheless, my baby was undeterred.  I peeled them for her and she made it through about 8 of them before the cumulative effect of the spices got her.  I asked the waitress for milk and was shocked to learn that they have no milk.  I actually asked her, "So, wow, you guys don't make White Russians here, huh?"  Her reply?  "Oh yes, we just make them with creamer."  <<Insert gag reflex here>>

They were incredibly good and the pound we ordered was only $6.99.  Needless to say, we had plenty to take home.  Next day, we ate them right out of the fridge and they were still just as good.  They were so tender, well flavored, so so good!  Truth be told, as we were all standing around my sister's kitchen island doing some late night snacking, I pretty much ate all the leftover crawdads.  Nobody else got in the game...oh no, too slow!

santo taco de pescado!

As I get older, I'm really getting it through my head that some of the best restaurants seem to hide in strip malls.  Everything from nice, "glammy" looking strip malls to dumpy, worn-out looking strip malls.  Guy Fieri has demonstrated time and time again that some of America's best, most original and most popular food is being served up in the most non-glamorous settings.  And, once again, I have proven this to myself.

A few days ago, my mom and I set out with a friend to have Mexican for lunch.  We drove up to the restaurant we had decided on, only to be greeted by an empty parking lot and a handwritten note on the door..."Closed every Monday."  Well, I guess every Monday is better than random Mondays. Having control of the car is certainly an advantage.  As my companions began discussing some meat and three type set-up, my taste buds and my brain were already on the way to the border.  I turned left, just knowing that a Mexican eatery had to be in my path.  That's when I saw it.  It is a small sign in a strip mall marquis that I've seen before.  I haven't ever heard anyone utter a word about this place and have made mental notes when passing by that I need to check it out sometime.  That sometime had come. 

The place I'm referring to is called "7 Mares." This means Seven Seas.  That's right:  it's a Mexican restaurant that focuses on seafood.  If you've ever spent any time in Mexico, you know that seafood appears on menus all over the place, but here in the U.S., especially here in the South, about all you ever find is the cliche taco, enchilada, burrito, refried beans and rice.  Some Southerners only know Mexican fare as #1, #8 or "the Speedy Gonzales."  Mexican food is so much more, as evidenced by Rick Bayless and all his travels and awesome cookbooks and restaurants.  (Did I ever tell you guys about the time I got a table at his place in Chicago?) Anyway, I digress (yet again!)

7 Mares is a refreshing change.  They offer all the usuals, but there is TONS of seafood on the menu as well.  The waitress started us off with a different type of chips & salsa scenario.  These chips were homemade but with flour tortillas rather than corn.  And,the salsa was a tomato base but was sweet.  I'll elaborate on that in a minute. I ordered the shrimp relleno, mom had a combo with chili relleno, taco and guac salad and our friend Cookie had grilled steak & peppers, rice, beans and hot, fresh tortillas.  

This is Mom's

Her steak was awesome...you could really taste the grill, which reminded me of one of my favorite Mexico experiences.  My parents and my sister and I went to Cancun for a long weekend after K finished Colorado State.  When we arrived at the hotel, we checked in and then headed out toward the beach to check things out. Right on the sand was an elevated thatched deck with two ladies making homemade tortillas and filling them with beef right from the grill.  It was simple and off the charts!

Grilled beef strips

 Mom's was pretty typical, but certainly good tasting.  I tried her guacamole and it was quite nice, although I think my new favorite guac recipe is the best on the planet.  Now mine was the star...it was a ginormous Poblano pepper stuffed (and I mean STUFFED) with shrimp and queso and then covered with a tomato sauce so fresh and light that it was surprising.  My dish also came with a side bowl of "ranchero" beans that were also super flavorful, thanks to lots of bits of bacon in the sauce. This relleno was so large, I could only handle half and brought the rest home for the Neilio to try.  

My shrimp chili relleno

 As we were eating, a male manager came to our table to ask how we liked our lunch.  Always a nice touch, especially if you're really actually enjoying your food instead of just having to say the obligatory "fine."  Later, as we were finishing up, a female manager approached us to also check on us.  We began talking and she confirmed that the sauce on my dish was freshly made & went on to say that they make everything fresh each day.  She elaborated that their "sweet" salsa is designed to compliment their seafood emphasis, but they have spicy salsa available as well.  She also mentioned that the cool drink in the pineapple that we saw go by was their homemade pina colada...uhhh, hello Happy Hour!  We talked more about how it's so hard to find Mexican seafood meals and that we'd happily return to this restaurant.  

Now, here's the funny part of this story. I came home that evening and told Neil about this place and how I want to go back with him so he can try it out.  A little while later, he disappeared for a bit (he always goes outside to use the phone because the cellular signal in our house is schizophrenic).  So, he comes back and announces that he had just talked to our friend "Jeff-ro" who lives near this place and "Jeff says this place is the bomb."  You can probably guess what my response was..."what? you didn't believe me?  You had to get a second opinion?"

7 Mares is a nice, refreshing change for anyone who enjoys Mexican food.  It's in a strip mall, like lots of good places, but ya know, the decor is also kinda strip mall-y.  But that's ok.  The food makes up for it.  And, oh by the way, on this lunch outing, we were the only NON-Hispanic people in the joint.  ALWAYS a good sign! 

One Man's Junk...

I love to crab, which is good because I also love to eat crab.  I've crabbed in the surf, in the boat, in the creek, from a pot, off the rocks.  Because I know a good crab when I see one, don't even try to talk to me about crab with a "k", surimi or whatever else people try to pass off as crab.  I'll eat, and enjoy, Alaskan crab but it's just not in the same league as a "real" crab...the blue crab that adorns our waters here in the South and all up and down the East Coast.

Stuffed Shrimp: Finally a Great Home Recipe!

I love shrimp.  Shrimp scampi, fried shrimp, shrimp burgers, shrimp with pasta, shrimp Island of Scorpios, shrimp creole, shrimp and grits, Sea Island shrimp...ok, I know I'm sounding like Bubba Blue from Forrest Gump, but I jess cain't hep myseff.  I love shrimp!

My latest foray into my new cookbook that I got for Christmas was for a marvelous stuffed shrimp recipe.  This is one of those dishes that I've enjoyed in restaurants, but for some reason, haven't ever attempted at home.  But, guess what?  Yes, you can try this at home.  I did and with stellar results.


Aside from the flavor there is the lesson:  so often people become frustrated with this dish because they cut a slit in the shrimp, along the back (logically), stuff it, then during baking all the stuffing is popped out by the shrimp as it cooks.  Well, guess what?  There's a very simple technique that solves this problem. All you do is slit the back of the shrimp as you'd expect, cutting almost all the way through, in order to open, or "butterfly" the shrimp like a book.  But here's the trick...actually cut a 1/2"-1" hole through the bottom of the shrimp.  Then, flip it over.  This flattens the shrimp out onto your baking pan, causing the tail to flip up.  Then, you add your stuffing, which can then adhere to the shrimp via that hole.  In this position, as the shrimp cooks, it curls around the filling rather than against it and forcing it out.  Duhhhh...this seems like I should've figured it out by myself.

See the holes?

To top it all off, I used extra large shrimp from Beaufort that I found at the All Local Market on Saturday.  Fresh, South Carolina shrimp make all the difference!  Here's the recipe...I hope you'll try it and love it!

• 4 slices hearty white sandwich bread, torn (I used the Italian sandwich bread from the Publix bakery)
• 1/2 cup mayo
• 1/4 cup clam juice (I didn't have this, so I used chicken broth)
• 1/4 cup finely chopped fresh parsley
• 4 scallions, finely chopped (remember this is NOT a shallot)
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 2 tsp grated zest & 1 Tbs lemon juice
• 1 Tbs Dijon mustard
• 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 1/4 lbs colossal shrimp, peeled, deveined and tails left on

Heat oven to 375. Pulse bread in processor to coarse crumbs.  Transfer to the bottom of a broiler pan and bake until golden and dry, 8-10 min, stirring halfway through.  Remove from oven and reduce heat to 275.

Stuffed and ready for the oven!

Combine crumbs with remaining ingredients (except shrimp of course) in a bowl.  Prepare the shrimp like I told you, pat them dry then place on the lightly greased broiler pan bottom.  Divide the stuffing mixture among the shrimp and press to adhere.  Bake until the shrimp are opaque, about 20 minutes or so. 

Remove from the oven, turn on the broiler then return to the oven to broil 1-3 minutes, to crisp up the stuffing.  Devour.

My Obsession with Lobster

It all started when I was a kid. A really young kid, like maybe four. My mom and dad were (and still are) really smart. When it came time to introduce a different, grown-up food, they had 5 magic words that worked on me like a charm..."Kings and Queens eat this."

Since I had absolutely no doubt that Queen Elizabeth was named after me, this royal tactic was particularly successful. So, at a very young age, I began eating stuff like lobster, artichokes, asparagus and black olives. Still some of my faves today.

Before I had my little girl, my mom, sister Katherine and I would take Mother's Day trips. After my uncle passed away, we included my Aunt Jennie. We had been to Chicago, Amelia Island and now it was my turn to pick a town and plan it. I knew two things: we were going to Maine and we were going to eat lobster until we were sick. Thanks to the internet & probably some luck, I chose a little town called Boothbay Harbor. We flew into Portland, hopped in a car and drove the rest of the way.

It was just what I wanted. My mom and I both managed to eat lobster in some form for every meal, except breakfast. But, if we'd come across a lobster benedict, we would have ordered it without question.

Hey, that gives me an idea! :-)