Grilled Shrimp with Bacon and Jalapenos

This is a party recipe. Something you make when you have a lot of people coming over, space on the grill and lights strung up all over your porch. Cinco de Mayo, perhaps? The jalapeno can be increased or decreased depending on the heat you desire, but truth be told these peppers aren't blazing hot like some people think. Or maybe I'm just accustomed to heat and everyone else is a big wuss. The world may never know.

Grilled Shrimp with Bacon and Jalapenos

16 thick, round wooden picks
16 unpeeled large fresh shrimp
2 jalapeno peppers
2 T olive oil
¼ t salt
1/8 t black pepper
8 thick-cut bacon slices, halved

Soak round wooden picks in water 30 minutes. Peel shrimp, leaving tails on; devein if desired. Set shrimp aside. Cut each pepper lengthwise into 8 pieces; remove seeds. Toss together shrimp, jalapeno peppers, olive oil, salt and black pepper in a large bowl. Set aside.

Microwave bacon slices on high 30 seconds. Wrap one bacon slice half around one shrimp and one piece of jalapeno pepper. Secure with a wooden pick.

Repeat procedure with remaining bacon slices, shrimp and jalapenos. Grill without grill lid over medium-high heat (350-400 degrees) for four to six minutes, or until shrimp turn pink, turning once.

I used regular Oscar Meyer bacon for this recipe but I think it would be fabulous with some of that peppered, thick cut bacon. I like my bacon a little more crisp than the average person but I didn't take into account that the bacon needed to be more pliable in order to wrap it around the shrimp, and would continue to cook once it's in the oven. Therefore I overcooked a few pieces in the microwave and - bummer! - had to eat them because they wouldn't wrap. Poor me.

Also, the shrimp I used were the 41-60 size which ended up being a little small. I would go with larger shrimp next time. As far as my cooking method, I didn't cook these on a grill because I just didn't want to fire the grill up. No other reason. So I did these in the oven under the broiler and they tasted fine.

Additionally, I think fresh shrimp are key. I used frozen cooked shrimp and I bet the fresh ones would possibly end up a little less rubbery. Maybe a marinade for the shrimp, too? Look at me, I'm totally dissecting the entire recipe. It's not that I didn't like them - I did - but there's always room for improvement.

They photographed really well unlike the evil soup the Husband and I made, so you know they're good eats. My slices of jalapeno were a little larger than the recipe indicated because I like the extra heat, but again, you can do them however you like. And I promise I won't call you a wuss.

Extra Recipe #2 - Savory Seafood Penne

I get recipes from a lot of different places. In fact, to compile the original list of recipes for this blog I searched far and wide on the 'Net to look for new and interesting foods to cook. You just never know what's out there. The Husband's healthy eating quest has now added Men's Health magazine to our list of recipe archives. Everything we've eaten has turned out really well, and I have decided there is one single solitary reason for this: the recipes are made for dudes, by dudes. Mario Batali and Wolfgang Puck aside, most guys don't do much cooking. That either resides with their female counterpart if they're married or co-habitating, or they subsist on take-out and mom's leftovers. A man's crowning achievement in the kitchen sometimes results in a pile of Velveeta nachos with a jalapeno garnish. He's overjoyed at what he has accomplished while you, his dutiful wife/girlfriend/women of his harem, are aghast that one would consider routinely defiling their body with such a greasy mess and angry that dinner plans now most certainly do not include a romantic trip to Chez Frou Frou.

Oh, who am I kidding. I love nachos. Furthermore, that was a gross generalization of men which is unfair considering the Husband's kitchen ability. I can entrust him with just about anything in the kitchen and he can whip it up.

So what I'm saying is that Men's Health almost has to make their recipes fool proof for those men out there who don't know the difference between a rolling pin and hole in the ground. And the hilarious thing about this magazine is that they even include pictures of the ingredients! When it says, "1 cup chopped tomatoes," you will see a picture of a tomato right above that instruction. Same for shrimp, pesto, Gorgonzola, and spinach, which all go into this recipe.

Savory Seafood Penne

2 oz Barilla Plus penne pasta
14 medium precooked, peeled shrimp
2 tbsp crumbled Gorgonzola cheese
3 cups chopped baby spinach
1 tomato, chopped
2 tbsp chopped walnuts
3 tbsp ready-made pesto

Directions
1.If you're using frozen shrimp, defrost them by running warm water over them. Cook the pasta according to package directions; drain and transfer it to a large bowl. Add the shrimp, cheese, spinach, tomato, walnuts, and pesto, stirring well to help wilt the spinach and mix in the pesto.

And that is all there is to it! Boil the pasta and then throw everything in a big bowl together. Can't be any more straightforward than that - love it! And it turned out really well. A few things I did differently: I made my own pesto when it calls for jarred stuff. I really prefer to know exactly what goes into my pesto - basil, pine nuts, parm, garlic, olive oil - and what I make probably has less fat than store bought pesto. Also, shocker, but I eyeballed a lot of the ingredients. I didn't exactly measure out the cheese or the spinach or the pesto. Don't act like you're surprised. If you've read any of my other posts you know that's pretty much common place for me. Finally, there is no mention of par boiling the shrimp. It calls for precooked, frozen shrimp, which is what I used, but I still wanted mine to have a little more doneness to them, and I didn't trust the hot pasta to cook the shrimp enough to my liking. So when I drained the pasta, I reserved the pasta water and dropped the thawed shrimp in there for about two minutes, stirring often. They pinked up and curled so I knew they were done. Throw it all into a bowl, toss well, and voila.




I've been pretty impressed with the recipes that have come from Men's Health magazine. I'll try to post some in the near future. If this streak continues, they'll have a better succession rate than Southern Living's recipes.

Shrimp and Grits

Woo-hoo! Shrimp out the wazoo for us lately. I buy it on sale and I always have a bag or two in the freezer of peeled, deveined, cooked, frozen shrimp. Thaw it out in the sink under running water for a few minutes and you can do a million things with it, including this recipe. This was kind of a cheating recipe for me since it's not a new meal, but it's still worth adding. I got this from a Southern Living magazine a few years ago and it's absolutely incredible. This dish also comes together fairly quickly. It's very indulgent with the cheese, bacon and bacon fat, but it's so worth it.

Shrimp and Grits

Prep: 15 minutes
Cook: 30 minutes
Serves: 4

1.5 C quick cooking grits
¼ C shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1.5 T butter
4 T hot sauce, divided
1 pound unpeeled, medium-size fresh shrimp
¼ t salt
2 bacon slices
½ C chopped green onions
1 T fresh lemon juice
1 T chopped flat leaf parsley

Cook grits according to package directions. Remove from heat, and stir in cheese, butter and three tablespoons hot sauce until melted and blended. Cover and set aside.

Peel shrimp and devein (unnecessary if you're using frozen shrimp). Toss with salt and remaining 1 tablespoon hot sauce.

Cook bacon in a large skillet over medium-high heat 5 to 7 minutes or until crisp; remove bacon, reserving drippings in skillet. Crumble bacon. Add shrimp and green onions to skillet, and sauce 3 minutes or just until shrimp turn pink. Stir in lemon juice.

Spoon grits onto a serving platter; top evenly with shrimp mixture and sprinkle with parsley and bacon. Serve with additional hot sauce, if desired.

Yumma. A few things I change - I cook about a quarter of the amount of grits called for. I use Quaker plain grits in the cardboard canister and I split the difference between the two serving and four serving amounts. Two isn't nearly enough and four will feed a small army. The three servings gives us plenty for one serving each and a little left over to eat out of the bottom of the pan if you're still yearning for more cheesy goodness. Also, I add more cheese, salt, hot sauce, pepper and garlic than the recipe calls for. I like all of those things, so I add more of them. Just my preference.


As far as cooking the bacon and reserving the fat, I can't really bring myself to do it. I cooked it that way the first time I made this dish and while it was delicious, I usually stay far away from using actual fat in my cooking. Instead, I cook the bacon in the microwave and either A) reserve a tiny bit of the drippings to put in the pan for the shrimp, or B) cook the shrimp in olive oil. You can do either. I think they taste the same. Oh, and I also cook more bacon because, well, bacon is heavenly.

Cheese, bacon and shrimp. The Holy Trinity.

And there you go! This really is something I only cook occasionally, especially now that the husband is back on the health food band wagon. It's a nice treat, and a tasty one at that.

Baked Shrimp with Feta

For a quick dinner in, nothing beats this recipe. It comes together in almost no time, you use minimal ingredients and the taste is really fresh and simple. Plus, in the summer you can sub fresh tomatoes for the canned variety and the taste is completely different. It's lighter and has less sodium, fat and calories (I imagine) than using tomatoes from a can.

Baked Shrimp with Feta

1 tablespoon olive oil
3/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 lb. med. shrimp, peeled and deveined
3 garlic cloves, minced
Cooking Spray
1/2 cup dry white wine
3 cups diced plum tomatoes
3/4 cup finely crumbled feta
4 cup hot cooked angel hair pasta
1/4 cup minced fresh parsley


Preheat oven to 350. Heat oil in large non-stick skillet over medium high heat. Add oregano through garlic. Saute 3 min. Spoon shrimp mixture into 11x7 baking dish-coating w/ cooking spray. Add wine to skillet-cook until reduced to 1/4 cup. Stir in tomatoes and pour over shrimp. Sprinkle w/ cheese and bake 10 min. Serve over angel hair pasta and sprinkle w/ parsley.

This is an easy dish with not many steps. Plus, once you get out the white wine for deglazing you may as well pour some for yourself. I add more feta than what it calls for because I love that stuff. Also, I eyeball the shrimp and spices (are you noticing a theme here with all of my recipes?). It seriously only takes a max of ten minutes to get this from the pan to the oven. While the shrimp mixture is in the oven, you boil the pasta and drain it just as the shrimp is ready.

Going into the oven

While the shrimp mixture bakes, it creates this delicious reduction in the bottom of the dish that really adds flavor to the pasta, because by itself it can be a little bland. A little more wine and cheese and tomatoes can easily fix that.

All plated up!

The husband is a big proponent of this recipe and again, it is really fast to put together. I almost always have the items on hand that it takes to make it and it's a good, light dish for the summer.

Smoky Shrimp and Parmesan-Polenta Cakes

A few months ago, my local Big Box Retailer cleaned up its image. Aisles were moved around and widened, new signage was installed, new carts were brought in and new foods were introduced. A month or so after the transformation, which only slightly lessened my overall aversion I have to the store, I found a tube of polenta in the refrigerated goods section near the produce. I snatched it up, fearful someone else might have their eye on it. I took it home and it sat in my fridge for a few weeks until I decided to do this cooking thing. I knew it had to be used so I found two polenta recipes to try out. Tonight was one of them.

Smoky Shrimp and Parmesan-Polenta Cakes

Yield 4 servings

Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 pound peeled and deveined medium shrimp
1/4 cup dry white wine
1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon Spanish smoked paprika
1 17-ounce tube polenta, cut into 8 (1/2-inch) slices
Cooking spray
8 teaspoons marinara sauce
8 teaspoons grated fresh Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley


1. Preheat broiler.
2. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add shrimp to pan; sauté 3 minutes or until done, stirring frequently. Remove from heat; stir in wine, chives, juice, and paprika, tossing to coat. Keep warm.
3. Place polenta slices on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Top each slice with 1 teaspoon sauce and 1 teaspoon cheese; broil 3 minutes or until cheese melts. Place 2 polenta slices on each of 4 plates; top each serving evenly with shrimp mixture. Sprinkle with parsley.

Looks pretty, but wasn't too tasty

I think my problem is that I'm just not familiar enough with polenta to do it right, even though I went by the directions and cooked this dish exactly as it says. I didn't like it, but I don't think it was just the polenta that did me in. It was the fact that with the marinara sauce and shredded parmesan, the polenta tasted like spaghetti minus the noodles. The shrimp were good, but I think I over did it on the smoked paprika. Oops. I was not a fan. I really wanted this dish to work but it clearly didn't. I guess it could be an appetizer, because it's certainly not big enough to be an entree, and it isn't a finger food. Plus, the cheese cooled down pretty quickly and stiffened up, but I guess that's Parmesan for you.


So as I was cleaning up the counter I spied that bag of 90 corn tortillas from Monday's Mexican Chicken Casserole. A light bulb went off. I pulled out a knife, cut a few tortillas into wedges, laid them on a cooking sheet, sprayed them with a little cooking spray and sprinkled them with chili powder and baked them at 375˚ for 8 minutes. Voila! Tortilla chips! They tasted pretty good and probably could have cooked for a minute or two longer to make them more crispy, but they'll crisp up more as they continue to cool.

Tortilla chips!