herbiehancock

My gardener gets to choose the menu on his birthday and for his milestone birthday this year, (I'm not tellin'!) he chose Paella.  My daughter had given me a paella pan, rice, and smoked paprika for Christmas, so all I needed were the ingredients.  I decided to do a mixed paella with shrimp, mussels, and chicken. The chicken thighs are the pasty white blobs you see in the above picture. I grilled them, but removed the skin when I added them to the pan. Next time I'll brown them first. This was a really fun dish to make! I scoured the Internet for recipes and decided that making paella is more of a technique than a recipe.  The basis for the paella is the sofrito, which is a tomato and onion sauce. I read that a really good paella takes at least  two hours to make, so I started early and was glad I did. The whole process took about 2-1/2 hours.  After the paella is cooked, the heat is turned to high until you smell the wonderful caramelized rice that is called so...

I like to keep frozen shrimp on hand as they are one of my gardener's favorites.  I had some leftover cooked sprouts, so added them to this dish.  You could use any vegetable you like here in place of the sprouts.  I think frozen green peas would be good, or snow peas.  The lemon juice in this really brightens up the flavor of both the sprouts and the shrimp.  This recipe makes a light sauce that I served over whole wheat linguine for a quick and delicious meal! The leftovers were eaten for lunch the next day. Most of the sauce was gone so I added a couple tablespoons of half-and-half, which really turned out nice, too. Lemon Shrimp with Brussels Sprouts 1# frozen shrimp, thawed and peeled 2 T butter 2 T olive oil 1 tsp red pepper flakes 2 cloves garlic, minced 1/2 cup onion, chopped 1/2 cup white wine 2 T lemon juice 3 T chopped parsley 1 tsp cornstarch dissolved in 2 T water 1/2 to 1 c cooked vegetable Put butter and olive oil into a pan over medium heat until...

This is a tasty, slightly spicy, and buttery lemon sauce with the addition of capers and a surprise - red curry paste! If you're one who doesn't care for curry, do yourself a favor and try the red curry. It's a different taste entirely from the brown curry that many people (including me!) don't care for. This sauce would be delicious over fish and rice, too! PRINT RECIPE HERE

When I read Donna's blog and Susan's blog this morning, I knew what I'd be having for dinner tonight! Donna made her Special Fried Rice with carrots, peas, garlic, ginger, red bell pepper and scrambled eggs. BTW, did you know that Donna cheats ? Yes, it's true. Oh, no! Donna doesn't cheat on her FFH... that's not what I meant at all! Donna cheats and buys the rice for her dish from the Chinese restaurant down the street! Susan made Thai Pineapple Fried Rice with garlic, ginger, bell pepper, fresh pineapple and cashews! Both of these dishes looked so great and I have to confess... I've never made fried rice before! Why?? It's so easy! It happens so fast! With a little prep work, by the time you start cooking, dinner will be on the table in a matter of minutes! Shrimp is one of my gardener's favorites, so I decided on Shrimp Fried Rice. It was delicious and this recipe makes plenty for two for a main dish. Go ahead and make it tonight! P...

I eat Chinese food once or twice a year and that's plenty.  I like it but not that much.  Imagine moving last year from a place that had several excellent Chinese restaurants that served my favorite Salt and Pepper Shrimp to a place where there is one  Chinese restaurant and it pretty much sucks eggs (and don't even get me started on Mexican food up here)!   What was I going to do about my biannual Chinese food fix?  Make my own. I searched the internet for Salt and Pepper Shrimp recipes and found many, many variations, but none like the one I wanted. So, here is my version of Imperial Valley Salt and Pepper Shrimp.  There are so few ingredients that it's hard to mess up and it tasted excellent... right up there with what I could get in the Valley. Start by slicing up some green onions and hot yellow peppers into rings.  I imagine the Mexican influence in Southern California is how this dish came to be prepared with chiles.  Put them in a hot pan...

My cousin, Jeffrey lives in Houston. We email frequently and talk a lot about a lot of things. He is a gifted writer and makes me laugh and think and appreciate things in life that I might not otherwise. Jeffrey loves to cook, too. In one of our many emails I told him I didn't care for curry. He (for some time now) has been telling me how great red curry is and I finally took him up on his suggestion to try it. I made Red Curry Shrimp . It was easy to prepare and was delicious over plain old white rice. Now I'm off to find other recipes for this new found taste! Thanks, Jeffrey!

Pastor Ryan did a guest post on Pioneer Woman Cooks with his Spicy Orange Garlic Shrimp recipe. With only a few ingredients... 3/4 cup orange juice 3 cloves garlic 3 T butter 1 tsp Old Bay Seasoning 1/2 tsp Cayenne pepper ...and some shrimp, I just had to make it. Be sure to check out Pastor Ryan's recipe here . I made a few adaptations to use what I had in the fridge and cupboard, so here's my version. It's asparagus. I chopped a bunch into pieces and simmered them until they were just tender. Don't overcook them, because we'll be heating them through again later and you don't want them mushy. Drain them and save them for later. Okay, I'm a live and let live kind of gal... if you want them mushy; if you like them mushy; if you crave them mushy... just keep them on the fire a little longer. You're the boss. And I mean that. You are. Pour the orange juice (I used a cup because I wanted it more saucy... you'll see why later) into a bowl and add...

My gardener and I went looking for a new gas stove yesterday. As a result, we went into a few stores that we hadn't yet visited in HAVRE, MONTANA. One of the stores was just up my alley. They had all sorts of kitchen gadgets and utensils, spices, seasoning packets, and lots of different shapes of pasta. I could live in that store. I found this Shrimp Scampi Gourmet Pasta Sauce Blend "Because pasta without our sauce is just noodles!" TM. My gardener loves shrimp. I love my gardener. What to fix for dinner was a no brainer! The recipe calls for mushrooms, green onions, the seasoning mix, 1 cup water, and 1 cup wine. Pretty simple. Melt some butter in a pan. While the butter was melting, I went outside to take some pictures of Big Sky Country. A storm was brewing... The wind came up, the sky turned black... And it snowed! Not a lot of snow... just a few flakes fluttering by. About 8 minutes later, the sky was clear and the sun was shining. Back to the stove! When the b...

If you want the background on these shrimp, you can read the It Started out to be Shrimp Cocktail post. Okay, I had these shrimp that were thawed. I put some olive oil and butter in a pan and added chopped garlic, dried parsley, black pepper, rosemary and red chili flakes. Let that simmer a while. Whoa ... is there anything better than the odor of rosemary! Dang, I love that! I added a pint of heavy cream and let it reduce until it was thick. In the meantime I cooked some pasta. When the cream mixture was thick, I added some freshly grated parmesan. Mmmm! In went the shrimp - for three or four minutes - you don't want to overcook them! Here it is Shrimp and Pasta. (We'll have shrimp cocktail another night).

B loves shrimp. I thought I'd surprise him with a shrimp cocktail last night. So, I thawed some shrimp... ... and gathered some spices: chopped garlic, parsley, garlic powder, Zatarain's powdered crab boil, red chili pepper flakes, rosemary, and a bay leaf. You can't see the bay leaf, because somebody forgot to put it on the counter when I took the picture. Okay, it was me. I added the seasonings to a small pot of water (there's the bay leaf!). When the water boils, the shrimp go in for about 3 minutes. Then I drain them, put them in a Ziploc bag and put them in the refrigerator to get ice cold. Except, B came home and I asked a simple question. " Would you rather have shrimp cocktail or shrimp and pasta?" He wanted the pasta. Okay, no problemo, but what am I going to do with all these yummy spices boiling away on the stove? Onions . We have plenty of them. Can't think of anything better to add to a roast beef sandwich than some crunchy, seasoned onio...