Shrimp Diane

Yesterday was one of those weird days where I could find absolutely nothing that I wanted to make or have for dinner. Usually I have a pretty good idea by the ingredients that I have bought during the week. Am I becoming a little disheartened by my seemingly endless purge of my freezer and pantry? I guess there is a reason all of that food has been in there and not used! So guess what I did? I told T. to figure out dinner??? LOL!

He did a great job too.

This is what we had...

Sorry for the crappy picture but Hurricane Ike took my sunlight!
You get the idea though-shrimp, mushrooms, zucchini in a butter sauce!

Shrimp Diane

Ingredients:

1 lb of medium sized shrimp, cleaned with tails on
1 stick of butter-I never said T. cooks low-fat!!!
6 green onions, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 cup mushrooms, sliced
2 zucchini cut into sticks
1/4 Cup stock, preferably fish or shrimp
1/4 Cup fresh parsley, picked and chopped
1 package of your favorite pasta, cooked

Spice Mix:

1-1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp granulated garlic
pinch of cayenne (less depending on taste)
1/2 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp basil
1/2 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp oregano

Directions:

• Mix the spice mix ingredients together and set aside.
• Melt 6 Tbsp of the butter in a large pan. When almost melted add the garlic, zucchini and the spice mix.
• Mix well and add the shrimp and cook for about a minute.
• Add the mushrooms and the stock and simmer until shrimp are almost fully cooked.
• Add the remaining butter and parsley and green onion and cook until the butter is completely melted.
• Serve over your favorite pasta with a generous serving of Parmesan cheese.

This was a really nice dish to come home from Karate to. Thanks so much T. Tonight we want Pizza-okay?

Things used from my freezer:

shrimp
zucchini
shrimp stock

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Stuffed Green Peppers and my never ending freezer purge

Italian stuffed green peppers!

My never ending battle to empty my freezer goes on...

I have a case of green peppers that I froze a couple of months ago that I am now working on. Last week Life is Good left a comment on one of my asking for help posts and it was a recipe for stuffed peppers. I have only ever had them stuffed with rice so this was a great idea.

The base of the recipe was bread crumbs. It was really just a list of ingredients which I was able to throw together and come up with a nice, quick and tasty dinner.

bread crumbs (make your own from some older bread)
fresh basil
fresh oregano
fresh parsley
garlic powder
salt
pepper
1 can of diced tomato with juice
olive oil
1/2 cup fresh grated Parmesan
1/2 cup cubed fresh mozzarella

I mixed all of this together in a bowl and stuffed them into my peppers. Stuff lightly. It's a lot of bread crumbs. I baked them at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes. I served them with some Italian sausage and they made a really good dinner!

5 peppers down about 30 to go...HELP!

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

My Dirty Little Secret!

We all have them. You know that dish that you whip together really fast using every single shortcut you can think of...well I did it the other day and EVERYONE LOVED IT!!!!

Believe it or not last week I had 2 funerals to attend. The first one was for my neighbor so I went to the viewing and showed my support but the other one was one of my very close friends husband. Neither of these were unexpected and they had both been in Hospice Care but it doesn't make their passing any easier.

Anyway on with my story...my friend was having an open house after the service and I told her I would bring a dish so that she had one less thing to worry about.

I stood and stared at my pantry for some inspiration. I stood there for a long, long time. I went to the fridge. Same thing. I couldn't even decide if I should do a sweet or a savory dish. I finally went through an old box I had of baking things and that's when it came to me. Fruit pizza!

Years ago at a school auction I had one a basket with a baking theme. You know the baskets that are chock full of everything you need to "bake". Cookie mixes, cake mixes, frosting, pancake mixes etc. Well I've used some of the stuff but lucky for me I had never had the need to use a bag of sugar cookie mix that was in there. I also had a very old tub of cream cheese frosting. I was so lazy on this I didn't even mix the frosting with whipped cream I just spread it on like it was from the tub and topped that bad boy with kiwi, strawberries and blueberries!

Normally I wouldn't even post something like this but it was such a hit. I had all sorts of people wanting to know how to make it, what was in it. Did I lie and tell them it was all from scratch or did I fess up? I'll never tell but this was that one dish at a pot luck that everyone raves over. This was it!!!


Fruit Pizza-Betty Crocker

1 pouch (1 lb 1.5 oz) Betty Crocker® sugar cookie mix 1/2 cup butter or margarine, melted 1 egg 1 cup whipping cream 1/2 cup Betty Crocker® Rich & Creamy cream cheese frosting (from 1-lb container) 3 1/2 cups assorted fresh fruit 1. Heat oven to 375°F. Lightly spray 14-inch pizza pan or 15x10-inch baking pan with cooking spray. 2. In medium bowl, stir cookie mix, melted butter and egg until soft dough forms. Press dough in bottom of pan. Bake 10 to 15 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool completely, about 45 minutes. 3. In chilled medium bowl, beat whipping cream with electric mixer on high speed until soft peaks form. Gently stir frosting into whipped cream. Spread over cookie pizza. Arrange fruit on top.

Because everyone liked it so much I am going to submit this to Susan at Sticky, Gooey, Creamy, Chewy for her Blogiversary Bash! Happy first year Susan!!!

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

My Favorite Summer Sandwich

A Caprese Sandwich?

This sandwich is one of my most favorite things to eat. I've posted the mozzarella and tomato salad before and really all this is is that same salad with bread. Two

Two nice fat slices of dead ripe tomato, a couple of leaves of basil, some fresh mozzarella, some salt and pepper and a few drizzles of good balsamic vinegar, all squished between 2 slices of good bread or in this case a bagel (the bread was baking).

Yummmm and pure summer!

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Marmalade Curry Chicken???

I have been told to never make this again...it doesn't look that bad does it?

Does it really sound that bad? You should have seen T's face when I told him what we were having for dinner. Funny thing is I don't really like curry or Indian food (see this post) but I thought that it sounded pretty good (and would be using up several things in my fridge that I needed out...see the plan here?), and it would be using my Crockpot which I sort of have a love/hate relationship going with!

I was at the girl's school this morning for the first time as a volunteer so that was kind of fun and I had a brief meeting with the "gifted" coordinator to find out how far along we had gotten with my oldest daughter's paperwork. So I needed something quick and that didn't require too much attention from me. This is where the Crockpot comes in to play. I guess the reason that I don't like it all that much is that most of the things that I come across to cook in it have Cream of Mushroom Soup in it????!!! Are the 2 things made by the same company? Is Rival somehow linked to Campbell's? Whatever.

Anyway I came across this when I was looking for something to do with the marmalade and chicken. This recipe, although it is for in your Crockpot, has no cream soup of anything in it so I decided to give it a whirl!

Before the recipe though I want you to check out Stephanie's Blog. Stephanie likes me. I mean really likes me and even blogged about it. Pretty cool huh?

Marmalade Curry Chicken (adapted from Allrecipes.)

Ingredients:

• 8 boneless, skinless, chicken cutlets
• 1 Cup flour
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• pinch of cayenne pepper
• 1/8 tsp white pepper
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp salt
  
• 1 (12 ounce) jar orange marmalade
• 1/2 cup chicken stock
• 1 1/2 tsp curry powder
• 1/4 tsp ground cayenne pepper
• 1/4 tsp ground ginger
  
  

Directions:

1. Mix the flour with the next 5 ingredients. Dredge the chicken through the flour and place the chicken in the slow cooker. Whisk together the marmalade, chicken stock, curry powder, cayenne pepper, and ground ginger in a bowl. Pour over chicken breasts.
2. Cover, and cook on High for 3 to 4 hours, or on Low for 5 to 7 hours. Make sure to flip over the chicken breasts once during cooking.

This meal didn't turn out so well and although it was really simple for me to throw in and not worry at all about for the day, T. has made me promise to not ever make it again! I didn't think it was all that bad but then again I got hit with a monster of a cold this afternoon and can no longer smell or taste anything. I guess that's a good thing from what the kids and T. said!!!

What it used up in from my fridge and freezer:

frozen chicken cutlets
jar of reduced sugar marmalade that tasted like crap
some left over chicken stock from another recipe last week

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Still cleaning out the freezer and "Happy Meat"

"Happy" Rib Steaks with Sauteed Sugar Snap Peas and Parsley Potatoes!

I guess one of the reasons that I am so determined to get the freezer cleaned out and the food down to a manageable level in there is that with all of the storms lined up in the Atlantic I think that maybe we may loose electricity due to one of them. I would be so upset with myself if I let all of that wonderful food go to waste.

Crazy in the Atlantic right now!

As it is I have about a case of organic green peppers...I think I am going to stuff some of them this week, a case of organic zucchini, about $200 worth of "happy meat" from the grass fed cow (Jenn the Left Over Queen did a great post on this last week about the importance of eating grass fed beef, and said it so much better than me!) we had butchered about a month ago and a whole bunch of miscellaneous things, most of which I don't even remember! Some of which we don't even eat anymore. I know there are so pork chops in there that we won't eat because they are not grain fed, antibiotic and hormone free. What am I suppose to do with all of this stuff???

Anyway the other day I pulled out a package of the grass fed cow that was marked rib steak. Let it thaw nice and slow on the counter and the fridge. Also found some pretty dried up looking frozen sugar snap peas. I thawed those out as well and started to work on some potatoes for parsley potatoes (everyone's favorite here!).

The sugar snap peas were easy. Thaw them out and saute them in olive oil. Near the end of the cooking add some chopped garlic and when all of it is cooked up nice and heated through a few splashes of soy sauce and you have a great side dish!

The steaks were marinated (for about 30 minutes) in soy sauce, chopped garlic, pepper, dried oregano and a splash of olive oil and then grilled.

Any ideas on the zucchini and peppers???

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

What to do with all the bits and pieces?

I was having a bit of a dilemma. My fridge was full. My freezer was full. I knew I needed to start taking some drastic measures! Actually eating what I had and not buying more or wasting any leftovers. Just from the challenges that I did last week I had crumb topping, chocolate cream puff filling, and chocolate sauce. I actually emailed my friend Jenn and she suggested a cake or pudding but that seemed like too much work and I may have had to get off of the couch earlier. But regardless this stuff was not going to go to waste.

Strawberries with an Oatmeal Crumb Topping

I threw the chocolate cream filling in the freezer and poured some cut up strawberries into a pie plate and topped them with the crumb topping and baked them in the oven at 375 for about 20 minutes or until they were hot and bubbly. Yanked them out of the oven. Used the chocolate cream filling as ice cream and served it all together topped with chocolate sauce.

Strawberries with oatmeal crumb topping, neopolitan ice cream and the chocolate sauce from the Daring Baker's éclairs!

OMG...Yummmmm! I used some regular ice cream for the girls and they just loved it as well! And now I found a use for all of that stuff...

What to do about the freezer?

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com