This dish is almost like a cooked ceviche. It has all the same flavors, just prepared in a different way. These shrimp would be great in tacos or even as the filling for enchiladas. The sauce in this dish is very simple and easy to make and very versatile. It would be great with chicken as well. This dish comes together pretty quickly, but making the sauce ahead of time would cut down cooking time to around 5 minutes just for the shrimp.

This is a fast and easy meal. It’s perfect for summertime since very little heat is needed. The flavors come together perfectly. The best part of these tacos is the salsa. It’s super fast to make and super delicious. It would be great with chicken or fish tacos or on top of a salad. If you want to add some heat, adding in a couple jalapeños or a bell pepper would be great.

The shrimp! That’s what this dish is called at my favorite Irish pub in Santa Barbara (Dargan’s). Dargan’s is definitely a favorite meeting spot for me and my best friend Jessica. We have spent many an hour chatting away over pints there. The shrimp is one of my go to dishes if we happen to be grabbing dinner there (their black bean burger is pretty amazing as well). Well unfortunately, Jess and I have been busy ladies lately and we haven’t been to Dargan’s in a while, but I had a hankering for the shrimp, so I tried my best to recreate the meal at home. It’s not an exact replica, but it’s pretty close and just as delicious.

For some reason I had never thought to combine mashed potatoes and shrimp into one dish before having it at Dargan’s. The two never seemed like a combination that would work all that well. I was definitely wrong about that. Quite frankly I should have known better; obviously two of my favorite foods are going to be amazing together…Obviously.

Chili-Garlic Shrimp
(serves 2)

• 2 large potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• extra virgin olive oil
• 12 large shrimp
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• Sweet chili sauce

1.  Place the peeled and cubed potatoes in a pot. Cover with water and boil until tender, about 15-20 minutes.  When the potatoes are quite soft, drain them completely and return them to the pan over medium heat. Add the butter and cook for a few minutes over medium heat, stirring the potatoes vigorously to help any leftover water evaporate. When any remaining water has evaporated, and the potatoes are quite smashed up and smooth, remove from heat. Add the warm milk and garlic powder. Mix together until everything is smooth and creamy (I usually use a hand mixer, it’s easier and faster).  Season to taste with pepper and salt.
2. While the potatoes are cooking, heat the olive oil in a large pan. Add in the shrimp and garlic. When the shrimp are nearly completely cooked (pink) pour in a generous drop of the sweet chili sauce and stir to coat.
3. When the shrimp are done, dish up the potatoes on two plates. Divide the shrimp between the plates with any of the remaining sauce in the pan. Feel free to add more chili sauce if you want it.
4. Serve and enjoy!

Oh my. I don’t even know where to begin with this one. It’s amazing. It’s delicious. It’s lemony, garlicky, buttery, spicy goodness all in one. I could eat this every single day and never get sick of it. Never ever. It took everything in my willpower not to make this for every meal I’ve had since the first time I’ve made it. You should make this like right now. Go.

I added more garlic and lemon than the original recipe called for. I like a lot of sauce and this recipe isn’t all that sauce-y, so the extra lemon juice helped.

Lemon-Garlic Shrimp & Grits (from Food Network)

• 3/4 cup instant grits
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 1/4 pounds medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 4 large cloves garlic, minced
• Pinch of cayenne pepper (optional, but highly recommended)
• Juice of 1 lemon, plus wedges for serving

1. Bring 3 cups of water to a boil in a medium saucepan over high heat, covered. Uncover and slowly whisk in the grits, 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Reduce the heat to medium low and cook, stirring occasionally, until thickened, about 5 minutes. Stir in the parmesan and 1 tablespoon butter. Remove from the heat and season with salt and pepper. Cover to keep warm.
2. Meanwhile, season the shrimp with salt and pepper. Melt the remaining 2 tablespoons butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the shrimp, garlic and cayenne, if using, and cook, tossing, until the shrimp are pink, 3 to 4 minutes. Remove from the heat and add 2 tablespoons water, the lemon juice and parsley; stir to coat the shrimp with the sauce and season with salt and pepper.
3. Divide the grits among shallow bowls and top with the shrimp and sauce. Serve with lemon wedges.

This week involved a lot cleaning and and preparing and cooking for a lot of people I didn’t know. It was weird. Then my one of my favorite singers died. Poor Amy. It was sad. But mainly this week involved a whole lot of this…

except that it's real...

If you have never met me in real life, I should probably take the time to point out that I am the most accident/injury/illness prone person you will ever encounter. I can currently count at least 7 injuries of varying degrees, along with one unknown mystery ailment, which is the bane of my existence at the moment. It’s taken years to perfect this extraordinary skill set of awkward and clumsy, but I really do make the most of it. Plus, all of my ailments and how I acquired them tend to make for fairly amusing stories.

Things I Made:

• Crockpot Salsa Chicken Tostadas
• Braised Pork Chops
• Grilled Shrimp with Chive Polenta Cakes
• Strawberry Vodka Lemonade
• Roasted Corn and Tomato Salad

Things I Want to Make:

• Balsamic Strawberry Popsicles - Epicurious - Needs to happen asap.
• Hawaiian Pesto - Eighty Twenty - I hate real pesto but this sounds amazing.
• Mudslide Ice Cream Cake – Endless Simmer - I don’t even know where to begin…

Things to Check out:

When I first saw this recipe I thought “Shrimp. Polenta. Chives. Sold.” Three things that I like all together in one meal, it definitely had to be made.

The other thing I really liked about this recipe that it’s one that can be prepared ahead of time and cooked as you are just about to serve it in under 10 minutes. I also think it looks much ‘fancier’ than the preparation involved. I’m sure it would impress just about any dinner guest.

I also took some liberties with the shrimp. I don’t think they really mind, they probably enjoyed it. The original called for basil, which I am so totally not a fan of. Basil = grosssssss. I am, however, a firm believer that it is not a real meal unless there are mass quantities of  garlic and paprika involved (you can take the girl out of Hungary…).

Grilled Shrimp with Chive Polenta Cakes (adapted from this recipe)

Chive Polenta Cakes:

• 2 cups milk
• 1 cup yellow cornmeal
• 2 tbsp. unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing pyrex dish
• 1 tsp. kosher salt
• 1 tsp. fresh ground pepper
• 4 oz. goat cheese
• small bunch of chives

The most exciting part of the whole meal was the accompanying side salad! What’s so exciting about lettuce you ask? Well, this was the first harvest from out our garden! I maintain that our homegrown, organic, pesticide-free, raised with tender love and care lettuce tasted much better than what we get at the store, but Mama CC says there was no difference… I like my story better.

I served the lettuce with a little mustardy vinaigrette which is super simple to make a goes with just about any salad.

Mustardy Vinaigrette

• 1 big spoonful of dijon mustard (I normally use grainy, but we were out)
• 1 big glug of olive oil
• 1 medium glug of white wine vinegar
• Garlic, fresh, minced or I like to use Garlic Gold Nuggets
• Salt and fresh ground pepper

I had just been complaining about how slow our magazines were in getting here this month and today, they nearly all showed up! (Maybe I should complain more often…?) I was reading through the July 2011 issue of Real Simple and there are some great sounding fresh, summery sounding recipes. I was immediately intrigued by the recipe on page 190, Spiced Chicken Salad with Plums and Chickpeas. After a few quick substitutions for ingredients I had on hand and we had a wonderfully inspired salad for dinner.

The salad was so tasty, and the dressing and marinade could easily be used on other meats/fish or veggies. I also, really loved the colors of this salad, everything was so bright and absolutely delicious. I only marinated the shrimp for about 30 minutes, since they are a little more ‘fragile’ than the recipe’s original chicken.  And it was so fast and easy to make. I will definitely be making this again. And again.

Spiced Shrimp Salad with Plums & Chickpeas (inspired by Real Simple July 2011 p. 190)

• 10 large shrimp, deveined, de-shelled
• 1 medium red onion, half coarsely chopped and half sliced
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 2 tsp. garam masala
• 1/2 C. greek yogurt
• 1/4 C. + 2 Tbsp. red wine vinegar
• Kosher salt & fresh ground pepper
• 2 Tbsp. olive oil
• 2 large handfuls arugula
• 1/2 15 oz. can chickpeas, rinsed
• 1 plum, pitted and thinly sliced

We ate our Father’s Day dinner in stages today. Instead of a real lunch I whipped up a couple appetizers for us to munch on while I was getting the rest of the dinner together.

I made some caramelized onion ‘stuffed’ mushrooms and some garlic lemon shrimp. Simply delicious.

I based the shrimp on another recipe my mom makes with chicken, but left out the breadcrumbs that normall get mixed in so it wasn’t quite as heavy. I will definitely be making this again in the future and might experiment with leaving the breadcrumbs in as well.

Garlic Lemon Shrimp

• 1 pound of shrimp, deveined and de-shelled
• 1 lemon
• 1 stick of butter, unsalted
• 4-6 cloves of garlic
• 1/4 cup parsley, chopped
• 1 tsp. kosher salt
• 1 tsp. black pepper
• 1.5 tsp. red pepper flakes

So, in order to make traditional stuffed mushrooms more gluten-free friendly, I left the traditional breadcrumb mixture out. Since I was caramelizing some onions as I normally do on a Sunday, I decided to combine them with some mushrooms. These ended up being a tasty snack as well. Caramelizing onions is a lot of work, so unless you are making a batch of onions already, it might be a bit of a hassle to make these, but they would definitely be worth the effort. Oh, I would also recommend slicing the onions fairly thin so that it’s easier to get them in the mushrooms.

Caramelized Onion Mushrooms

• 2 large onions, cut in half, sliced and caramelized (you will have leftover onions)
• 1 package of mushrooms, cleaned and stemmed
• Some kind of melty cheese (I used some parm and jack)