in the kitchen

shrimp etouffee

strawberry shortcake

i like to cook. tonight, mdh and i tossed our plans of packing and moving to have a friday night date. i've had the cookbook great tobasco recipes for several years. i got it because mdh is a huge fan of tabasco; if it's got tabasco or bacon, it's gotta be good according to mdh. anyway, my plan was for him to pick any recipe out of this book and we'd go to petalo to make it. i'm on a quest to eat healthier so the only request i made was no red meat, as mdh would eat it every day, every meal. he chose (with a little help and prompting from me) the shrimp etouffee.

with etouffee (i just like saying it!) in the name one would think it would be a difficult recipe with uncommon ingredients and special techniques to employ. i know i felt a little intimidated. but you know what they say, looks can be deceiving. it was surprisingly easy. the ingredients are common grocery store items. i only needed a saucepan to cook this tomato based dish in. next time i think maybe i'll try a nice white fish instead of/in addition to the shrimp. the recipe called for two pounds of shrimp, but we only had one and as it's just the two of us, i didn't think we'd need more.

the etouffee had a little heat -- it is from great tobasco recipes after all -- probably not enough for mdh's liking, but didn't have the overpowering flavor of tobasco, which can happen when using a heavy hand with it. the celery gave it a nice texture. the rice -- jasmine, long grain white -- also paired nicely with it as well as my glass of shiraz. i enjoyed this dish very much. so much so that i had more than two servings. i won't tell you how many more. oink. oink. don't judge.

to finish out the meal: simple strawberry shortcake. delicioso!