FRIDAY FISH: Shrimp-Green Chile Pimento Cheese

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This year, when I began to dream about FRIDAY FISH recipes for Lent, I realized that while I hadn’t run out of fish and seafood ideas after fourteen years of food blogging, I did need to do a little planning to make sure I didn’t get seven special company meals or even five fish sandwiches and two seafood chowders. So I jotted down a few ideas (click on the photo at left), wondering if it made sense to go with one soup, one appetizer, one sandwich, and so on. To even things out a bit. I could have made a list of salmon, crab, canned tuna, cod, tilapia, flounder…and that would have been fine, too. But so far, my little dreaming note has worked, though there are only 5 dishes listed to date. Ok, then. I’ll still be thinking.

Ash Wednesday and Lent 2023: WHY DO PEOPLE FAST?/VOX

The thought of stirring a slew of chopped shrimp into my green chile-pimento cheese was born because there was a bag of frozen cooked shrimp in my garage freezer that needed using. I couldn’t imagine shrimpy pimento cheese could be anything but luscious — also versatile — and at the very first turn, I knew I’d struck gold. Shrimp Green Chile-Pimento Cheese is an easy (if not simple) appetizer or sandwich spread or omelet filling that makes a generous quart so you can freeze a pint for the next time friends come to dinner or when you need something to take in the car cooler to have with crackers and a cold beer in the hotel room. My seasoning leaves you with a brief smiley buzz in the mouth but you can ramp that up by doubling the crushed red pepper or adding Tabasco. To decide on your heat level, think about how you’ll use this cheese. Bread will dumb down the heat if you’re making a sandwich but should you dip it up with celery sticks or cucumber rounds, you’ll witness lots more warmth. Your choice.

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FRIDAY FISH: Shrimp Melt

We adored these hot, but they’re yummy cold and are a lot like shrimp rolls.

When I was a junior in college, I shared an apartment with three other women. Someone had the great idea of splitting the cooking chores and proposed each one of us would cook dinner one night a week for all four us, Monday – Thursday. Too many people went away or home on the weekend to worry about any of the other days. We didn’t know a whole heck of a lot about cooking, but gave it our best and were thrilled that we came home to a cooked dinner nearly every school night. Might have saved a few bucks, too. I have no idea what I made, but one roommate, Jan Jellinek, often made her mom’s famous TUNA MELTS. Now this wasn’t a diner-style grilled hot tuna and cheese sandwich, but instead was tuna salad with maybe cheese on a bun and heated in the oven for what I remember to be 45 minutes. That had to have been waaaay too long, but that’s my memory. (The oven’s a lot faster than skillets if you’re making several melts.) I married the next summer and Jan’s TUNA MELT was on our newlywed menu fairly often. It slipped off the weekly rotation somehow after we made a move or two, but 48 years later, I’ve never forgotten about it.

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20 Main Dish Salads to Continue Your Healthy January Adventure

{print recipe for Kalamata Egg Salad with Charred Red Peppers}

If you’re not trying to get healthy this month, you might still want to read this week’s post featuring main dish salads.  Even if all you managed to accomplish was to clear out your entire cellar’s store of Pinot Noir but skipped every red, green, and silver Hershey’s kiss you encountered (and so didn’t gain an ounce in December), you could drum up interest in hefty, heart-warming and filling whole meal salads–if nothing else but to figure out what to do with leftover steak (leftover steak?!), those couple of lonely pork chops, an oh-so-sad single portion of salmon, one languishing chicken breast with wing attached, or perhaps only a drawer full of vegetables and cheese with little else to recommend them but a poached egg or two and maybe a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.

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Shrimp on Tomato Risotto with Kale Salad

Out of all the things folks say to me about making dinner, the most common might be, “I never know what to fix.” It occurs to me that while those are the words coming out of their mouths, the problem might not be that exactly. It might be a question of, “I know how to make tacos, but not enchiladas, so I buy the ingredients and cook tacos. A lot. I don’t have the time to learn enchiladas. Other days I make grilled boneless chicken breasts, salad, chili, mac and cheese, and hamburgers because I don’t need a recipe.”  Or…could be they didn’t plan a week’s meals and shop for the plan. We’ve all been there.

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Individual Shrimp and Feta Pizzas on Mini-Naan Flatbread (Baby Naan Pizza)

Americans consume more than 3 billion pizzas a year. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture released a report showing that 13% of Americans eat pizza on any given day and over a quarter of young males are eating it daily.

info courtesy restaurantmealprices.com

I’m wondering how many are homemade? A minute fraction?  (If you’d like, take a little class right here on the blog and make your own “regular” pizza right in your kitchen just like my student in the photo below.)

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Sheet Pan Dinner: Shrimp and Vegetable “Stir Fry”

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It’s a snow day. I don’t currently have a paying job–this isn’t to say I don’t work– but I’m still thrilled to think I needn’t go anywhere and perhaps could be excused from accomplishing anything. Too many years of kids in the house or teaching makes me stand up and cheer when the school closings begin.  Usually I spend the day in the kitchen with a big pot of soup bubbling away –and I’m about to do that after I’m done with the blog– but today a little perking dream took life.

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The neighborhood girls out for a stroll out front…

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Spicy Shrimp on Lemon-Chive Risotto with Tomato Salad or What to Eat After a Cruise

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A thought for the evening following a political convention:

“In a world so torn apart by rivalry, anger, and hatred, we have the privileged vocation to be living signs of a love that can bridge all divisions and heal all wounds.”

–Henri Nouwen

                               from a Diana Butler Bass post on fb

Just home from an Alaskan cruise...What words could I use to describe it?  None, I think. A few photos might help.

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