New recipes, week 2.

I’m not really a big shrimp person.  Something about the mental image of “cockroaches of the sea” has held me back for many years.  Dave, however, loves them, so I decided to focus on shrimp for this week’s new recipe.

Let me say, “Wow!”  I made this for dinner last night with Dave and Michael, and it was a big hit.  The spicy and hearty flavor of the shrimp was exceptionally well balanced, and it paired very nicely with the sweet mango salsa and the tangy lime rice.

I found this recipe in one of my cookbooks, although it can be found online as well.

I started by making a trip to Whole Foods, the only place in Chicago that I trust for seafood.  I doubled the entire recipe, which turned out to be the right move because I (and 2 grown men) devoured it.  There were enough leftovers for a lunch.  I pan cooked the shrimp in several batches, but they cook so quickly it wasn’t really an issue.  And I did hold back on the jalapenos a bit, only using 3 total and cleaning the seeds out of 2 of them.  The result had a little kick, but wasn’t overwhelmingly spicy.

Ingredients

Salsa:

1 mango, peeled and finely diced
3 scallions, sliced
5 basil leaves, julienned
1 lime, juiced
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Shrimp:

2 fresh jalapenos, sliced
3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1/2–inch piece ginger, peeled and grated
2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1/2 lime, zested
1/4 cup coconut milk
Small handful basil leaves, torn
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
15 grinds pepper
1 pound peeled, deveined shrimp
Lime Jasmine Rice, recipe follows

Directions

For the salsa: Combine all ingredients together in a mixing bowl. Make up to a day in advance. Keep covered in the refrigerator.

For the shrimp: In a mixing bowl, combine jalapenos, garlic, ginger, brown sugar, soy sauce, lime zest, coconut milk, basil, vegetable oil, salt and pepper. Add the shrimp and marinate for at least 30 minutes and up to 4 hours, refrigerated.

Heat a nonstick skillet over high heat. Use tongs or a fork to remove the shrimp from the marinade and place in an even layer in the pan, reserving the marinade.

Cook the shrimp until well browned on each side, turning once, about 3 to 4 minutes total. Transfer cooked shrimp to a serving plate.

Add reserved marinade to pan, bring to a boil and cook until slightly thickened, about 5 minutes.

Pour over the cooked shrimp and serve with Lime Jasmine Rice and Mango Salsa.

Lime Jasmine Rice:

1 cup jasmine rice
3/4 cup coconut milk
3/4 cup water
Pinch salt
1/2 lime, zested

Put the rice, coconut milk, water, and salt in a saucepan and bring to a simmer. Cover and gently simmer until liquid is absorbed, about 12 to 15 minutes. Fluff with a fork and stir in the lime zest. Serve immediately.

Yield: 2 to 4 servings

Make split pea soup.

I should make this the first of my six weeks of new recipes for #83 on the 101 list.

In the interest of full disclosure, the official review from both Dave and Michael was, “Wow, this tastes WAY better than it looks.”

1 package (16 oz.) dried green split peas, rinsed
1 ham bone
OR
2 cups diced ham
3 carrots, peeled & sliced
1 medium onion, chopped
2 stalks of celery plus leaves, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 bay leaf
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped (optional)
1 tablespoon seasoned salt (or to taste)
1/2 teaspoon fresh pepper
1 1/2 quart hot water

Directions:

#97 – Teach Moxie to scratch something other than that chair.

Dave tells me that I should go ahead and count this as being done before Moxie changes her mood and goes back to scratching our chairs.  She’s actually been good lately and is USUALLY scratching the scratching post…like the good cat she is usually not.

The fancy organic citrus anti-scratch sprays that we used religiously on our furniture did not work.  The ugly sticky plastic strips that we used on our furniture did not work either.

What seems to be working in the end is simply moving the scratching post to the middle of the room…located right between our two chairs.  A little positive reinforcement…making Moxie feel like the center of attention…is what she responds to.

Check out the cool puzzle Dave and I did recently.

This doesn’t count towards my puzzle goal (#33 – Completely assemble a 5,000+ piece puzzle).  It was only 1,000 pieces.

#68 – Host a game night.

Dave and I have hosted a handful of Saturday night game nights this winter, all of which have been lots of fun!  It’s a great new tradition with dinner and friends.

In addition to hosting game nights, however, Dave and I have been playing a lot more board games with just the two of us.  We bought a couple new games for Christmas last year and it seems to be a cheap evening activity that we both enjoy.  I am aware of the nerd factor.

My sister-in-law brought up an interesting point recently in the comments section.  When you eliminate something negative from your life, you should replace it with something positive…lest you become bitter and grouchy for not having the thing that you gave up in the first place.

This concept definitely applies to our giving up cable TV.  I’m embarrassed for how difficult of a decision this was for me, but I’m glad that I’m no longer watching hours and hours of Intervention every Monday night.  The uncontrollable crying at 1 AM was making me look hungover at work every Tuesday morning!

Anyhow, games are just one of the positive things we are using as a replacement for crappy TV.  Dave and I have also been reading a lot more, although we’re a very long ways away from mastering the art of reading the same book and sharing an intelligent conversation about it.  As Dave said the other night, “Time to indulge in our respective forms of literary crack.”  Vampire novels and car magazines… you can guess who likes what.

I started running the numbers on my 101 in 1001 list, and I’ve successfully crossed off (and properly documented) 22 items.  There are a few others which I have completed, but have not yet written about on the blog.  And there are a handful of items which are already in progress.  Check back soon for more posts.

Anyway, all this means is that I still ONLY have 556 days to complete and document the remaining 79 things.  For you mathematicians out there…that means that I am 22% done, while I have used up 45% of the time…but if you’re really a mathematician, you could have figured that out on your own.

And I’m just now noticing how very unrealistic (#84 – Every work night, be in bed by 11 PM…clearly I had just suffered trauma to the head when I wrote that) and expensive (#73 – See Yellowstone National Park, #74 – See the Redwood Forest, #75 – See the Grand Canyon, #76 – See New Orleans…we’ll just ask our bosses for 50% raises and 3 months of vacation time) some of my ambitions are.

I might make a few tweaks to my list, but for the most part I still agree with all of these goals…I just need to work faster…and be willing to carry a few of these goals over to the next 101 list!

#2 – Professionally print and frame pictures from our wedding.

The pictures are in fancy frames, so we must be really married now.

#65 – Watch a movie with Dave once a week (6 weeks).

This is another of my goals that I actually completed before the end of the year.  It all started when I was sick and watched a lot more movies…instead of…you know…cleaning the house or going to work.

You may ask why I had to actually make this a goal.  I know that most people watch a movie at least once a week.  I don’t though, and I know that Dave wishes I would watch more movies with him,  so that’s why it was on the list.

Last summer when we were in LA visiting Dave’s family, my mother-in-law pushed me for an answer about what my favorite movie is.  I fumbled on my response.  Honestly, I have never been a big movie person.  It’s true that I don’t actually have an all time favorite movie.  I’ve tried to think about why this is.  I can watch hours of mindless cable without blinking, but watching a movie…I don’t know.  Maybe I have a short attention span.  Maybe I didn’t watch enough movies as a kid.  Maybe I like my entertainment to be in the form of mindlessness that can be turned off at any time.  Who knows?

So the movies that Dave and I watched together over 6 weeks include…Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead, Gattaca, Paranormal Activity, The Village and Up.  I promise…I stayed awake for all of them.

Oh, and speaking of the cable, we did cancel it in December.  I have been reduced to watching crappy network sitcoms and public television.  I am still going through serious withdrawal.

#51 – Read a science fiction book.

I have actually completed a handful of the things on my “To Do” list recently, all of which I will write about shortly.

I had never read a genuine honest to goodness science fiction book before, and Dave challenged me to do so.  That’s why this goal made the list.

First, I chose to read The Invisible Man, by H.G. Wells, because I had actually heard of H.G. Wells, Wikipedia referenced it as one of the original science fiction works and, I’ll be honest, I was browsing the book store in my office building one day and I noticed how short it was.  Dave told me it didn’t count…no spaceships!!

My second choice, after realizing the spaceship criteria, was Ender’s Game.  Another quick search online revealed it as a quintessential spaceship science fiction book.  Turns out that Dave had recently read the same book.  Shame on me for not actually caring what he was reading, just lumping all of his selections into the evil category of science fiction.  But there it was, we already owned a copy of the book.

So, I read it, and it was good.  Not like John Steinbeck good, but I did honestly enjoy reading it.  It had lots and lots of spaceships in it, and it was well written and entertaining…until the big plot twist…which I read standing up on a Chicago Avenue bus one day and it made me want to put the book down and give up on my goal all together.  I won’t reveal the plot twist, but I will say that I didn’t see it coming and I really kind of hated the book and gave up on it for a couple days.  But I did go back and finish the book.  In retrospect, I would give the book 3 out of 5 stars.

Anyhow, something that struck me in reading this book are the similarities between science fiction and the scary horror books that I always enjoy.  Stephen King is one of my favorite authors.  He is known for the dramatic, the inappropriate and the gruesome.   But often times his books have an element of fantasy or, quite honestly, science fiction.  I didn’t fully appreciate this until I read a genuine honest to goodness science fiction book.

Turns out our interests in reading aren’t that different after all.

#82 – Throw out all of my old pots and pans and start cooking on all stainless steel cookware.

Over Labor Day weekend, Dave and I were in California, but my family was staying at our apartment in Chicago.  I believe it was my sister-in-law, Katrina, who made vanilla pudding that weekend in our kitchen, and it turned out to have flakes of Teflon in it.  They didn’t eat the “Teflon Pudding”, but my Mom did start to worry about us dying from cancer from eating Teflon.

So thanks to an early Christmas present from my parents, we were able to go out and buy a very nice new collection of stainless steel cookware.  I wanted to go the stainless steel route because the high performance, quality and durability.  I am hard on pots and pans.  Obviously I can not be trusted with non-stick cookware.  I will use the metal spatula, I will.

There is a bit of a learning curve in cooking with stainless steel – like preheat the cookware, and don’t turn the burner all the way up unless you want to boil water – but I’m getting the hang of it.  When I follow the rules, I haven’t had any issues with food sticking.  And I get to use all the sharp and pointed tools I want.  I am also learning to cook more with my cast iron skillet and my new cast iron griddle.

We did throw out all the old scratched Teflon cookware.  Hopefully we didn’t eat too much of it.