Garlic Butter Shrimp

2 Mar

This meal is so easy.  Sometimes, I add some fresh or dried parsley, but decided to skip it this time.  I served this over white rice, but it would be good over wild or brown rice too.  Or, you could serve it over pasta of your choice.  I’ve served it over angel hair pasta, and they went really well together.  A vegetable like broccoli, asparagus, or green beans goes well with this.

Garlic Butter Shrimp
Recipe found here

What you need:

1 pound uncooked medium shrimp, peeled and deveined, tails removed
2 cloves garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup butter
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon dried parsley, optional (or 2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped)
Hot cooked rice, about 2 cups

How to make it:

In a large skillet, saute the shrimp and garlic in butter for 5 minutes or until shrimp turn pink. Add the lemon juice and parsley, if using; heat through. Serve with rice.

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Classic Pizza Margherita with Sausage

1 Mar

Back in January, I talked about a Johnsonville Pizza Possibilities House Party I had won a while back.  This pizza recipe is another recipe from the book that came in the party box.  I used some fresh spices, red onion, and tomatoes I had gotten from Bountiful Baskets to make this.  It was very good, a lot of sausage, but I think it’s one of those recipes you can add more or less sausage to.

Classic Pizza Margherita with Sausage
Original recipe found here 

What you need:

1 package (19 oz.) Johnsonville Mild Italian Sausage Links
1 package pizza dough crust mix, prepared according to package instructions for the dough
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon garlic, minced
1 tablespoon parsley, minced
1 tablespoon oregano
Sea salt and pepper
8 Roma tomatoes, sliced (divided-save 10 slices for the top)
1/2 medium red onion, minced
2 cups Mozzarella cheese, shredded
1 cup Fontina cheese, shredded (I didn’t have these cheese, so I didn’t use it)
10 fresh basil leaves, divided
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, shredded

How to make it:

Put oven rack on lowest shelf and preheat to 425 F.
Lightly oil a pizza pan. Roll out dough as thin as possible. Let rest 10 minutes.
In a large skillet, heat 1 tablespoon oil and cook sausage until browned.  Always cook sausage to internal temperature of 160°F.  Remove from pan and slice.
In the same pan, cook onion and parsley to golden, then stir in garlic and oregano for a few seconds.  Add tomatoes to pan, crushing them as they are mixed (do not substitute crushed tomatoes). Boil, stirring 5 minutes or until thick.
Spread sauce over crust, sprinkle with half the basil, Mozzarella, Fontina, sausage, and the remaining slices of tomatoes. Spray with olive oil.  Sprinkle generously with pepper, then with a little sea salt.
Bake for 10 minutes.  Using a spatula and an oven mitt, slip the pizza off the pan directly onto the oven rack, bake for two minutes.  Slip pizza back onto pan, remove from oven.  Or, I just baked for 12 minutes on the pan.
Sprinkle with the remaining fresh basil and Parmesan cheese, cut and serve.

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Sierra Vista Farmer’s Market

1 Mar

Our local farmer’s market runs twice a week, Thursdays and Saturdays, from 10am  to 2pm.  You can find more information on their website: Sierra Vista Farmer’s Market.  When I actually remember to go, I always love walking around to see what they have.  For being a fairly small city, the market does have quite a bit to offer.  Natural, grass fed beef, lamb, and chicken, lots of fruits and vegetables, fresh roasted chiles, honey, olives, breads, salsa, eggs, tortillas, tamales, and more.  Plus, handmade wood art, jewelry, and today I saw wooden bowls.  They also usually have a food cart so you can eat lunch there.  Today, our main goal was to inquire about buying a 1/2 or whole side of beef to share with some friends and to get honey sticks (little straw sized tubes of flavored honey).  Here is what we ended up with:

 

Here is what we got:

Whole leg of lamb, 4.29 lbs at $7.75/pound, $33.25 total, from San Ysidro Farm.  We will use this for our Easter dinner.

Top Sirloin Steaks, 2 steaks, 1.535 lbs at $10/pound, $15.35 total, from Sky Island Brand.  I got this to try out their meat since they do whole and 1/2 sides of beef.

2 cucumbers and 2 zucchini, $3.50 total.  Cucumbers are currently being made into Refrigerator Pickles, and the zucchini will be made into Italian Crescent Zucchini Pie

5 honey sticks, 2 pink lemonade, 1 lemon honey are shown, 1 root beer and 1 lemon honey were eaten at the market.

 

I like supporting local growers, even though I might not get a great price savings compared to the grocery store.  I’m excited to try out the steaks, but it will probably be a few days before I get to it.  Both the steaks and leg of lamb were already frozen, so I just put them in the freezer here when we got home.

What do you like about your farmer’s market?

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Fry’s Cart Buster Deal of the Day

29 Feb

Fry’s is having a Cart Buster sale, and will have a Deal of the Day coupon available to load on your VIP card every day from February 29 – March 6.  You can click on the link below to load the coupon for they day onto your card.

 

Fry’s Cart Buster Deal of the Day coupon

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Zaycon Foods Salmon

28 Feb

 

Tonight we tried out the Zaycon Foods salmon we recently bought.  It was very, very good salmon, better than any I have bought in the store.  I first cut the salmon fillet into 5 smaller pieces.  Then, I sprayed them with olive oil, and sprinkled with garlic salt and lemon pepper seasoning.

 

Then, I heated up our George Foreman grill and cooked the pieces.  It doesn’t take long until they are done.  We all enjoyed this salmon, even my kids!  I’m thinking about how I will make the next one.

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Yellow Squash Casserole

28 Feb

 

When I came across this recipe, it sounded good, but it really is delicious!  It has a buttery, cheesy taste, which blends nicely with the squash.  I used Ritz crackers for this, but you could probably use bread crumbs or crushed cornflakes in their place.  I was also tempted to add some oregano to this, but I got busy making it and forgot to add it in.

 

Yellow Squash Casserole
Based on recipe here

What you need:

1/4 cup butter
4 cups sliced yellow squash
1/2 cup chopped onion
Salt and pepper to taste (and 1 tsp oregano if desired)
35 round buttery crackers, crushed (about 1 1/2 cups if you decide to substitute in something else)
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
2 eggs
3/4 cup milk

How to make it:

Preheat oven to 400 F.

In a large skillet, melt butter.  Add onion and squash.  Cover, and cook until both are tender, about 5-10 minutes.  Stir in salt and pepper.  Remove from heat.

Mix together crushed crackers and shredded cheddar cheese.  Divide mixture in half.  Stir in one half with the squash mixture.

In a small bowl, beat eggs and milk together.  Pour over the squash mixture and stir.

Grease an 8×8 baking dish.  Pour in the squash mixture.  Top with the remaining half of the cracker and cheese mixture.

Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, or until casserole is bubbly and the crackers are lightly browned.

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Refrigerator Pickles

28 Feb

 

I am not a fan of pickles or really, anything pickled.  But, my husband and kids LOVE pickles, so I decided to try an experiment with the cucumbers we received from Bountiful Baskets this past weekend.  I actually like these, although I think it’s because they still taste more like cucumbers than pickles.  My husband and kids really like them too.

 

Refrigerator Pickles

What you need:

6 cups sliced cucumbers (I used my mandolin slicer to get them thin and evenly cut)
1 small onion, diced
1 tablespoon salt
2 teaspoons celery seed (I didn’t have celery seeds, so I used 2 teaspoons celery salt and reduced to 1 teaspoon salt)
1 1/2 teaspoons mustard seeds
1 cup vinegar
1/2 cup sugar (more or less depending on the level of sweetness you want)

How to make it:

Mix together cucumbers, onion, salt, celery seed, and mustard seed in a bowl.  Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let sit for an hour.

Boil vinegar and remove from heat.  Stir in sugar to dissolve it.  Allow to fully cool.

Pour vinegar mixture over the cucumber mix, and stir gently.  Cover bowl tightly and put in the refrigerator.  Allow to sit in refrigerator for at least 24 hours.  Will last covered in refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

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Shrimp & Broccoli Alfredo

26 Feb

Tonight I used the first of the Zaycon Foods seafood that I got recently, 1 pound of the white shrimp.  The shrimp is deveined and fully cooked, so I just thawed it by running cold water over it, then removed the tails.  I made some Alfredo Sauce using fresh garlic and parsley from the Italian themed veggie pack from Bountiful Baskets, added in the shrimp at the end, along with some broccoli from Bountiful Baskets that I had steamed.  It was very good.  The shrimp was very tasty, nice large, quality shrimp.  I served it over thin spaghetti, but the shrimp and broccoli with sauce was enough to eat just on its own, without noodles.  I will probably try a Garlic Butter Shrimp next, or maybe something with the cod.  So nice to have some seafood in the freezer to use for meals!

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Basket Breakdown – 2/25/2012

26 Feb

This week, I got the conventional basket for $15 and a fruit pack, 14 lbs of a variety of apples, for $12, so a total of $28.50 after the $1.50 handling fee.

 

 

Starting at left, Anjou pears, Pink Lady apples, bananas, cantaloupe, mangoes, kiwi, broccoli, cucumbers, butter lettuce, cauliflower, and red potatoes.

 

The apple pack had Honey Crisp, Fuji, Junami, Braeburn, Gala, Pink Lady, Granny Smith, and Cameo apples.

 

Note: The type and amount of food may vary from another basket because of geographic location and because of variances in how the ends of produce cases are distributed after everything has been distributed evenly.

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Carrot Cake

25 Feb

I still have some carrots from the 25 lb bag I got a while back from Bountiful Baskets.  They have been in my fridge keeping nicely.  I’ve been meaning to make this cake for a while, but finally got the chance today.  Carrot cake is a favorite in our house, but I’ve never actually made it.  My cousin gave me a recipe that she had gotten from lady that used to work in the cafeteria at the old Sear’s department store on the riverfront in Peoria, Illinois.  This really turned out great, I was very pleased.

 

Carrot Cake
Recipe from Shelley Doyle, from Frances Markum who worked at Bishop’s Cafeteria in Peoria

What you need:

2 cups granulated sugar
4 eggs
3 cups of shredded carrots
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 cup of walnuts, optional (I did not use walnuts)

How to make it:

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Cream together the sugar and eggs.  Add oil, carrots, and nuts (if using).  In a separate bowl, mix together the remaining dry ingredients.  Slowly add to the carrot mixture and stir well. Pour into 2 greased 9 inch round cake pans.  Bake in the preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes.  Cool on wire racks.

Butternut Cream Cheese Frosting

What you need:

1 stick butter
1 8 ounce package cream cheese
2-4 cups powdered sugar, depending on the level sweetness you want (I used 2 1/2 cups)
1 teaspoon of butternut or similar flavoring (I only had vanilla extract on hand, so that’s what I used)

How to make it:

Cream the butter and cream cheese until smooth.  Blend in powdered sugar to the level of sweetness you desire, then blend in the flavoring.  Makes enough frosting to have 2 separate 9 inch cakes or for a 2 layer cake.

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