Northwoods Shrimp and Vegetable Salad

Right.  So it was snowing here in New England (again!) today.  Not exactly salad weather, but diet menus tend to emphasize salad, and I had 3/4 pound of shrimp in the freezer, so I decided to try this salad with looked so pretty and colorful.

First mistake:  got confused between recipes and I had sooo many vegetables on this week's shopping list that I  forgot to get the  snap peas.  I had organic carrots and a zucchini and some frozen Snopeg corn.  I decided to use the leftover green beans instead of the peas, but forgot and ate them for lunch with some leftover kickass dressing.  O.K.  The broccoli will do.  And it did.

The other dumb thing was not to check the spice shelf for the Northwoods seasoning.  Duh!  Would have bet good money I had it, but alas, a  dig through the shelf today revealed NO Northwoods seasoning.  This or something like this is nothing new in my life.  Once I set off to make chili without enough chili powder, or curry without curry powder.  Get the picture.

Ha ha!  I went online to the Penzey's catalog and looked up Northwoods seasoning.  I had all the ingredients.  What you have to know about lists of ingredients is that they are listed in order of quantity used.  No problemo.  I got out my spices and cobbled together the spices for the dressing.  Cooked the shrimp and veggies substituting broccoli for the snap peas.

The salad was so delicious, and we had some leftover garlic bread which I heated up, and the snow had stopped, yea, almost melted and Significant Other spotted two ducks in the slough and all was well with the world.

Oh  yeah.  Here is a link to the recipe:  Northwoods Shrimp and Harvest Vegetable Salad     No harvest in sight.  It was really toothsome and so perky with the orange carrots and the yellow corn. I served it on a bed on lettuce strewn with baby arugula.  Yum!  The garlic bread  made the meal a little heartier and there was something hot.  Yowza!

Photo from Penzey's web site:  Note the snap peas, not broccoli

Penzeys Spices

Red Sox Nation and Jerk Chicken

Tonight we're trekking to Fenway park with tickets for the EMC boxes, great seats that I would never have anticipated plunking my fanny down in. It's supposed to rain, and this will be, I hope, the night the Sox clinch the playoff berth. We have been watching all the games religiously, to the detriment of housework, writing, exercise, reading, well. . . you know. Rabid Red Sox fans. I'll wear my red sweater and maybe even my 2004 World Series shirt.

Yesterday I finished reading my WIP. Was very discouraged about how BAD some of it read, then all of a sudden, the story perked up and the prose was flying, and then it calmed down some, but of course, the good thing is that I can recognize draggy passages and fix them. I also read the first 20 pages of World of Mirrors and still like that book a lot, although it has been a hard sell. I still have hope. Sucking It Up becomes a lifestyle.

I took a main course salad to a meeting yesterday that is worth repeating. It was called a Caribbean Jerk Chicken Salad, and I found the recipe on the Internet. I made my own Jerk Seasoning, and this being New England I didn't grind up any habanera peppers, nope, just good old cayenne. The salad called for mesclun lettuces, baby spinach, apple, blue cheese, raisins, walnuts and red onion. And the chicken. I mean, what's not to like? We had it for dinner (leftovers) last night and also for lunch today. I just keep adding lettuce and baby spinach to the wilted greens in the bottom.


Here is the recipe: http://www.marjacpoultry.com/recipes/recipe-caribbean-jerk-chicken-salad.html

For the Jerk Seasoning, here is the recipezaar recipe:

http://www.recipezaar.com/Dry-Jerk-Seasoning-229443

I had the ingredients on hand, and saved myself a few dollars. Spices and seasonings are always better fresh, but then, you knew that.

I buy dried chive from Penzey's spices, http://www.penzeys.com/

They may even have a Jerk Seasoning if you don't have everything on the list. Penzey's rubs are the best, and I love Barbecue of the Americas and Northwoods Seasoning and a bunch of others.

Yours in soup and salad and fiction,

Grapeshot

Barbequed Spare Ribs with Apricot-Ancho Glaze

Yowza! These were about the best ribs ever!

http://www.boston.com/ae/food/articles/2006/05/24/barbecued_spare_ribs_with_apricot_ancho_glaze/

We limited ourselves to half a rack each and are doing penance with a South Beach Diet shrimp salad tomorrow, but I have to tell you, these ribs were supurb.

S.O. is gaining real cred as a grillmeister.

Penzey's has dried ancho chilis and all the rest of the fresh, price-wise spices you need:
http://www.penzeys.com/

The Apricot King (grown in the flavor zone) has wonderful dried apricots and other apricot products so fresh and tasty and vitamin-A rich! http://www.apricotking.com/

The only changes in the recipe I made were 1) light brown instead of dark brown sugar and 2) my ancho chilis were huge, so I only used one. I left most of the seeds in and cut down a bit on the cayenne pepper. I also left the glaze sort of chunky, but not, you know, really chunky.

I substituted smoked paprika in the glaze because I was running low on sweet paprika. Be sure to reconstitute the ancho before you put it into the glaze mixture. The pepper water can be used to flavor other dishes if you have them on your recipe horizon.

The heirloom beets in my garden look good and the one that the bad bunny nibbled is recovering. Cilantro, dill and sage going crazy. Summertime!

Halibut with Indian Rub and Corn Salsa

The halibut recipe has been languishing in my "grill" cookbook for two years. Roche Brothers here in the Boston area had halibut advertised (one doesn't always see it) and with a nice weather forecast, I got out my put-together-by-me grilling/smoking binder. Turned to fish, and this was the first recipe. Looked good, and all I needed to buy besides the fish was a cob of fresh corn and a bit of fresh ginger.

Kids, this was a terrific recipe, and far greater than the sum of it's parts. Highly recommend. 4 forks!

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/23/dining/233grex.html

We grill over charcoal and simply followed the instructions in the recipe. Fish was perfect. Spices perfect. Corn salsa out of this world. What the hell? Five forks!
Most of the spices came from Penzey's mail order spices. Tumeric is something you won't ordinarily use a lot of, and you can order the small small size. Perfect.
http://www.penzeys.com/

It's fun to make your own rubs. Spices are the spice of life. Beautiful day in Boston.

We stopped at Ocean State Job Lot for suet cakes for the feeders. No luck, but I found lots of other stuff cheap. It was instructive that the pasta section, formerly two thirds of a big rack had shrunk to almost nothing, and part of that nothing was noodles that one could get cheaper at the supermarket. The denizens of my town have seen the prices of anything with wheat escalating and bought out the pasta aisle. I found granola at a good price, and Columbian chocolate (no it's really chocolate, not a drug) along with reasonably priced panko and a few other goodies. I used to think of going to the Job Lot as slumming, and now I think of it as smart.

Onward,

Grapeshot

Grapeshot

Eyes Bigger Than Stomach

This is the Apricot Tart with the Cornmeal Crust that I found at Epicurious last weeek--the recipe not the tart. Hie thee to the Apricot King for the best dried apricots and other stuff as well, like syrup and hot pepper jam and their delicious, thick syrup that enhances any pancake, waffle or slice of French toast. www.apricotking.com

We went to the nursery (Brigg's) yesterday to buy bedding plants, and some perennials, and pretty soon the trunk and the back seat of the car were full to capacity of well, stuff that had to be paid for and planted. I always get carried away, and my eyes are not bigger than my stomach (fat chance) but bigger than the beds and assortment of pots we have to accommodate all this greenery.

So everything with the exception of one plant that goes into the wildflower border and the new hostas and impatience (add 10 lilies of the valley) are in the ground. What a job! As in work.

A most unpleasant discovery today. The bad rabbit who eats almost everything had done a number of some of the flowers and he ate the blooms! The verbena was a mass of leaves and stems. Grrrrr! Tomorrow I sprinkle red pepper on those particularly yummy plants. I thinned out some of the dill and coriander which reseeded itself from years past. We had the best salad with fresh dill and I sprinkled coriander (cilantro) on the chili. Yes, chili.

We discovered that we never had chili all winter. Not one bowl. I concocted scads of soups, but forgot to make the New York Times chili recipe. It's so good and so easy. I substituted half a jalapeno for the cayenne, and used half the amount of chili powder, because mine from Penzeys is hot hot hot! I fried up some tortillas and grated a bit of cheddar and was it ever tasty.
www.penzeys.com

So tomorrow I finish planting and Saturday it rains and everyone is happy. Except maybe that rabbit.

The cake plate is an old one with silver on glass, very pretty and until last week, stuck in a box and forgotten.

Fresh fruit season is here, and the tarts will be coming in and out of the oven thick and fast.

Yum!

Cardamom Crumb Cake

The flavor of cardamom is very faint. I love Penzeys http://www.penzeys.com/ for spices.

This would be great for Christmas with houseguests. Makes 15 servings. At least. It would be nice to take to a brunch, as well. I would guess the recipe (Food and Wine, December) could be halved and made in an 8 by 8 pan.

I love this non-stick bakewave. Not so elegant, but very practical.

http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/cardamom-spiced-crumb-cake

Does not dirty every pot and pan in the kitchen. No creaming. All the butter is melted.

Epicurious Recipe - - delicious!

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/233537

The link above takes you to Pan Seared Fish in Ginger Broth which was a real winner. I cut down on the sugar and the salt, used scallops instead of fish because the local supermarket didn't have any of the recommended fish or halibut, which I thought might work.

I have to confess (see prior post) that the house reeked for 24 hours after the cooking event. Curry is a very pervasive odor as is seafood.

I use Penzey's spices almost exclusively. www.penzeys.com They have curry powders of various heat, and I use a medium hot which means I have to be judicious in its use or we eat with a box of tissues on the table. Not necessarily a bad thing, but judicious is the operative word.

The vegetable broth tasted delicous and the scallops dredged in curry and cornstarch! Zowie! We ate a salad of red lettuce with orange segments and I also cooked a little rice to add to the broth when the scallops were history.

The recipe is in my "diet" file. If you're in diet mode, skip the rice.

Last night, in a rush to get into town we had grilled roast beef and provlone sandwiches. For some reason, roast beef and provlone is a dynamite combination. I first tasted it years ago in the Stride Rite Cafeteria in Kendall Square.

Now I am really off to the gym.


Grapeshot