New Orleans Shrimp

Here's a good shrimp recipe that cooks up in a jiffy and makes a simple but special dinner.

I usually use frozen shrimp, but fresh is OK if it's really fresh. Your nose knows.
Frozen shrimp comes cooked, raw, with or without shells, and in various sizes. For this recipe, try to find large shrimp, raw, shelled and deveined, with tails on.
If you buy fresh shrimp and aren't sure what to do, here is a link that will help you learn. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBzeed49iN4&feature=related . It's not hard to do, but a little time-consuming.

This recipe uses one pound of shrimp, which is enough for two dinners or four appetizers. Scale it up if necessary.

Here's what you need for New Orleans Shrimp:
    1 lb. shrimp, peeled, deveined, with tails left on
    10 garlic cloves, minced
    2 medium shallots or 2 tablespoons minced onion
    3 tablespoons black pepper
    1 tablespoon salt
    1 lemon, juiced and peel grated (zest)
    8 sprigs fresh thyme
    2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
    2 tablespoons hot sauce
    1/2 bottle dark beer (you figure out what to do with the other half)
    4 tablespoons butter

Combine everything except the butter in a bowl, mix it up, cover it, and put it in the fridge for 1 to 6 hours. Since this dish cooks quickly, now is the time to heat up a Vegetable and cook some Rice to go with the shrimp, if this is dinner instead of an appetizer. 

When it's time to eat, heat up a 12 inch skillet and add 2 tablespoons of the butter. Add the shrimp mixture and stir-fry for about four minutes, until the shrimp are pink.

Remove the shrimp from the pan and whisk in the remaining two tablespoons of the butter to make a sauce. Put the shrimp over the rice and spoon the sauce over the shrimp. The thyme sprigs will serve as a garnish, or add paprika or other colorful garnish if you wish.

Serve with French bread, olive oil, and white wine or beer. Enjoy!

Stuffed Bell Peppers

Here's one of the family's favorite comfort foods. But it's important to make them correctly, or they may wind up a tasteless pasty or greasy mess. Like meatloaf, there are many more bad recipes out there than good ones. This one is great, and even if you don't think you like stuffed peppers, this will change your mind!

Bell peppers come in green, yellow, red, and orange, and the most popular (and cheapest) of these is green. However, you can use any of them for this recipe. If you want to match your kitchen curtains, that's your business.

Whichever color you choose, be sure and pick peppers that are squat and blocky rather than tall and slim. You know, fullbacks, not wide receivers. Allow one per person.

Prepare the peppers: Cut the top off of the peppers, and clean out the seeds and pithy ridges the seeds grow from. If the pepper doesn't sit up straight, yell at it. If that doesn't work, slice some slivers off the bottom bumps to level it off.

For the rice, either use leftover rice, or cook some.  Wild Rice is great in this dish.  Plain regular White Rice is good also.  Anyway, get some rice on hand for this recipe.

Here's the recipe for Stuffed Bell Peppers:

    4 medium bell peppers
    1/2 cup uncooked rice or about 2 cups cooked rice
    2 tablespoons olive oil
    1 onion, chopped in small pieces
    1 pound ground beef
    4 garlic cloves, minced
    2 cups diced tomatoes
    1 1/2 cups of shredded yellow and white cheese (sometimes called Mexican blend)
    3 tablespoons chopped parsley
    salt and pepper
    1/4 cup Ketchup
    1/2 bunch cilantro chopped
    1/4 cup lime juice


Heat your oven to 350 degrees. Put four quarts of water in a large stockpot and bring to a boil. After preparing the peppers as described above, put the peppers in the boiling water for three minutes. Then take them out, drain them, and put them upright on a plate to cool off. While they are cooling off, you can cook the rice in the same water, if you are starting the rice from scratch.

Heat the oil in a large frying pan, and add the chopped onion. Stir and cook for a few minutes until some of it gets brown edges. Add the garlic and the ground beef, and continue to cook until the meat is no longer pink. Take it off the heat and push the meat and onion mixture off to one side of the pan so it can drain off some of the liquid.

Now in a mixing bowl, combine the drained meat, the cooked rice, the drained tomatoes, one cup of the cheese, and the parsley. *Dried parsley can be used for this* Salt and pepper to taste. 

Put the peppers in a baking dish, and fill with the mixture. Mix the Ketchup, lime juice and cilantro together and pour over the stuffed peppers. Sprinkle with the rest of the shredded cheese.

Bake for about 30 minutes, and serve with bread and a simple salad.