I was a vegetarian for the first 20 years of my life. I have never had chicken, turkey, pork, and if you don't count the bite of steak that I tried, and immediately spit back out (it bounced back at me when I bit into it! It freaked me out!) I have never had cow either. But I admit it, I dig the seafood. I LOVE sushi. Salmon is my all time favorite, and tuna is pretty yummy too. But since I didn't start eating the stuff until a few years ago, I'm still learning on the best ways to prepare it. This is where the Whole Foods Market, recipe section on their website comes in.
There was a sale the other week on shrimp. I figured, what the hey! I like shrimp okay, and it was a cool grey day. What better time to try out this Shrimp Etouffee recipe? I gather my thoughts and all the ingredients. I halved this recipe because I was just feeding me and the monkey and there was still plenty of leftovers, but here is the original one, so do with it, what you will.
-6 Tablespoons butter
-3 Tablespoons flour
-1 cup chopped onion (and we all know how well I measure things like vegetables. I just threw in an entire medium sized onion.)
-6 green onions, chopped
-1/2 cup chopped bell pepper (again, I tossed in whatever I happened to have. I enjoy my veggies, and you can never have too many in my book.)
-1/2 cup chopped celery (see above. Whateves!)
-2 cup water/stock (I used vegetable stock and it was yummy.)
-3 pounds shrimp, peeled and deveined (my comments on this to follow. And remember, I only used a little over a pound because I halved the recipe.)
-1/4 cup chopped parsley
-Salt and pepper, to taste
-1 bay leaf
-Tobasco sauce, to taste
-Hot cooked rice (you can go back to my older posts to see how I make my rice. Or read directions on the box. I used brown rice, cause that's how I roll. Unless I'm making sushi. Then white rice is the tops! But I digress.)
Here we are! What a nice looking picture, right? I spared you all by not posting a much less desirable picture of the shrimp deveining process. Oh lord. It made me realize why I had been a vegetarian for as long as I had. It was a very humbling (and time consuming!) few moments, and made me realize how homogenized it is to purchase ready packed, to go, portions of meat. I think way less people would eat meat if they had to be the ones to a) kill the creature they were about to consume and b) ready it to be consumed. So I had a nice little time with these little shrimp, recognizing what they had been, and appreciating how yummy they were going to be, all the while being exceedingly disgusted at the entire deveining process. But I was determined to move forward, and so I did. Onward!
In a skillet, (I used my favorite cast iron pan) melt the butter over medium high heat. Once melted, add the flour, and continue to stir and blend until the flour and butter mixture is a deep golden brown. Like so:
Add the vegetables, and cook until tender.
Stir in the water/stock, shrimp, parsley and seasonings.
Simmer, uncovered, for 15-20 minutes or until the shrimp is cooked. I did it for 20 minutes and it was PERFECT!
Serve over hot rice. If you want to be a fancy pants, I saved some fresh parsley and used that as a garnish (because I am nothing, if I am not an aspiring fancy pants in the kitchen.) And let me just say, it was worth the shrimp prep because this dish is silly easy and SO GOOD! This just darted to my list of go to dinners, along with the miso tofu num nums, pizza, and veggie tacos (in our house, we like to call them toncos). So kudos to the Whole Foods Market website, with all it's recipe action. Now, back to rehearsals and gathering other seasonal recipes to try out. Coming soon, (thanks to a free cookbook that is all cheesecake recipes) I'll be exploring the wide world of the cheesecake, so start knitting your excited caps. Fancy Pants Cheesecakes are on the horizon. So close, I can almost taste them.....
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