Shrimps with White Wine and Feta

I love shrimps. Jacquie loves shrimps. Thus: we eat a lot of shrimps. I can't remember how I figured out this particular meal out - most likely I found the recipe somewhere and changed a few things around to make it better (or at least different). It's quick, easy and extremely flavorful.

Shrimps with White Wine and Feta

3/4 lb raw shrimps
1/2 red onion
3 cloves garlic
16 oz feta cheese
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 small bunch fresh parsley
1 small package of spaghetti
salt
black pepper

Start by bringing water in a large pot to a boil. Add a tablespoon of salt, then boil the pasta according to the instructions on the package - you're looking for al dente. Once boiled, drain and return to the pot. Next, peel and de-vein the shrimps, then set aside. Peel and chop the onion, peel and mince the garlic. Over medium heat, add a few tablespoons of cooking oil (or olive oil if you prefer that) and sauté the onions. Add the garlic after a couple of minutes, to prevent them from burning (as they will cook much quicker than the red onion). Once they are translucent and smell absolutely wonderful, add the shrimps. Cook the shrimps until just pink, then add the white wine. Stirring occasionally, cook until the shrimps are cooked through, about 3-4 minutes.

Crumble the feta cheese and finely mince the parsley (I usually put it in a coffee cup and go to town with a pair of scissors). Once the shrimps have finished cooking, pour the sauce over the pasta. Add the cheese and parsley. Toss and serve immediately.

Scotch Pancakes with Caramel Bananas and Rum

My good friend Luke just sent a link to this video and I just had to post it. Wow.

More Cookies

I made cookies recently, and decided to try again but with a slight variation. Instead of dark chocolate chip cookies, I made them with white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts. I decided to mix up some cocoa in the batter to give them some color instead of having light cookies with white dots of chocolate and nuts in them. Turned out great. Follow the previous recipe, but replace the chocolate chips with white chocolate chips, add about 1/3 cup macadamia nuts (crush lightly, we don't want huge chunks) and add 1/2 cup of baker's cocoa to the batter. Yum yum.

Salsa Chicken Tortillas with Guacamole

I found a recipe for the slow cooker that is amazingly simple and the end result is pretty freaking awesome. Served on a tortilla with some homemade guacamole and shredded cheese, I can't believe it takes all but ten minutes to whip this up, including the time it takes to make the guacamole but naturally not including the 6-8 hour cooking time in the slow cooker.

If you do not have a slow cooker, it can easily be made in a dutch oven or similar, just shorten the cooking time to 1 hour and cook on medium heat.

Salsa Chicken

4 boneless, skinless chicken breast fillets (preferably with rib meat, not thinly sliced)
1 large can of salsa

Yes, making your own salsa will most likely make this recipe far better, but this isn't haute cuisine we're talking here - this is a simple, middle of the week, comfort food sort of recipe that is so easy to prepare on a day when you have no time or energy to actually cook (rarely for me, but still). Trim excess fat off the chicken. Place the whole pieces in the slow cooker. Dump the salsa on top, making sure to cover the chicken. Cook on low for 6-8 hours. The chicken should be cooked through and be shredable, but not dry.

Guacamole

3 ripe avocados
1 medium tomato
1/4 white onion
1 lime
salt
pepper

Make sure the avocados are ripe - they should be soft, but not mushy. You'll have a hell of a time getting the fruit out of the shell if they're too hard or too soft (but too soft is preferable over too hard). Place the avocado in a bowl. Finely mince the tomato and onion. Discard the tomato pulp, you only want to keep the meatier parts. I leave the skin on the tomato, you can peel it if you want to. Add the onion and tomato to the avocado. Cut the lime in half and squeeze the juice over the mix, making sure no seeds from the lime find their way into the bowl. Mash together, salt and pepper to taste.

If you wish to make the guacamole spicy, do not add Tabasco sauce. Tabasco is vinegar based and you do not want to introduce that element to your guac! I suggest a hot sauce made from chilis or - why not - a fresh jalapeño. Your choice!

Once your chicken and your guacamole is finished, heat a tortilla according to the instructions on the packaging (unless you make your own, but that's something I'll save for another day), add salsa chicken, grated cheese (anything goes, cheddar is great for this though) and guacamole. Wrap up, consume. Goes great with a light Mexican beer like Corona or Dos Equis.

The Serbian Ice Tea

I was originally going to post this in my drinks post a while back, but couldn't locate the recipe. I asked an old friend who knows the creator (Marko, used to work at Chesterfield's (now House of Live) and Long Hop in Paris, I think he's still at Le Violon Dingue) and I finally have it! To the liquor store!

Serbian Ice Tea

2 cl (2/3 oz) Malibu (or similar coconut rum)
1 cl (1/3 oz) Kalúha (or similar coffee liqueur)
2 cl (2/3 oz) Southern Comfort
2 cl (2/3 oz) peach schnapps
2 cl (2/3 oz) Triple Sec
1 cl (1/3 oz) vodka
cranberry juice
7-up or Sprite
grenadine
2 lime wedges

Add all the alcohol, the grenadine and the squeezed lime wedges in a shaker with a lot of ice. Fill up with about 5 oz (15 cl) cranberry juice. Shake.

Pour into a pint glass (with the ice and lime wedges) and top off with 7-up or Sprite.

Chicken and Broccoli Alfredo

Fettuccine Alfredo (Fettuccine al burro e panna in Italy, although that is generally made without the cheese) is a relatively heavy dish, consisting of pasta tossed with butter, cream and cheese. It's apparently pretty unusual outside of the US, as I don't think I've ever had it in Europe but I've had very similar courses - unsurprising since butter and cream is pretty common in all Western cooking.

Today's recipe is an Alfredo from scratch, with chicken and broccoli. I opted for farfalle pasta instead of the more classic fettuccine. I like the way the farfalle looks and feels when you eat it, and it works well with the bite-sized chicken and broccoli.

Chicken and Broccoli Alfredo

2 1/2 cups farfalle pasta
1 large head of broccoli
3 chicken breasts, skinless, boneless
1 stick unsalted butter (1/2 cup)
2 cups heavy cream
3 garlic cloves
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup freshly grated mozzarella cheese
white pepper
kosher salt
olive oil

Turn your oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Cut the stem off the broccoli and discard. Place the broccoli florets in a bowl, add 2 tablespoons of olive oil and a couple of pinches of kosher salt. Toss to coat. Transfer the broccoli to a roasting pan. Once the oven is hot, roast the broccoli for 10 minutes - we're looking for it to be cooked but still have resistance.

Slice the chicken into strips, about half an inch wide. Fry the strips in a frying pan with a little bit of vegetable oil over medium high heat. Once cooked through and beginning to brown, remove the chicken from the heat and set aside.

Bring water in a large pot to a rolling boil. Add 2 tablespoons of salt. As soon as the water is boiling, cook one package of farfalle. Once cooked al dente, drain and leave until the sauce is ready.

Finely mince the garlic. In a medium sauce pan over medium high heat, melt the butter and add the garlic. Let cook for about a half minute, making sure the garlic does not brown at all. Add the cream and cook, stirring, for about three minutes. Add the Parmesan cheese and stir frequently until sauce has thickened, about 5 minutes. Add the mozzarella cheese, a couple of pinches of salt and about 1/2 teaspoon of white pepper (taste!), and cook another 2-3 minutes or until smooth. Add the chicken and broccoli and let cook until reheated (another minute should do the trick). Add the pasta and serve immediately.

London Broil with Mac'n'cheese

Mac and cheese. How something so simple (take macaroni, mix with cheese) can be so good is beyond me. Making it more complicated (take macaroni, mix with cheese, add something else) often seems to make it better and adding multiple kinds of cheeses is just plain genius. This is a far cry from Kraft's version of the mac and cheese and while not being extremely unhealthy, it's full of saturated fat and the pasta itself is just simple carbs. But it's so damned good!

I served it with a piece of London broil which was more tender than I had expected, and that made me happy. Steak served medium rare (well, the center of the center was more rare than anything), I'll explain how I cooked it in the recipe as well.

Credit where credit is due: Jacquie saw a show on Food Network called "Barefoot Contessa" that featured this recipe. It's been slightly modified from its original version.

Mac and Cheese with a London Broil

4 oz thick-sliced bacon (roughly 4 large slices)
2 cups macaroni (farfalle, shells, penne, elbow...your pick - I used shells)
1 1/2 cups milk
2 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tbsp all purpose flour
4 oz Gruyere cheese
3 oz sharp cheddar cheese
2 oz blue cheese
2 slices white sandwich bread
10 fresh basil leaves
kosher salt
olive oil
black pepper
freshly grated nutmeg

Start by heating your oven to 400 degrees F. I refuse to use the term "preheat" - to quote George Carlin - "there are only two states an oven can possibly exist in: heated or unheated. Preheated is a meaningless term." Bring a large pot of water to a boil. While waiting for the water to boil, heat a large frying pan (preferably cast iron) over medium high heat. Add the bacon, fry until crisp. Remove from the heat and place the bacon on a plate, covered with paper towels. Leave until cold and crumble into small pieces once cooled enough (I generally use kitchen shears for this if it doesn't crumble easily enough, something some people think is weird).

Add the macaroni to the boiling water together with about a tablespoon of kosher salt and a dash of olive oil. Cook the macaroni according to direction - we're looking for al dente, so if it says "10-11 minutes", I'd say try a piece after 9 minutes. If it's slightly chewy but doesn't leave that "dry pasta" taste in your mouth, you've got al dente. Anything beyond will be soggy and that just won't fly. Once the pasta is done, drain in a colander and set aside.

While the pasta is boiling, heat the milk in a small saucepan over medium heat. Do not let the milk boil! At the same time, melt the butter in a medium pot over medium low heat and add the flour once it has melted. Stir constantly with a whisk after adding the flour. Do not burn this mix (called a roux, hey, you're making something with a French name!), but let it get a little color or the flour taste will linger. This should take about two minutes. Once the flour reaches the desired color (hint: not black and smokey), add the milk. I usually raise the heat to medium at this point, or this will take all night - and don't forget to turn off the burner you used to heat the milk (unless you used a microwave, which I didn't tell you that you could do earlier).

Once the sauce is smooth and thick, after about 2-3 minutes, take the sauce off of the heat. This is where I stop using a whisk and start using a large plastic spoon to stir with because cleaning chunks of cheese off a whisk is really not my favorite activity. Again, off the heat, add the (grated) Gruyere, (grated) cheddar and (crumbled) blue cheese. Also, add about a teaspoon of salt and half a teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper. Get a pinch of nutmeg in there while you're at it and stir, stir, stir. Taste the sauce - add more salt/pepper/nutmeg if you feel it's needed. Once the cheese is incorporated and the sauce is once again smooth, add all the macaroni and the bacon to the mixture.

Now, you have two options. You can put this mixture into individual (oven-safe) bowls or you can put it in one larger (oven-safe) dish. I opted for the latter, since I wasn't throwing a fancy dinner party and the leftovers are easier to keep in one dish rather than a few. I also don't have smaller, oven-safe dishes at this time, so that may have had a small influence on my decision.

At this time, you can cover the bowls with tin foil or plastic wrap, and put them in the fridge. Leave it overnight or even a couple of days - just make sure it's adequately covered up so it doesn't go bad. If you're having people over, making this in the morning and just heating it when it's time for the main course is a pretty awesome concept.

Once you've placed the mac/cheese/bacon mixture in a bowl, it's time to bring out the food processor. Put the bread in the bowl, attach the knife and close the lid. Pulse a few times - we're looking for relatively large piceces of bread still left. Next, pull about 10 basil leaves off their stems and add to the processor. Pulse another few times, until the bread is well crumbled and the basil has been chopped up. Now, cover the macaroni mixture with bread. Bake in the oven for 35 - 40 minutes. If the bread appears to get too dark too quickly, cover loosely with tin foil to prevent burning. Enjoy with your favorite protein source - steak is naturally the best choice.

What I generally do is as follows: heat the oven to 500 degrees F. Place your cast iron pan over relatively high heat (I do 7 or 8 of 10 on my stove). Add canola oil or other oil with a high smoke point.

Make sure your steak is at room temperature. If it's a big piece of meat like a London broil, remove it from the fridge at least 30 minutes before cooking. Pat it dry with paper towels. Feel free to salt and pepper now. No, it's not going to "dry out" your steak. Trust me.

Now, once your pan is nice and hot, put the steak in there. Don't touch it for a minute. I said do not touch it. If it's a thick steak, you may want to also sear the sides for about 30 seconds each. Next, flip it over and put the cast iron pan in the oven. I repeat "cast iron pan" here because if you put a teflon pan or a pan with a plastic handle in the oven...you'll end up with a potentially toxic steak and a ruined pan.

Leave the steak in there for about 5 minutes for medium rare. If it's a thick steak, you may need 10 minutes. It may get smokey, so if you have a smoke detector in the kitchen (like me), prepare to push a button on it or wave at it with a kitchen towel. After the 5 minutes are up, remove the pan from the oven (use oven gloves and continue to do so for the next 30 minutes if you handle the pan - this thing stays hot for a while!) and put the steak on a carving board. Cover loosely with tin foil. Leave the steak for at least 3 minutes, preferably more. If you cut into it now, you know all those lovely juices that make the steak so nice and juicy and wonderful? All over your carving board and counter is not where you want them and that's where they'll end up.

Once rested, carve the steak. If the mac and cheese has cooled down, you can put the dish(es) in the recently turned-off oven for a few minutes to reheat.