When a Kitchen Shortcut Pays Off

Missy Tippens

How many times have I shared kitchen fails on here? Too many times, I'm sure! haha But I want to share a successful experiment from earlier this week.

I was making one of the delivery meal kits-- fried shrimp tacos. I looked at the instructions that said to dry the shrimp, coat them in flour, then dip in egg wash, then dip in Panko bread crumbs. I said... UM.... NO. It was getting late, and everyone was hungry. Plus, I figured it would be healthier.

So I decided not to fry the shrimp. I wanted to just sauté them. (Sorry, I forgot photos.)

I heated a drizzle of olive oil in the skillet. I did not pat the shrimp dry. I put them in a bowl and seasoned with salt and pepper. Then I sprinkled on a little bit (maybe 1/8 to 1/4 cup) of Panko bread crumbs. I tossed the shrimp with the crumbs and put them in the hot skillet. I sautéed until opaque (it only takes about 3-4 minutes).

They turned out really good!! And took like thirty seconds to prepare them for cooking.

The tacos were so good! We had the shrimp along with slaw (made with a dressing of lime juice, olive oil, and minced garlic). And also a lime mayo (mayonnaise with lime zest).

I'm so glad I did the short version of prep for this dish. You should try it sometime!

www.missytippens.com

Revisiting Shrimp and Grits

Shrimp and Grits is one of my all-time favorite dishes. And this particular version has pared down the fat, while maintaining all of the flavor. So what I can't quite figure out is why I haven't talked about it in a while. 

Let's start first with the grits. 

For them, you will need:

• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 cup uncooked quick-cooking grits
• 4 cups water
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 tsp. freshly ground pepper

Bring salt and water to a boil in a medium sauce pan. Gradually whisk in grits. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, 8 minutes, or until thickened. There's no need to cover, however be prepared for lots of bubble splatters as it thickens. 

Whisk in Parmesan and pepper. Set grits aside and keep warm.

Next, to prepare the shrimp, you will need:

• 1 lb. unpeeled, medium-size raw shrimp (I had large on hand, so that's what I used :-)
• 1/4 tsp. freshly ground pepper
• 1/8 tsp. salt
• Vegetable cooking spray

Peel shrimp; devein, if desired. Sprinkle shrimp with pepper and 1/8 tsp. salt. Cook in a large non-skillet (I used my cast-iron one) coated with cooking spray over medium-high heat 1 to 2 minutes on each side or just until shrimp turn pink. 

Remove from skillet.

Now it's time for the sauce, so gather your ingredients:

• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1 Tbsp. flour
• 1 1/4 cups chicken broth
• 1/2 cup chopped green onions
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. Tabasco sauce
• 2 cups firmly packed fresh baby spinach

Using the same skillet, heat oil 30 seconds over medium heat. Whisk in flour; cook 30 seconds to one minute. Whisk in broth and next 5 ingredients. Cook 2-3 minutes or until thickened. Note: Sauce won't be real thick. More like a thick soup. But this sauce smells so yummy.

Stir in shrimp and spinach.

And cook until spinach is slightly wilted.

Serve immediately over grits.

I serve mine in a casserole dish, family-style, but you can serve in individual portions just as easily. This dish doesn't take me more than 30 minutes to make, providing I have all of my ingredients within easy reach, which makes for a quick meal. And quick is always a good thing.

What are some of your favorite quick dishes?

Three time Carol Award finalist Mindy Obenhaus lives on a ranch in Texas with her husband, the youngest of her five children and two dogs. She passionate about touching readers with Biblical truths in an entertaining, and sometimes adventurous, manner. When she's not writing, she enjoys cooking and spending time with her grandchildren. Learn more a mindyobenhaus.com. 

Seafood Night!

Missy Tippens

I'm sharing this today because I felt really clever when I made these dishes! :)

I decided to have a seafood night and picked up some good shrimp (I was craving shrimp cocktail) and a couple of lobster tails on sale at the grocery store. When it got to be time to cook, I had to figure out how I was going to cook everything. And I came up with an idea.

First, I seasoned a pot of water with Old Bay and the juice of a lemon. I put the water on to boil.

Then I added the shrimp. It only takes 2- or 3 minutes to cook them (until they're pink). These were huge, so I think I did it more like 3-4 minutes.

Then I scooped the shrimp out of the water and put them in the refrigerator to chill. I poured off about half of the water and put the rest of the nice shrimpy/spiced water back on the stove to keep boiling. I put a steamer insert into the water.

Then I laid the lobster tails into the steamer basket.

I covered the pot and steamed the tails (they were pretty thick so I let them steam for a few minutes but kept a close eye on them). While they cooked, I melted butter in small bowls for each of us.

I took them out when they looked done (no longer translucent).

I felt very clever for re-using the flavored water this way! And it really did give the lobster tails a great flavor.

Here was our seafood feast for two!

www.MissyTippens.com

The Magic of Leftovers

Have you ever discovered that sometimes the best meals come by accident?

I had one such delicious meal last week.

It was hot. I didn't really feel like cooking - so I decided to combine some leftovers.

I'll grant you that when the leftovers you're starting with are shrimp scampi and honey mustard salmon, the chances of success are good. But I wasn't sure of some of the flavor combinations.

My daughter had been over earlier in the week and I'd made scampi. I had a bottle of white wine that really didn't taste very good, so I added that to the scampi and it was delicious. Now I wasn't so sure how the wine tang in the scampi would work with the honey mustard. But, since I still had more of the wine, I added it in to the leftover scampi and then stuck the frozen leftover salmon in.

I let it simmer for the few minutes it took to cook angel hair pasta.

Once the pasta was done, I scooped it into a bowl and poured the seafood mixture on top.

WOW! It was so good. I literally devoured it.

But now the sad news. Because I enjoyed it so much, I tried to replicate it a few days later - only this time I had no leftover shrimp so I had to cook more. Apparently part of what made it so tasty was the leftovers sitting and marinating in the sauce in the fridge for a few days. It was still good, but not the knock-your-socks-off good from the first time.

In case anyone is interested in trying to replicate -

For the scampi - I just melt butter in olive oil with lots of garlic, some parsley, and a generous squeeze of lemon juice. Sometimes (this time) I also include oregano and basil to taste. I simmered the shrimp for a few minutes in the lemon butter before adding the wine. Simmered briefly a few more minutes and it was done.

The salmon is simple - I coat frozen salmon fillets liberally with honey mustard. I only ever use this honey mustard. It is the one I discovered 30 years ago and still the only one I like. It's thick and goopy - much more like a honey texture than mustard.

As you read this, I'll be in my classroom setting up for yet another year. It's always hard to go back after the freedom of summer, but within minutes of being there, I know I'm in my element and looking forward to the year beginning.
Unfortunately, we're in the middle of a sudden heat wave, so I'll be cleaning and setting up in mid 90s temps with no AC. Hopefully it cools off before the students arrive!

And since summer is waning, I thought I'd share some pictures of all the gorgeous flowers growing around my city. We have had so much rain this summer that everything is growing like crazy.

I'm also thrilled with the reader reactions to our collection. It's been gratifying to see this

Gargantuan Shrimp!

Missy Tippens

I was at Kroger the other day and saw these beautiful, huge shrimp. And they were on sale!

Look at these puppies (I can't remember the name of them, but they're wild caught)...

Almost as big as my hand! I wanted to make an amazing shrimp cocktail. But my daughter doesn't love that, and we forgot to buy cocktail sauce. So I decided to sauté them in some butter and maybe add some bread crumbs for a little texture.

Here they are all cleaned and ready to go...

In the meantime, I preheated the oven to 400 degrees to roast some vegetables. Asparagus, fingerling potatoes and portobello mushrooms.

This is such an easy side dish. Sprinkle with olive oil and seasoning salt. Roast (bake) at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. We do this all the time with many different vegetables (squash, carrots, cauliflower, etc.).

When they were almost done (and once hubby got home), I started the shrimp. I first sprinkled on a little seasoning salt and put them in a skillet with some olive oil and melted butter.

Side note: While getting the salt, I remembered mentioning Maldon sea salt in a blog post before (I sprinkled the flakes on the corn on the cobb). I thought I'd share the package this time in case I didn't before.

(I bought a dozen glass jars at Christmas time to give home-made seasoning salt to my kids. I used the additional jars for various salts. I love the Maldon flakes, as well as sea salt and kosher salt. I bought larger packages and store it in these cute jars.)

Now back to the shrimp!

Though massive, these only took a few minutes (maybe 2 minutes each side). Only cook them until they're opaque and pinkish.

I decided to put on a cover to help steam them.

Here they are all done! They were delicious.

Ta-da! A quick dinner.

www.missytippens.com

Missy's most recent release:

His Summer Valentine

Opposites attract in this novella-length inspirational romance (Christian romance) Book 1!

Willow Valentine is on a quest—granted, a crazy one. When her car breaks down in the middle of a 4th of July parade in the tiny town of Dahlia, Georgia, she can’t help but wonder if God was bringing her here all along. After the handsome Trent Meriwether comes to her aid, she’s tempted to believe God has. But she, like her dad, is the type to keep moving on. Can she truly avoid that Valentine itch and settle in this town, especially when she finds she’s quickly falling for Trent, a man with deep roots in Dahlia?

Trent has moved back to his hometown to make amends and support his family. Though his grandmother warns him the Valentines are drifters, he finds himself intrigued by Willow. She makes him laugh and feel hopeful for the first time in ages. But how can he look twice at someone so much younger, someone who could pick up and leave at any moment—even if she is like a ray of sunshine to his troubled soul?

Welcome to the small town of Dahlia, Georgia, where everyone feels at home!

Hawaiian Shrimp Roll

One of the things I'm finding difficult this summer is coming up with things I feel like cooking. It's an odd combination of cooking for one, ridiculous heat, and too much snacking while I'm writing. Combined, those three things make me less than inspired when it comes to cooking.

But sometimes an idea hits.

I had some frozen shrimp, and I had some leftover King's Hawaiian hot dog rolls.

I always love the combination of shrimp and pineapple - and that just seemed the right thing for Hawaiian rolls, right?

Well, mostly right.

In retrospect, I would have cooked and chilled the shrimp/pineapple combo before serving it in the roll, but it was still tasty (if a bit soggy!).

I had a bag of sweets and beets chips, so they were my veggie.  😇

Sorry, this photo came out really dark. This was the pineapple (frozen) simmering with the shrimp.

These rolls were perfect because the top opening allowed me to easily fill the roll with the shrimp/pineapple mix.

Clearly my photography skills were lacking this particular day. You'll have to take my word for it that the dark orange on the left side is the beet and sweet potato chips. The half of the pineapple shrimp roll is that bland mess on the right.

My apologies. I had finished eating before I realized the photos were off.

So, what do you think? Would you try this combo? I'm thinking a sprinkle of toasted coconut on top would have been nice.


So, when I was buying the shrimp, I also purchased some salmon. Does this strike anyone else as funny?  My daughter and I had a good laugh at the ingredients. 

If you can't see, the ingredients say: Sockeye salmon (contains fish). Um, how about IS fish?

Finally, everyone else has been sharing gorgeous nature photos. My "nature" photos tend to include buildings, but I thought these evening sky photos were pretty enough to share.

Nary a rattlesnake in sight.  😏

Vegetable Soup...To Shrimp Stew: Part 2 (The Stew Part)

Missy Tippens

For Part One on making the vegetable soup, click here.

If you have services at church this evening and have the leftover vegetable soup on hand, then this is a quick dish for you!

Part Two: Shrimp Stew

Ingredients:
Leftover homemade vegetable soup
All purpose flour (or some other thickener of your choice)
1-1/2 pounds fresh shrimp, peeled, cleaned, tails removed and chopped

Heat the leftover soup in a soup pot.

Mix up a slurry with a little bit of flour (I think I used a tablespoon or two) and a little of the warm broth. HINT: It's easier to mix a small amount of liquid into dry ingredients (I learned this in chemistry lab ages ago!) until you have a smooth paste. Once you get it smooth, then you can add a little more liquid. That way you won't get lumps.

Then add the slurry into the soup to thicken it up.

Next add in the shrimp. Cook for three to four minutes, until shrimp is opaque and pink.

Enjoy!

OH! And a few days later, we ate the leftovers one more time! To change it up a bit, I added smoked turkey sausage, sliced into bite sized pieces. It was even better! Almost like a low country boil. :)

www.missytippens.com

A Break from All Things Pumpkin

Shrimp - it's what's for dinner when I need to eat something, have no appetite, and not much time.

I've been fighting the cough that threatened Cleveland for the past week or so. The good thing about having a cough is it really zaps your appetite (good for dumping that summer ice cream weight gain).

The bad thing is, you'd better eat if you're taking cough medicine, or funny things can happen. I still remember the Manhattan skyline twirling in circles around me while I stood on Third Avenue many years ago. Cough medicine + no food = dizzy Cate.



But if I had no appetite, I had even less energy for cooking. 

The one thing I know always helps my cough is my nettle tea with herbs and spices (thyme, oregano, basil, cayenne, garlic).  So I decided to play off that.

I'd thrown a potato in the oven to bake earlier. Once it was done, I took some pre-cooked shrimp from COSTCO, added a bunch of oregano, basil, garlic and lemon. Stirred in the chunks of potato with some butter and bread crumbs, and put in the oven to toast.  All told, prep time was about 5 minutes.

Not bad. Even if my tastebuds didn't care. There was enough flavor to at least make them take notice.

What's your go-to when you need food, but don't feel like cooking????


So, how about some pictures?










I saw this on a rainy, chill Saturday morning when Fenway and I were out walking. So lovely.



















Now, they take Halloween seriously around here -









It glows purple at night! 

This I took for my editor :)

This just reminds me of Miss Havisham.

BUT WAIT!!!!!!!!!  What is this I spy?????????

Less than 2 months, but really????