Sugar Cane Skewered Shrimp

This is a simple recipe but very nice, I had a Sugar Cane Baton from a previous shopping trip and wanted to make Sugar Cane Skewered Shrimp. Yesterday on my way home from work I picked up the best shrimp ever for $7.99 per pound! I wanted raw Shrimp for this dish, what I found was called "Easy Peel Shrimp" Sounded good enough I figured I would go home and peel then devain these guys and be ready to go. This shrimp was shell on but the vein was removed! it is such a tedious job to devein them. All I had to do was peel the shells off (I set those aside) then put the shrimp in some marinade.

for the marinade I used:

2 coves of minced Garlic

1 cup of Orange Juice

1 TBS Honey

1 TBS Chopped Cilantro

a splash of rice wine vinegar

salt and pepper to taste

I put the peeled shrimp into the marinade, covered it and set it in the refrigerator while I got the other ingredients ready. First I made a simple fish stock in a small sauce pan with:

2 Cups of Water

The shells from about 12 shrimp

1/2 an onion

2 cloves garlic (coarsely chopped)

1/4 cup of carrot (coarsely chopped)

1 cup of V-8 Juice

1/2 tsp Salt

I let this cook on low heat for about an hour and a half then pored it through a strainer into a bowl. I put the liquid into the refrigerator until I was ready for it. When it was time to cook I put 1/2 cup rice into a sauce pan and sauteed it in Olive Oil and a clove of minced Garlic once it was completely coated with oil and hot I added one cup of the strained fish stock, turned the heat to low and covered the pan for about 20 minutes.

I cut my Sugar Cane into Skewers about 6 inches long and a little smaller that 1/4 inch thick. It cut into strips very easily, I just ran the knife from top to bottom then I cut a Pineapple into chunks. Then I skewered the shrimp and pineapple alternating, when the Rice was about 10 minutes from done I put the skewered shrimp in the grill and cooked it on a cooler spot for about 10 minutes turning once.

This was a cool dish for a couple of reasons, it just sounds cool to cook on a sugar cane skewer (or am I just a food nerd?) and you do get a little bit of a sweet flavor left inside your shrimp so it is like marinating from the inside too.

Apple Cider Chicken

It is the first full day of fall as I start this, I always get excited when this time of year comes around. Food seems to be more in touch with the earth, Carrots, Apples, Beets, Brussels Sprouts, Parsnips, the fruits and vegetables all seem warm and inviting. Since the weather took such a turn this week as fall came around I started to think of an inviting fall dinner meal. Before I went to bed last night I started a marinate for some chicken, it was:

3 TBS cup Apple Cider Vinegar

1/2 Cup Olive Oil

some salt and pepper

1/2 Granny Smith Apple cut up (I ate the other half)

2 tsp Honey

some water, maybe 1/2 cup or so

I put two small Chicken Breasts in a covered dish to Marinate overnight. I know this sounds odd, but I spent quite a lot of time thinking about the marinate for this dish; is the cider vinegar too much? will this be too sour when I get home? On the way home from work the next day I picked up the rest of the ingredients, Parsnips, Carrots, Fresh Thyme and Apple Cider. As soon as I got home I pored off the marinate that I had the chicken in and pored about 1 cup of sweet apple cider on it while I started the rest of the meal. The Apple Cider sweetened it up a little and rounded out the flavors well.

I started to get the rest of the ingredients ready I diced one Parsnip, one large Carrot and one Granny Smith Apple; in a saute pan I heated up a little Olive Oil then put the parsnip and carrot in for about 5 minutes stirring often. When they were soft I added the diced up apple and cooked for a couple of minutes more. To add the Thyme to that I simply held the end of the branches one at a time and pulled my fingers down them pull the leaves off and into the pan. Once everything in the pan was tender I put it all aside under a foil tent while I cooked the chicken breasts. To do that I put a little olive oil into the same saute pan on medium-high heat for about three minutes on each side. While that was cooking I put 3 oz of Bourbon into a cup of Apple Cider. Bourbon and Apple Cider are so good together, I considered stopping there and making that my dinner, but I didn't; when the Chicken was done I put it on the same plate as the sauteed vegetables and used the mixture to deglaze the pan.

Deglazing a pan is simply the process of poring some liquid into the pan and using it to remove any of the brown bits of things that may be stuck to it while heating it up. This adds a depth of flavor to your meal that you can't get otherwise. To the deglazing liquid I added my sauteed Apples and Vegetables and cooked it all over high heat until the sauce was reduced by half. That is it, once the pan sauce is ready serve the Chicken then top it with vegetables and pan sauce. I garnished it with a couple more twigs of Thyme.

The ingredients for this are:

1 large Parsnip peeled and diced

1 Large carrot Peeled and diced

1 Granny Smith Apple diced

the leaves from about 5 Thyme branches

2 Chicken Breasts

1 cup Apple Cider mixed with 3 oz Bourbon.

Lamb Tajine

A couple of weeks ago I saw Lamb Shoulder on sale it was about $1.20 per pound, it was pretty close to the expiration date so I bought 2 pounds and put it right into the freezer. Oddly it was cut like steaks for the grill which would have been unusable because they would have been too tough, plus the silverskin and the little pieces of bone would have been unwieldy on any plate.

There are always issues when I cook lamb at my house I mean face it they are really cute and the rest of my house is against cooking and eating the cute creatures. I on the other hand blame God, I didn't make the cute fuzzy guys taste so good. When I cooked it this time I made a Tajine which is really the North African way to say Stew. I trimmed the shoulder of bones, silverskin,and most of the fat there was about a pound of meat left when I finished (I put the bones and some fat into the freezer to make stock later). Then heated up a couple of Tablespoons of Olive in deep iron skillet. I dredged the meat in flour and browned it with some garlic and onions then took it all out to deglaze the skillet with the Chicken Stock. Here are the ingredients that I used:

2 pounds of Lamb shoulder trimmed cut into 1" cubes

1 small Onion Diced

2 cloves of Garlic Minced

8 oz Chicken Stock

8 oz White Wine

2 small Parsnips Peeled and Diced

1 Apple Diced

1 6 oz can of Black Olives drained

8 oz of Chick Peas drained

3-4 slices of Preserved Lemon

1 tsp Turmeric

1/2 tsp Cayenne Pepper

8-10 dried Figs Quartered

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After I deglazed the pan with about 1/2 the chicken stock I put the meat and onions back in with the rest of the chicken stock, white wine and the rest of the ingredients leaving the figs out for now. I turned the burner down to low heat and let it braze for most of two hours.

A little bit about me... this probably would have taken quite a bit less time if I weren't such a poker. I can't just put food on and ignore it, this dish should probably be stirred and checked every 20 minutes or so to make sure that the pan doesn't dry up and so you can judge when it is close to done so you can add the figs. I poke and taste and worry the entire time I slow cook anything, I can't even use a crock pot unless I will be gone for 8 hours or I spend all day checking it, completely defeating the purpose of using it. As this was starting to cook together I would check, ooh there is too much liquid, this is going to be too watery, oh the turnips aren't done enough yet do they have time, Oh there isn't enough liquid, should I add some more wine? Truth is if I had checked it 4 or five times while it cooked instead of 258 I wouldn't have had exactly the right amount of liquid and everything would have cooked just fine.

Anyway... after the Turnips are soft, the lamb is tender and the apples are completely mush add the Figs for the last 20 minutes or so. I love the flavors and color of this dish the Turmeric, Cayenne and Garlic work so well with these ingredients there is a little spice to it, but not too much, the sweet figs add such a nice touch and I love the surprise flavor from a preserved lemon when I bite into that.