Sunshine Citrus Salsa with Fish

In the middle of winter, you need all the sunshine you can get, and with citrus fruit at its peak of flavor (and lowest price), it's a great time to add the taste of sunshine to any meal.

You'll find this recipe at my new website, Cook and Count!

Honey & Lime Fish Fillets

Fish fillets are an easy way to make a Meatless Friday meal. If you purchase individually quick-frozen fish fillets at the supermarket, you'll only need to defrost the fish to make this quick dinner. Fish fillets defrost quickly, so if a visitor shows up in the middle of the afternoon, it's not too late to add another piece of fish to the baking pan. 2-pound bags of IQF fish fillets go on sale regularly at my local supermarket, and for the most part, fish like flounder, tilapia, swai, and whiting can be used interchangeably in recipes like this one.

HONEY-LIME FISH FILLETS

Get this recipe and nutrition facts at Cook and Count!

Chesapeake Bay Shrimp

A shrimp dinner is definitely an extravagance, so I only buy shrimp when it's on sale. I also make the meal stretch by serving lots of vegetables or pasta with it so that no one's tempted to inhale an entire pound of shrimp. If you're buying medium shrimp (51/60 per pound) then a dozen shrimp per person is a good rule of thumb.

One of the standbys in my freezer is a bag or two of individually quick-frozen shrimp. I like to keep both raw and cooked shrimp around for quick dinners. When you use precooked shrimp, as in this recipe, you only need to thaw it, then warm it up. I started the rice, then cut and steamed the broccoli, then got to work on the shrimp--and was still waiting a couple of minutes for the rice to be done.

This was fairly spicy, so if that's a deal-breaker, skip the crushed red pepper.

Get the recipe with photo and nutrition facts at Cook and Count!

Variation on a Theme: Spanish Garlic Shrimp with Vegetables

One of the best things you can keep in your freezer is a bag of frozen, deveined shrimp.  I buy them when they go on sale.  It's easy to take out as many as you need for a particular meal.  Spanish Garlic Shrimp is a longtime family favorite.  

Spanish Garlic Shrimp with Vegetables

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Quiche for One: It's What's for Lunch

Real men might not eat quiche, but I love it as a quick, high-protein lunch.  This recipe is NOT low in fat, but it sure is delicious.  It's a twist on a full-size quiche recipe that my mom's been making since quiche (quiches?) were fashionable in the '80s.

Quiche for One
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Secret Recipe Club: Shrimp Tacos

I could get carried away trying new desserts, thanks to the Secret Recipe Club, but I decided that when possible I'd make a new-to-me main dish recipe instead. We don't eat dessert very often (except for ice cream) and we do eat dinner every single night.

This recipe turned out to be great for those nights when it's just too hot to cook--because there's only 5 minutes of cook time involved!

My assigned blog this month was Every Little Thing. This blog emphasizes the use of fresh ingredients, and it's full of photos that will make you drool!  Stacy's recipe for Shrimp Tacos was truly simple to make and everybody here loved it! In fact, we had it twice in two weeks--by popular demand :)

I doubled the original shrimp recipe to feed my crew and used a different salsa recipe, so here it is as I made it:

SHRIMP TACOS

Get the recipe and nutrition facts at Cook and Count.

MY OWN PICO DE GALLO

Get the recipe and nutrition facts at Cook and Count.

Join the club! It's lots of fun. And visit the other participating Secret Recipe Club blogs:

Shrimp Scampi with Linguine

Wow, this was good. And super-easy.

This is mostly based on a recipe from Epicurious. Below it is as I made it:

1/4 cup olive oil
1 lb peeled and deveined medium or large shrimp (raw, tails on)
2 heaping tbl minced garlic
1/8 teaspoon dried hot red-pepper flakes
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 TBL lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
5 tablespoons butter
cooked linguine for 4

Heat oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking, then sauté shrimp, turning over once, until just cooked through, about 2 minutes, and transfer with a slotted spoon to a large bowl. Add garlic to oil remaining in skillet along with red pepper flakes, wine, lemon juice, salt, and pepper and cook over high heat, stirring occasionally, 1 minute. Add butter to skillet, stirring until melted, and stir in shrimp. Remove skillet from heat.

Toss with cooked pasta and serve. Serves 4.

The original recipe called for a garnish of fresh chopped parsley. If I'd had any, I'd have used it. I think it would have been pretty. I also think that next time around I'll use fresh lemon and add a bit of lemon zest in the garnish.

ALCOHOL-FREE SUBSTITUTION:  If you're concerned about cooking with wine, you can substitute 1/2 cup double-strength chicken broth plus a splash of apple-cider vinegar.  I didn't notice a difference in the finished dish.

For your convenience: Printable recipe and shopping list!
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Maple-Hoisin Salmon

This recipe is a super-easy and delicious way to make salmon. The whole thing including preheating the oven takes 25 minutes!

I tripled the recipe and changed the directions a little bit from the original.

3 tablespoon maple syrup
3 tablespoon hoisin sauce
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
6 6-oz salmon fillets

Preheat oven to 400. Brush Pyrex pan with olive oil.

Combine first 4 ingredients in a small bowl.

Place salmon skin-side down in prepared pan. Brush with sauce.

Bake 15 minutes.

Serves 6.

Source

Rainbow Stir Fry

From a Michele Urvater cookbook, The Monday to Friday Cookbook. This is one of the first cookbooks we had when we got married and the recipes give a lot of variations--kind of like what Rachael Ray does. Using this cookbook gave me confidence in the kitchen. This dish is really delicious and very fresh-tasting.

I don't make this recipe exactly as the author wrote it, so here is what I did:

RAINBOW STIR FRY (4 servings)
1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 bell peppers, cut in chunks (get different colors if possible, it makes the dish look prettier!)
1/2 cup frozen peas (don't need to thaw)
1 small-to-medium onion, chopped
1 tbl minced garlic
2 tbl lemon juice
salt
olive oil for the pan

Heat the oil in the pan and stir-fry the peppers, peas and onion for about 4 minutes. Add garlic and lemon juice and cook 2 more minutes. Add shrimp, stir-frying until the shrimp is cooked. Salt to taste and serve over rice.

This recipe cooks quickly, so start the rice before you put anything in the pan! If you have it all chopped ahead of time, you're probably looking at about 10 minutes total cook time.

Next time I make this I will need to enlarge the recipe: 1 1/2 lb. shrimp, 3 peppers and 1 medium onion. A little more garlic and lemon as well.

NOTE: Instead of frozen peas, snow pea pods are great in this recipe. About a cup of washed, trimmed fresh snow pea pods are all you need.

Saffron Risotto with Shrimp

The original recipe was posted by The Humble Housewife. I had to do a little "metric-to-English" conversions, and a few substitutions to accommodate what's in my pantry. So I blogged the recipe as I went along.

Pinch of saffron
2 ounces boiling water
olive oil for the pan
1 small onion, chopped really fine
1 tsp minced garlic (from a jar)
2 1/4 cups arborio rice (a 14-oz pkg)
1/2 cup dry white wine
Up to 8 cups stock (I used chicken stock; original recipe called for fish stock)
2 cups cooked, frozen shrimp (thawed and tails removed)
1 cup frozen peas
2 tbl grated parmesan
2 tbl butter
1 tbl fresh parsley, snipped (or 2 tbl dried parsley)
Fresh ground pepper to taste

Add saffron to the boiling water. Press with a spoon to release the color and flavor. Set aside.
Saute onion in the olive oil until almost translucent. Stir in garlic.
Stir in the rice until coated.
Add white wine and stir a minute.
Add stock, a cup or so at a time, stirring, and allow to simmer until the liquid is almost absorbed. Add more stock until the rice becomes creamy.
Add saffron (and water), shrimp and peas. Stir and cook until everything is hot.
Stir in butter, parmesan and parsley.
Season to taste with fresh ground pepper.