I had some crab that needed to be used and it occured to me that I could make a sort of crab and corn chowder.  I pondered over this for a few days until I had a set idea in mind.  Then I put it into motion and came up with a chowder that just might be one of my favorites.

Andrea’s Spicy Shrimp and Crab Corn Chowder

• 8oz Lump Crab Meat
• 2C, Frozen cooked shrimp (if using fresh, about 10-12 peeled and deviened shrimp)
• 1/2 Large Onion, chopped
• 2 Carrots, peeled and chopped
• 2 Ribs Celery, chopped (if you have some of the leafy hearts, use those)
• 2 Jalapenos, seeded and chopped
• 3 Slices of bacon, chopped
• 3 Ears of Corn, corn removed, keep the cobs (or 3C frozen corn)
• 1 1/2 QT of Chicken Stock
• 1tsp Garlic Powder
• 1/2tsp Chili Powder
• 1/2tsp Smoked Paprika
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Hot sauce

In a large soup pot, add in a little bit of olive oil, about 1/2 TBSP and heat over medium heat.  Add in the bacon and cook for about 2 minutes.  Let it start to crisp up.  If the bacon produced a lot of fat in the pan, you can discard some of it.  Completely up to you!  Next add in the onions, peppers, carrots, and celery.  Stir and season with seasonings.  Sautee for about 5 minutes until the veggies start to soften and break down.

Add in the chicken stock and the corn.  Also add in the cobs.  Bring up to a simmer and cover. Allow to simmer for about 30-45 minutes.  Remove cobs from the soup. With an immersion blender, blend up the soup unti everything is broken down and it starts to thicken up just a bit.

Stir and add in the crab and the shrimp.  Bring back up to a simmer and simmer for about 5-7 minutes until the crab and shrimp are heated through.  Add in a few dashes of hot sauce, to your taste.

Remove from heat and serve immediately.

Keep the hot sauce handy because you’ll want to add in some more at the table! Along with some oyster crackers of course!

This soup completely blew my mind.  By keeping the cobs in while it simmers that helps to really bring forth the corn flavor and sweetness.

The bacon isn’t overpowering, it provides just enough smokey goodness to the background.

The crab and shrimp are also a bit sweet which really pairs well with the corn.  However by adding in that extra hot sauce, the sweetness isn’t overpowering.  The hot sauce also provides a nice heat that builds up the more you eat.

This isn’t a super thick chowder, it’s right between chowder and soup.  Creamy texture but not a real heavy chowder consistency.

This makes enough for four big servings.  If you’ve got leftovers, you’ll want to eat them the next day.  Seafood doesn’t keep very long in the fridge. And just like with most soups, this one is even better the next day!

What’s your favorite kind of chowder?

Have fun guys, and remember, always play with your food!  Enjoy!

Comments: 6

My goal is to try and only use one pot.  Sometimes I’m successful and other times I’m not but at least I gave it a try!  Wheatberries are a new obsession for me.  I love them!  They cook up fast, can be made ahead, and the chew factor they have is outstanding.

Little nuggets of goodness! They are a lot chewier than brown rice and have a more intense slightly nutty flavor.  I can purchase these in the bulk bin section at my local Whole Foods.

Place some wheatberries in a pot, cover with water and bring to a boil.  Boil for a few minutes, maybe 10, until they are softened and chewy.  Not crunchy but a lovely soft chew to them.

Because I had made the wheatberries ahead of time, I’m considering this a one pot dish!  It is so easy to put together and cooks quickly making it perfect for when you’re short on time or it’s late and you need to eat fast!

Andrea’s Sauteed Kale with Shrimp and Wheatberries

• 2C Cooked Wheatberries
• 3-4C Cooked medium to small sized Shrimp
• 1/2 Large Onion, chopped
• 1 Green Pepper, chopped
• 1 Red Pepper, chopped
• 1C Shredded Carrot
• 1.5 Bunchs of Kale, stemmed and chopped
• 1 15oz Can of Butter Beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 15oz Can of Diced Tomatoes with Green Chilies
• Big Pinch of Red Pepper Flakes
• Salt and Pepper
• 2tsp Garlic Powder
• 1tsp Chili Powder
• Olive Oil for sauteeing, about 1TBSP

In a medium sized high sided skillet, add in olive oil and heat over medium heat.  Add in the onions, peppers, and carrots, stir to coat with oil.  Sprinkle in the salt, pepper, pepper flakes, garlic powder, and chili powder.  Sautee for about two minutes until the onions and peppers start to soften.  Add in the kale a little at a time, combining with the veggies and turning so it starts to wilt down making room for more kale.  Continue doing this until all the kale is in the pot.  Once all of the kale has wilted down, add in the beans and canned tomatoes.  Stir and allow to cook for about two minutes.  Then add in the shrimp and wheatberries stirring and allow to cook until everything is warmed through.

Spoon into bowls and enjoy!

I always keep some bags of precooked and raw frozen shrimp in my freezer for when I want something quick.  The precooked are the perfect size for tossing into soups, stir-frys and other dishes.  I just dump them in the dish frozen, cover with a lid and give them a few extra minutes to heat through.

The great thing about this dish is that you can sub out the wheatberries and use whatever grain you like.  Brown rice, long grain rice, quinoa, or even some whole wheat pasta would be great with this combo.

This dish is very flavorful and wide open to being seasoned more to your liking.  It also makes a bunch so there is plenty for leftovers.

You can use whatever beans you like, I just happened to have some butter beans on hand so that’s what I used.

After I took pictures, I sprinkled a little pepper jack cheese on top and added some hot sauce.  Divine!

This winter I have been very into comfort style meals.  Dishes that I can load up into a bowl and am able to eat while be snug on the couch. This dish fits that requirement perfectly!

Full of greens, grains, and protein, this dish has it all!

Have fun guys, and remember, always play with your food! Enjoy!

Comments: 9

Sometimes we make sushi at home and sometimes we get some takeout to bring home.  Either way, we’re eating sushi in our jammies and watching something on TV.

One Friday I really wanted sushi.  Not just any sushi but our sushi.  Let me clarify that our sushi isn’t great or the most magical thing to exist.  Nor do I think it can compete with any kind of sushi that can be purchased at an official sushi joint. It’s just our basic at-home sushi.

What I really like about our sushi is the shrimp roll we, or I should say, Scott makes.  It’s so simple but mighty tasty and I cannot find anything else like it around.

I thaw some shrimp and remove the shell.  Then in a bowl I toss the shrimp with some soy sauce and hot chili garlic sauce.  You know the sauce, big red jar of it usually found in the Asian food aisles.  Then I roast the shrimp for just a few minutes.

This is what I crave.  It’s a spicy shrimp roll without all the mayo gunk on it.  It’s simple and it’s tasty.  I wanted this so so bad!

The trouble was that it was late and I didn’t have any of the ingredients prepped.  I like to do this ahead of time with as many ingredients as I can so it saves time when we are actually making the rolls.  Making sushi at home is great but it does take some time and can create a mess in the kitchen.  I didn’t really want to do all that at 7pm in the evening.

But I really wanted that shrimp roll!  And I also didn’t want to spend money on sushi when I knew, while it might be tasty, wouldn’t be exactly what I wanted.

I decided that, yes, we should take the time to make our own sushi.  Perhaps it will take a bit longer and perhaps the kitchen would be messier than I want for a Friday night, but in the end both of us would be more satisfied with the outcome.

Scott and I have our tasks, I make the veggie rolls and he makes the shrimp rolls.  He’s also the only one skilled enough to make the roll with the rice on the outside.

OHC’s Veggie Rolls have:

• Carrot
• Cucumber
• Avocado

OHC’s Spicy Shrimp Rolls have:

• Shrimp
• Carrot
• Avocado

With out plates loaded up, we sat down in the TV room, in our jammies and had a great dinner.  In the end, I was very happy that we took the time to make this ourselves.  We enjoyed dinner a lot more because not only was this exactly what we wanted, but there’s the satisfaction in knowing that you made it yourself.

The extra time is totally worth it!

Do you make a lot of food at home?  Do you have any weeknight traditions?

Comments: 9

One random Saturday I watched Ina make some shrimp cocktail and she roasted her shrimp.

Chef, what?!

Why this never occurred to me before I have no idea but I was determined to give it a try.  Cooking seafood takes only minutes, it’s pretty fast and really effortless once you get experience under your apron.  Shrimp do not take long to cook at all but roasting them means I don’t have to dirty a skillet and that’s really all that is needed for me to fall in love.

My desires are simple folks.

I preheated my oven to 400, lined my baking sheet and sprayed it with some nonstick spray.  I dumped on some seasoned shrimp and tossed that in the oven.  I kept a close eye on them because shrimp cook quickly.  I didn’t even have to turn them! In about five minutes I had perfectly cooked plump shrimp.  No skillet or pot of boiling water required!

Unless I’m making a saucy dish of some sort, this is my new method for cooking shrimp.  It’s fast and so easy making couch time arrive a lot sooner!

Next time you make shrimp, give roasting a try and see what you think!

Comments: 11

Chipotle Glaze

This was another idea I came up with while working and thinking about what to make for dinner.  At least I’m a great multitasker!  Scott and I love fish and seafood.  Because it’s such a great protein source along with all the other goodies it contains, I try to make sure we get fish at least twice a week.  We were having salmon one night and I wanted a different way to serve it up.  I usually marinade the salmon in a teriyaki mixture because it takes to that flavor so well.  But this time I wanted something a little different.

Since I’ve been working on my heat tolerance level, I decided to try something new with the salmon by creating a sweet and spicy glaze.  Glazes aren’t something I really work with too much and I thought it was about time I changed that up.  I pulled out some chipotles and put together this really great tasting glaze.

Andrea’s Chipotle Glaze

• 1 chipotle in adobo sauce
• 1/2 TBSP of the adobo sauce
• 1TBSP honey
• 1 garlic clove
• 1/2TBSP soy sauce
• 2tsp grill seasoning (salt free!)
• 1/2tsp smoked paparika
• 1/2tsp garlic powder
• 1tsp olive oil
• 1tsp of lime juice
• Pinch sea salt

Put all ingredients in a mini-food processor and pulse until a nice thick sauce is formed.

Simple right?  And this glaze could be used on anything from tofu to chicken. I used it on salmon steaks and here’s what I did:

Chipotle Glazed Salmon

Andrea’s Chipotle Glazed Salmon

• 2 salmon steaks
• Chipotle glaze

Preheat oven to 400.  Line a cookie sheet with nonstick foil and place the salmon on top.  Brush the salmon with some of the glaze reserving about 1/3.  Allow the salmon to cook for a few minutes and then add the rest of the glaze.  Finish cooking the salmon, about 7-9 minutes total cook time. Allow to rest for a minute and serve!

The glaze worked exactly how I was expecting it too and it was so tasty!  I was a bit worried if it would be too spicy for me and it was not at all.  It was spicy and sweet, the prefect balance.  Completely full of flavor and made one of the best salmon dishes we’ve had yet.  The smokiness of the adobo sauce provided a nice background while the honey helped the glaze stick and provide nice carmelization as the salmon baked.

I wasn’t done with it though.  I wanted to know how this was going to work with something grilled.  An even bigger test.  I still wanted to work with seafood and decided to try this out on some shrimp, but how? I finally decided to make some shrimp and pineapple skewers.

Because I wasn’t brushing this on but using it as a quick marinade and coating, I needed to bump up the glaze amount a bit.  Here’s what I did:

Andrea’s Chipotle Glaze for marinading

• 2 cloves of garlic
• 3 chipotle peppers
• 1TBSP sauce (plus a pinch more)
• 1.5TBSP soy sauce
• 1TBSP honey
• 1.5 tsp olive oil
• 1tsp garlic powder
• 1tsp smoked paprika
• 2tsp grill seasoning
• Pinch seasalt

Add all ingredients to a mini food processor and pulse until you get a sauce mixture.  By upping some of the ingredients, you get a little bit more of a sauce which makes it more appropriate for a marinade.  Seafood you only want to sit in the marinade for a few minutes. Things like pork, chicken, and steak can handle it for a bit longer.

Shrimp and pineapple skewers

Now I made shrimp and pineapple skewers with this and grilled.  Here’s what I did:

Andrea’s Chipotle Glazed Grilled Shrimp and Pineapple Skewers

• This makes 4 shrimp and pineapple skewers
• 1C pineapple chunks
• 1/2-1 lb of EZpeel shrimp
• Chipotle marinade

If you’re using bamboo or wooden skewers, soak them for about 15 minutes in water first.  Then rub them with a little bit of olive oil. This helps prevent food from sticking to them and from burning on the grill.  In a medium sized bowl, combine all the ingredients.  Allow to sit for about 5 minutes.  Then assemble the skewers alternating pineapple and shrimp and plate.  Pour the remaining sauce over the skewers and squeeze a little lime juice over top. Place skewers on a hot grill.  Cook about 2 minutes on each side.  You’ll notice the shrimp turning pink and that means they are cooked and done on that side.  Shrimp do not take long to cook at all, be careful not to overcook them. When cooked, remove from grill and allow to rest for a minute, then serve!

Sweet and spicy

These were perfect!  Slightly spicy with a sweet finish from the honey and the pineapple.  Grilled pineapple is such a surprisingly tasty experience.  The smokiness from the grill and the sweetness from the fruit make for a great flavor combination.  The shrimp were juicy and flavorful.

In the glaze, I used seasalt but if you don’t have any, kosher will work fine.  Just a very small pinch because there is plenty of salt action from the soy sauce.

You’ll also notice that for the skewers, I added the lime juice last. When working with seafood, the citric acid will start to “cook” the seafood which can result in a mushy texture after you actually cook it with heat.  Save the lime for right before cooking.  If you’re working with something other than seafood, you can add the lime juice before cooking.

There you go guys!  Two great applications for my Chipotle Glaze!

Chipotle Glazed Salmon

Chipotle Glazed Grilled Shrimp and Pineapple skewers

Enjoy guys!  And remember, always play with your food!

Comments: 6