I will admit that even though I have lived in South Louisiana majority of my life, I am not a huge fan of Seafood. I didn’t eat my first Shrimp Poboy until I was 19 years old. 12 years later, I am still picky on Seafood that I will eat. A couple years ago, Sam’s started selling Tony Chachare’s Brand Gulf of Mexico Wild Caught Shrimp in frozen 3 lb. bags. I told myself, this is a great way to incorporate Shrimp into some of the meals I cook at home and slowly accept and eat Shrimp all the million different ways it is prepared around this area. And at that time, a Lake Charles family was and still may be the supplier of Tony Chachare’s Shrimp so I was happy to support their business. The other night we were making baked potatoes and we always pair it with a protien….grilled chicken, pork chop, steak, or brisket. My meat supply is low so I opted for the kryovacked bag of Gulf Shrimp that i portioned a while back ago from the 3 lb. bag of Tony Chachare’s Shrimp. I knew this would be harder for me to eat compared to my wife because of my sensitive seafood palate and frying wasn’t an option that night. The goal was to make these shrimp as flavorful as I can to eliminate the notion that I would just eat a few and get tired of the seafood taste quickly and resort to only the potato. The result was, I ended up eating 2/3 of the shrimp and went back for more in the pan when i was done with round 1, but it was gone.

Keeping the rule of letting the main ingredient speak for itself, I knew I just needed some flavorful ingredients to bring it to the level that I would desire a taste for. This was new territory for even me as I always have a preference of hiding seafood that I eat behind a crispy breading and ketchup or some other flavor dominating sauce. I followed the concept of creating a sauteed shrimpt that I would eat at a restaurant that was topped on a great steak. This type of exercise is crucial in the cooking process….having a mental goal and vision of what you want the end product to look, smell, and taste like. That’s a good enough preface. Let’s make some Shrimp!

Ingredients: Gulf of Mexico Shrimp 31/50 Count: 3/4 of a pound of it, 4 Tbs. Butter, 1/3 cup Red Onion (Small Diced) 3 Tbs. Fresh Garlic (Minced), 1/4 cup Green Onions (Chopped), 1 Tbs. Blackening Seasoning (Paul Prudhomme’s Magic Blend), 1/4 cup Lea & Perrins Worchestire Sauce, Kosher Salt Cooking Equipment: 12 in. non stick skillet

In the skillet, melt butter on medium heat stirring until fully melted, turn heat up to medium high, add red onion and saute until transparent 4-5 min., add garlic and saute for a couple of minutes, season with a little Kosher Salt, add shrimp, stir really well to incorporate all ingredients, add blackening seasoning and stir again, cook for 2 minutes, add worchestire sauce and stir all together for a minute or so to develop a little sauce with all the liquids. Turn off heat and add fresh chopped green onions and stir once more….Serve immediately. Seeing how quick the cooking process on this is, you really can do this at the last second after what ever you are serving it with is prepared. The goal is not to brown the shrimp, but to just cook until done and keep the tender texture of perfectly cooked shrimp. Serve over baked potato, grilled fish, grilled chicken, your favorite Steak, or simply eat with Hot French Bread!

Spinach! Spinach! Spinach! Used to hate it….was a curse word as a child. Now I could consume this version of it weekly. In an effort to bring some new vegetable options for dinner at my house and after enjoying the Sauteed Spinach w/Panchetta and Porcini at 121 Bistro, I was inspired to add this to my vegetable aresanal quickly. Ridiculously easy, especially if you follow suit on items from previous posts. It’s amazing how easy to cook stuff like this when you have everything you need in house to bring it together. Let’s do this! Ingredients you need are Fresh Spinach, chopped bacon, roasted garlic, chicken broth or stock, S&P. On the Spinach, talking about the big container they sell (pic below)

Start out by adding bacon to the pan and cooking on medium heat until crispy.

Next add the Roasted Garlic and saute for a minute or so to let the flavors start releasing.

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After that add a little chicken stock to fill the bottom of the pan. Add some S&P and cook this a little bit until the liquid reduces by half. Smash up some of the garlic cloves during this process. This is key to the flavor of the finished product. Pic to the right is reduced.

Now you are ready to add the Fresh Spinach, FYI, it is best to saute the actual spinach right before you are going to eat it or serve to guest. You still want it to have a fresh vibrant green color to it. It only takes maybe 2 minutes to cook after you add the Spinach. So what I do is I usually get it up to the reduced stock step with the bacon and garlic and turn the heat off. Then when everything else I am cooking is done and ready to eat, I turn the heat back on, hea the pan up and then add the Spinach. Add the spinach a handful at a time and mash it down to the pan. After all of it is added, using tongs, start folding it around and replace the spinach that is at the bottom of the pan with the spinach that is on the top. Watching the areas that are cooked and uncooked and keep introducing the raw crisp pockets of spinach to the bottom of the pan where the heat is. Keep folding it around until it is all of the spinach is wilted. The spinach will release its natural liquid into the pan and that is fine. Below are pics from raw in the pan to fully cooked. As stated once, wilted, shut off the heat and serve immediately.