Paula Deen’s Shrimp Creole
So I had a half bag of frozen shrimp left over from the Super Bowl party and needed something to do with it. Enter Paula Deen. I remember an episode where she was having a hen party (her words, not mine) and was making all kinds of delicious food for her girlfriends. One of those dishes was shrimp creole. Now, I’m quite the connoisseur of cajun, creole, new orleans sytle cooking. However, I’ve always been a little afraid to try making it myself because my only reference was watching Emeril. He doesn’t tend to make things look all that easy, and I’m not really fond of saying BAM as I throw seasoning at my food.
This recipe, however, was easy as could be. I will admit, though, that a few months ago I wouldn’t have said that. Why? Because it involved chopping. I was terrible at chopping anything, it took me forever, and I always made a huge mess. Since I’ve been cooking at home, though, my chopping skills have improved greatly, much to my surprise.
So I chopped some onion, celery, and green pepper, sauteed them in some oil with chili powder, and placed them into my heated crock pot. Why sautee before putting it in the crock pot, you ask? Well, for one thing, that’s what the recipe called for. But more importantly, after my experience with the lamb and lentil stew, where my vegetables were still crunchy after four hours in the crock pot, I decided it was worth the few extra minutes of stove work to get the desired result.
Next, pour in a can of tomatoes, some tomato sauce, hot sauce, Worcestershire, put the lid on and walk away. Wait! What about the shrimp, you ask? I learned that shrimp needs very little cooking. Cooked too long, shrimp becomes, well, rubber. So I followed Paula’s advice and added the shrimp at the end of cooking.
The Tasting
I made a pot of white rice in my rice cooker. By the way, if you don’t own a rice cooker, get one. It’s another one of those great put the food in and walk away appliances. And for as much rice as I eat, it’s saved me from a lot of boil overs and undercooked or overcooked rice. Just get one, you’ll be glad you did. Anyway, back to the shrimp. I dished myself up some rice and spooned the shrimp and sauce over it, and had at it. All I can say is, I love you Paula Deen. This was absolutely delicious. And, because of the ease of cooking, this recipe now ranks at the top of my recipe list. The shrimp (even though I had used pre-cooked frozen shrimp) were nice and tender, and the sauce was spicy, but not overly so. Now I fully understand the yummy face that Paula made when she tasted it on the show.
Postscript
The next week, I was trying to think of something to make. I had a bunch of chicken breasts that I needed to cook up, so I thought I’d try the shrimp creole recipe, only substitute chicken for the shrimp. The result? Good, but not as good as the shrimp. I put my raw chicken in the crock pot to cook, not realizing the amount of juice it was going to contribute to the sauce. It thinned out the sauce, and the taste, quite a bit. It was still good, but could have been much better had I added the cooked chicken at the end. Maybe I’ll try again and report back.
Sunny Anderson’s Easy Chicken and Dumplings
I love chicken and dumplings, but never make them because it seems like such an ordeal. But, since I’ve started cooking at home, I thought I’d look up a recipe and see what it entailed. Much to my delight, I found Sunny Anderson’s Easy Chicken and Dumplings. This recipe had my favorite word in it when comes to cooking. Easy. Now, as I learn to cook, things like chopping, judging doneness, and seasoning are becoming easier for me. Cleanup is also a big part of the equation for me. There is nothing worse, in my view, than cooking a nice meal and having to spend an hour in the kitchen cleaning up after it. Enter Sunny’s “Easy” Chicken and Dumplings.
The recipe calls for boiling a whole chicken in water and stock. Whole chickens scare me, but it was a money saver, and I am trying new things in the kitchen, so I went for it. I sauteed some onions and garlic, poured in the liquid, set my chicken in, threw in an herb bundle, and put the lid on. Not so bad. I went and sat down, watched some winter olympics for 30 minutes and returned to a nicely cooked chicken and savory stock.
Now it was time for the dumplings, and here is where everything went south. The chicken was to be taken out of the pot and set aside to cool. No problem. Except that I failed to think about the cavity full of liquid, so when I remove the chicken, I also dumped chicken liquid all over my counter, floor, and stove. My dog was happy. I was not. After some cleanup, it was on to the dumplings. The recipe called for some flour, fresh herbs, and the stock. This was to be made into a “soft dough.” I am no expert on dough, so I wasn’t too sure what was meant by a soft dough. I forged ahead, and soon found myself with a sticky mess in my mixing bowl. This couldn’t possibly be what she meant by a soft dough, could it? I added more flour and eventually got to something that looked like it could be worked into a dumpling. I floured my countertop and rolled out the dough, sliced it into triangles, and dropped them into the pot of stock. I should clarify. I dumped about 2/3 of the dumplings in the pot, since the other third decided that they wanted to become one with my counter.
Next was the disassembling of the chicken. This is why whole chickens scare me. I have a devil of a time getting them apart. On top of that, this chicken was still hot, so it made handling it a bit uncomfortable to say the least. I got out my chef’s knife and started cutting away. It’s a good thing that this recipe didn’t call for nicely cut pieces of chicken, because this dish wasn’t going to get that. No, instead, all I had to do was tear this bird apart into nice chunks to throw into the pot. This still took a while, and a few pieces of chicken went flying as I tried to separate the leg from the body. Again, my dog was very happy about this.
The Tasting
So after all that whining, I have to say that this dish is totally worth the trouble. The chicken was moist and tender, the stock rich and thick, and dumplings…best I’ve ever eaten. I quickly gobbled down two bowls of it and put the rest in the refrigerator. I took some over to my friends Shannon and Bruce, and was informed that Shannon is quite the connoisseur of chicken and dumplings, so this dish would be judged with an extremely critical eye. The next morning, I received a text message saying “Ur chicken dumplings rule!” A thumbs up from the expert. One warning. This is not a figure friendly dish. Not because it is all that bad for you, but because you will not be able to stop eating it.
Final Thought
The one gripe I have about this recipe is that it was billed as “easy.” In fact, the word easy got top billing. If this is easy chicken and dumplings, then I do not want to try and make the hard version. For a cook of my skill level, this was a stretch. But, I hear that stretching is good for you, and since I certainly need to expand my skill set, this was not a bad way to do it. Cleanup after this dish was awful. I had to scrape the remaining dumpling dough off my countertop and mop up chicken juice (my dog can only do so much). This isn’t necessarily the fault of the recipe, though. I intend on making this again in the future, and am hoping that it goes much more smoothly. But even if it doesn’t, it’ll be worth it.
Cooking Basics: Your Spice Rack
As i am learning to cook, I would also like to pass on any tips that I find useful for the new or newer cook. One of my greatest frustrations when cooking is not having the right seasonings at hand. As I cook more and my spice rack grows, I am learning which spices and seasonings are essential to a well stocked kitchen. Here are my spice rack basics:
Dried Herbs
If you have an herb garden or can find and afford the fresh herbs in the grocery store, by all means use fresh herbs. But, for those of us with a black thumb and on a bit of a budget, these dried herbs will serve you well in your cooking endeavors:
- Rosemary
- Thyme
- Oregano
- Basil
- Dill
- Sage
- Bay Leaves
What, no dried parsley? Parsley is one of those really cheap items in the produce section, so I just have it on hand. I see no need for the dried stuff.
Spices
- Cumin
- Cayenne
- Nutmeg
- Cinnamon
- Paprika
- Curry Powder
- Red Pepper Flakes
Seasonings
- Garlic Salt
- Garlic Powder
- Kosher Salt
- Black Pepper (ground and whole peppercorns)
- Season Salt (a la Lawry’s, Emeril’s Essence, or Paula Dean’s house seasoning)
- Poultry Seasoning
- Grill Seasoning
Having these basics in your spice rack, while certainly not exhaustive, will take you a long way in your cooking endeavors. Also, if you don’t use a particular herb or spice very often, make sure to get the smaller container. Most herbs and spices will last you about six months before they lose their potency.
As a new cook, I have found that these items get me through most recipes. So bust out that spice rack that your aunt got you for Christmas and get it stocked.
Robin Miller’s Hearty Lamb and Lentil Stew
I was pretty much afraid of lentils for a long time. Then I made a batch of Ina Garten’s Lentil Vegetable Soup and realized that they are really not all that scary. So wouldn’t you know it, sitting here on my day off I come across Robin Miller’s show and she is making a lentil dish. Well, needless to say, I had to try it. Off the market I went.
The only ingredient I was really unfamiliar with here was the lamb. Lamb is just not something I grew up on, or eaten very often so I am fairly unfamiliar with the lamb section of the meat counter. On the show, Robin indicated that she was able to buy lamb already cubed, and just plopped it in the crock pot. When I got to the meat counter, I was able to find a package labeled “Lamb Stew.” Well, since I was making lamb stew, this seemed perfect. And, since I couldn’t find a package of “Lamb Cubed,” this was going to have to do. Robin’s lamb appeared boneless, but the lamb I picked up had several bones in it. No worries here, though, as I figured this would probably add a little more flavor to the dish.
Prep was fairly easy for this dish. Thanks go out to The Kitchn and its helpful article on knife skills. While I’m not perfect, I am getting better. So I chopped up the onion, celery, and carrots; dumped in the canned tomatoes and pre-chopped garlic (thank you to whoever thought of this) and the spices. Now for the lamb. My package of lamb was not quite the same as Robin’s. She was able to obtain a perfectly proportioned package of boneless lamb squares. My package was a mishmash of large and small pieces with bones strewn throughout. I cut these apart as best I could and threw them in the pot. Cover it all with some chicken stock, stir, and set the crock pot for four hours.
I needed some non-vegetarian friends to try this out with me, so I called up my good friend Shannon and told her I was bringing dinner for her and her husband Bruce. This was at about 3:00 pm, plenty of time to have dinner at 7:00 right? Wrong!! After four hours in the crock pot, the dish was barely cooked. The vegetables were still crunchy and the lamb was only half cooked. It was already 7:00 pm and so I packed up the crock pot and headed to Shannon and Bruce’s house hoping they weren’t starving. I also stopped at the market to pick up some eclairs for dessert to make up for the impending disaster that dinner seemed to be.
I got to the house and decided that I should just dump the contents of the crock-pot into a large pot and put it on the stove. One hour and twenty minutes later, dinner was ready. Bruce had finally reached his hunger threshold and couldn’t wait any longer.
The Tasting
I would have preferred that the dish cook a little longer to soften the vegetables a bit more, but Bruce’s hunger alert by no means meant the dish was undercooked. We dug in with total abandon as we were all starving and were not disappointed. The lamb was nice and tender, and the rosemary was a perfect match with it. To call this stew hearty would be an understatement. This was as thick and rich as it gets. This will definitely become a part of my recipe rotation, however, in the future, I think I’ll either dedicate eight hours for the crock pot, or just start with a pot on the stove and let it simmer for a couple of hours. Other than the timing issue, I would give this recipe a thumbs up. Oh, and the eclairs were delicious too 
Aquiring Great Knife Skills
I don’t know about you, but I am very knife challenged. When I’m watching 30-minute Meals, I have to add about an extra ten minutes to my own prep time, because I simply can’t slice and chop as fast as Rachel. Here is a post from The Kitchn that I have found very helpful for improving your knife skills. Enjoy.
How to Learn Great Knife Skills
Ina Garten’s Lentil Vegetable Soup
In this episode, Ina was making a surprise lunch for her friends who were busy editing their new film ‘9′. While I don’t quite have the same audience to impress, the recipe did look fairly easy with not too much prep work. So I downloaded the recipe and off to the grocery store I went.
I went to the Nugget supermarket as they usually carry some higher end items. This recipe called for french green lentils. I figured if anyone had this, Nugget would. Wrong. Nugget (like every other grocery store, I’ve discovered) only carries brown lentils. Strike one. Now, as this was a recipe for lentil soup, and this was a bag of lentils, I thought this was a small compromise. Off to the produce aisle.
The recipe called for some very basic ingredients: onions, carrots, celery, and leeks. The first three were no problem. However, Nugget didn’t have any leeks. Are leeks all that uncommon? I didn’t think they were as I see most of my favorite chefs using them quite a lot. But, alas, no leeks. Strike two. I was able to find the other ingredients at Nugget just fine. So I checked out, and headed over to our local Bel-Air market to see if they had leeks. At Bel-Air, leeks had a very prominent spot on the vegetable counter. So what was up with Nugget? It looks like my groceries are going to come from Bel-Air from now on.
When I arrived home, I laid everything out and got ready to do some cookin’. The first order of business was chopping up the onions and leeks. The recipe called for four cups of chopped onion. I pulled out my chopper (like a slap chop) and started quartering and chopping onions. You will find that I am not fond of knives. If I can get away with doing something involving a knife, without actually having to use one, that’s the route I’m going to take. So I pounded away on my chopper until I had roughly the four cups. I say roughly because I didn’t measure them, I just wanted to get away from them since my eyes were burning out of their sockets.
On to the leeks. I had never used leeks before, but knew that they tended to be rather on the dirty side. Ina had cut the green tops off the leeks and then ran the bottom part under water as she separated the leaves and got the sand out. I remember a trick that I think was on 30-Minute Meals with Rachel Ray. I cut the tops off, cut the bottoms in half lengthwise and then sliced them into little half moons. I then dumped them into a bowl of water so that the sand and grit could settle out. Worked like a charm. It was now time to heat up my pan and get these onions and leeks going.
The initial dump in the pan called for some olive oil, the onions, leeks, garlic, and the spices (cumin, thyme, salt, and pepper). Now, I have to admit another shortcut I use on a regular basis. I do not chop garlic. I hate having my fingers smell like a clove a garlic, dealing with that garlic paper blowing around my kitchen, and chopping something so small, so I buy the pre-chopped jars of garlic. I just eyeball the amount that I think equals a clove and throw it in. I haven’t noticed any difference in flavor from doing this in the past, so I’m just going to keep on doing it. Also, unless I’m baking, I don’t pull out the measuring spoons for the spices. Again, I eyeball an amount in my palm and call it good. If it’s a spice I particularly like, I might throw in just a little more. But, to each his own.
The onions and leeks were to be sauted for 20 minutes or until translucent. That gave me ample time to chop the carrots and celery. Now I had to use the knife. Carrots are my nemesis when it comes to chopping. I don’t know if my knife isn’t sharp enough or I just don’t have the necessary skill, but when I try to chop carrots, pieces go flying. I took it slow and only had a few pieces go flying across the counter. My dog (whose job is floor cleanup) wouldn’t help me out here, so I did have to throw out a few carrot pieces. Carrots just weren’t her thing. I had an easier time with the celery and dumped these into the pot after the onions and leeks had been going for 20 minutes.
I grabbed my lentils, which had been soaking in a bowl of hot water, drained them and dumped them into the pan with the stock, and the tomato paste and cranked the heat up to achieve a boil. Now the recipe called for chicken stock, but I was going to be feeding this to a vegetarian friend so I went with vegetable stock. Ina had homemade stock for her soup, but I live in the real world and don’t have time to make pots of different kinds of stock. I used Kitchen Basics Vegetable Stock instead. It had a nice rich looking dark color and didn’t contain a lot of sodium. And because it was stock and not just broth, it brought its own flavoring to the dish which I didn’t think could hurt.
After the pot came to a boil, I turned it down to a simmer and we just had to wait an hour for soup to be on. The final ingredient (and the one I was most intrigued with) was a couple dashes of red wine vinegar. I had never heard of doing this and was excited to see what kind of flavor this would bring to the table.
The Tasting
Ina suggests sprinkling some grated Parmesan cheese and drizzling some olive oil on each serving. We served up our soup with some grated cheese topping (the kind you find in the green cardboard container) and some fresh french bread I had bought from the Bel-Air bakery. I am not a huge fan, but not completely averse either, of raw olive oil on my food so we skipped the drizzle.
The soup smelled absolutely wonderful. It had a delicate onion smell, and you could pick out the smells of thyme and cumin in there as well. The taste was a little too oniony for my palette, but my friends said it hit just the right notes. The carrots and celery had cooked all the way through, but weren’t super mushy either. The lentils were earthy and perfectly al-dente. While I would probably cut down on the amount of onion in this dish the next time I make it, trust me when I say that this was some of the most delicious soup I had ever had in my lifetime.
Postscript
I stored the remainder of the soup in some plastic storage containers, put them in the fridge, and had soup for the rest of the week. This is one of those dishes that is better as a leftover. Every day, the flavor had developed a bit more and was it was just that much more delicious. This is one I’m definitely going to make again.