Creamy Lemon-Pepper Shrimp Pasta

Do me a favor, and keep in mind when you’re cooking: Nobody ever manages to keep it ‘all together’ in the kitchen, okay? I promise you, that’s only on TV. 

In truth, everything manages to get done at once - the pasta pot starts boiling - the shrimp need taken up - and you realize you managed to forget to set a timer for those baked potatoes you stuck in the overn for next week’s lunches - all at the same time! 

And THAT was a good night, tonight!

On a really chaotic night, I let my cast iron skillet get too hot, it starts smoking when I put something in it, the smoke alarm goes off - this is hooked into my professional alarm monitoring, you understand - so then I’ve got THEM calling, to see if I need the fire department! - and I’m trying to climb on a chair, to get the batteries out of the smoke alarm to shut IT up - and my beloved little dog Hamilton is wandering around in circles adding to the noise, because his ears can’t stand the smoke alarm.

In short? YOU ARE NOT ALONE. YOU ARE STILL A GOOD COOK. And dinner gets done beautifully anyhow!

CREAMY LEMON-PEPPER SHRIMP PASTA

Ingredients

• 1 lb. pasta (I used Tinkyada spirals)
• Olive oil pan spray
• 1 lb. large

   shrimp, peeled and deveined (I took the tails off too, I don’t like shrimp tails in pasta)

• 3/4 tsp.

   salt (I used my sea salt grinder)

• 1/2 tsp. 

  black pepper (I used my pepper mill)

• 6 Tbsp. 

  lemon juice, divided, plus wedges for serving

• 2 Tbsp. 

  butter

• 3 

  cloves garlic, minced

• 1 

  (8-oz.) block cream cheese, cubed

• 1/4 cup 

  freshly chopped parsley leaves (I used dried, my fresh parsley isn’t large enough to cut this season yet - it’s only March!)

Directions

1. Cook pasta according to package directions until al dente. Drain, reserving 1 cup pasta water, and return to pot. (If you’ve got a pasta pot, mine sat in the sink in the colander-pot until I was ready for it.)
2. Meanwhile, coat a large heavy bottomed skillet (cast iron is my preference) with pan spray. Over medium-high heat, add shrimp and season with ¾ teaspoon salt and ½ teaspoon pepper. Cook, tossing occasionally, until shrimp is pink and just cooked through, about 4 minutes. Add 2 tablespoons lemon juice and toss to coat. Remove shrimp from skillet. (I put them in my large pasta serving bowl where I was going to be tossing all this together and covered them with foil to keep them warm.)
3. In the same skillet over medium-high heat, melt butter. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, 30 seconds. Add remaining ¼ cup lemon juice and cook, until reduced by half, 1 minute. Whisk in ¾ cup reserved pasta water and cream cheese. Bring to a simmer, whisking constantly, until cream cheese is completely melted into the sauce. (I had to get a spatula and kind of smash the cream cheese to get it smooth.)
4. Even though I’ve got an huge cast iron skillet, the pasta plus the shrimp were not going to fit in there to toss it all together. I added them pasta to my shrimp in my big pasta serving bowl to toss is all together, and added the sauce on top of that. If you can fit it all in your skillet, that’s actually where my directions told you to toss it! You can add more reserved pasta water if necessary to loosen sauce. I didn’t need to. 
5. Season to taste with more salt and pepper. Garnish with parsley and serve with lemon wedges.
6. Servings: 6
7. Calories: 460

Lemon Parmesan Pasta with Spinach

 I didn’t get a picture of this one… sorry! I’m working without a microwave in the kitchen at the moment, so I’m a bit distracted.

LEMON PARMESAN PASTA WITH SPINACH

Ingredients

1lb pasta

Get a lot of spinach. I used a Sam’s bag. Spinach cooks down.

4 large cloves garlic, minced

2C chicken broth (I use Orrington Farms Broth Base)

4T lemon juice

Lemon zest, if you like to zest lemons (I don’t)

1 1/2C sour cream (I used light)

1C Parmesan cheese (buy a block and grate your own, for this recipe)

Fresh Parsley, for garnish

You were supposed to toss in a tablespoon of butter, at the end. I forgot.

Cook your pasta according to package directions. I’d wilt your spinach in the microwave, myself, but since I don’t have a microwave at the moment, I waited until the pasta was done, pulled it off the heat, stirred the spinach in to wilt it, and then drained it all together. It worked.

Get out a large skillet and coat with pan spray. Heat your garlic until it’s fragrant, then add your broth and lemon juice. Simmer until reduced by about a third. Add the sour cream; whisk until blended. Add the Parmesan, a bit at a time, STIRRING CONSTANTLY or it will clump on you!

Toss pasta and spinach with the sauce. This is where you were supposed to add the butter, parsley, and lemon zest; all I remembered to add was parsley, but it still tasted marvelous!

Servings: 7

Calories per serving (with butter!): 400

Cheese Puffs (Gougères)

 These marvelous little treats are much simpler than they look, and would be equally at home on a party appetizer table or with a simple dinner of soup! 

They were originally a wheat-flour recipe, so that would work fine; I used Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free 1 to 1 Baking Flour, and that worked just fine too.

One thing you are going to want to do is have everything measured out - grate your cheese, measure your flour - have everything measured out in little bowls before you start heating anything on the stove. Everything goes together QUICK, and you don’t want to lose too much water to evaporation, once you start.

My recipe said you could play around with this a bit - try other hard cheeses in place of the Gruyere, try other spices as add-in’s, that sort of thing - but I haven’t done any of that yet! Let me know if you do, and I’ll go back and edit them in, if they turn out well for you. 

COMING BACK FOR EDITS: I made a double batch with aged white cheddar, some garlic powder, and a few shakes of parsley. They were MARVELOUS! 

Cheese Puffs

• Ingredients

• 1/2 cup 

  water

• 4 Tbsp. 

  butter

• 1/2 tsp. 

  salt (I used regular table salt so I could measure exactly)

• 1/2 tsp. 

  granulated sugar 

• 1/2 cup 

  all-purpose flour

• 2 

  large eggs

• 1/2 cup 

  freshly grated Gruyère

• 
  

Preheat oven to 400° and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

• 1. In a medium saucepan, combine water, butter, salt, and sugar, and bring to a boil. Add the flour all at once and stir with a wooden spoon until a smooth dough forms. Continue to cook until dough pulls away from the pan and forms a ball, and a film develops on the bottom of the pot, about 2 minutes.
  2. Transfer dough to a bowl and continue to mix with a wooden spoon to cool slightly, 1 minute. Beat in eggs, one at a time, mixing until smooth and fully incorporated after each addition. (You’re supposed to stop mixing once the dough is thick enough that it falls slowly when lifted with a spoon. That never happened for me.) Fold in Gruyere.
  3. Use a small (2 teaspoon capacity) cookie scoop to create small, inch-wide mounds on prepared baking sheet, about an inch apart. (I needed some pan spray on my fingers and the cookie scoop for this.) Top with more gruyere and bake until puffed and golden, 20 to 25 minutes.

Yield: 15 cheese puffs, about 60 calories each

Rocky Road Cookies (Soft)

 You will note that we have a distinction up here now between Soft Rocky Road Cookies and Crispy Rocky Road Cookies! The family decided they wanted Rocky Road cookies again for Christmas, but this time they wanted a SOFT cookie, so here we go — soft cookie it is!

SOFT ROCKY ROAD COOKIES 

Ingredients

3 cups Ashley’s Gluten Free Flour Blend

1 1/2 C packed brown sugar

1 C cocoa powder (Hershey’s is marked GF)

2t baking soda

1/4 t salt (I just give it a few grinds from my salt grinder)

1 C butter (2 sticks), room temperature

4 eggs

2t vanilla extract

2/3 C chocolate chips (I used semi sweet mini chips)

2/3 C chopped nuts (I used walnuts)

2/3 C mini marshmallows

Preheat the oven to 350.

Mix your dry ingredients (down to salt) all together in a bowl, and stir until blended. 

I didn’t have time to let the butter soften: this is what microwaves are for! Add vanilla extract and eggs to the butter, and whisk together.

Slowly add the dry ingredients, and stir together. A stand mixer might help you here, but I don’t have one! My arm was sore, whipping the lumps out. 

Add chocolate chips, nuts and marshmallows, and fold in. 

Use a cookie scoop or a spoon to DROP cookies onto a parchment-paper lined baking sheet. Press each cookie down slightly. (These are very much DROP cookies. Dough will be sticky!)

Alternatively, you can wait until you’ve dropped the cookies onto your parchment paper and press the marshmallows, chocolate chips, and nuts into the top.

Bake 7-10 minutes, adjusting as necessary for the size or your cookies. Let them rest on the cookie sheet five minutes, then move to a rack to finish cooling.

The Famous Christmas Fudge

 Life is too short to hoard recipes, I decided today: you want to give the famous Christmas fudge a try, here it is, and more power to you!

I actually thought the recipe was pretty much fool-proof, to tell you the truth, but a choir member of mine (who is usually behind the deep-fryer at any church function, turning out hot apple hand pies, so a pretty stellar baker!) has trouble getting it to come out. Who knows. 

Here goes: This is it! 

Sum total of <EVERYTHING> you will need for one pan of fudge.

One small (18oz) peanut butter, 

One thing of frosting - this one is cream cheese, but whatever works - 

A spatula, 

A bowl to mix them in, 

And I use a loaf pan to cool the fudge in, because it’s a good size.

Take the lids off the frosting and peanut butter. If you can get the foil totally off without tearing it, that’s ideal, because that means you can put it in the microwave just like it is. If the foils tears, scoop it into the bowl before putting in the microwave.

DO NOT PUT THE FROSTING OR PEANUT BUTTER CONTAINERS IN THE MICROWAVE WITH ANY FOIL STILL STUCK ON THEM.

It all peeled off these nicely, so next we put them in the microwave for 45 seconds each!

[Ignore the second peanut butter there; I was making two batches at once.]

Once you’ve microwaved both your peanut butter and your frosting, pour them into the bowl together and stir until they’re well mixed.

I usually coat my loaf pans with pan spray. Not sure if that’s necessary? But that’s what I do.

Pour the fudge into a load pan. Cover it with foil, and set it aside to cool overnight or for a day or so.

And then all you have to do is cut it, once it’s set up!

People love it, they really do. Hence the ‘Famous’ moniker. I’ve been giving it as gifts for years now. ❤️

Most of us really don’t need more ‘stuff’ at Christmas, but everybody appreciates Christmas candy!

Balsamic Bliss Bowls

One of the lunch bowls I meal-prep on weekends! 

For this one, I use brown rice that I make in the Instapot (recipe is here: Instapot Quinoa OR Brown Rice). For six lunches, I use a cup and a half of brown rice, which in the Instapot works out to just over a cup-and-three-quarters of water or broth.  You can always make the full two cups and have leftovers, of course!

I also used deli chicken this time, though sometimes I will use rotisserie chicken if I have it; fresh mozzarella; and the balsamic tomatoes.

The green beans were just cooling on the counter next to my rice bowls in this picture, but if you’re interested in my green bean recipes, they are here (Roasted Green Beans) and here (Instapot Green Beans)!

BALSAMIC BLISS BOWLS

Ingredients for 6 bowls

Brown rice, cooked (for six lunches, I cook a cup and a half of brown rice)

8oz fresh mozzarella 

Deli chicken or rotisserie chicken (I use 2oz per bowl)

Cherry tomatoes (as many as you’d like!)

A few tablespoons of balsamic vinegar

Go ahead and cook your rice, however you want to do that. Divide between six bowls.

*If you’re counting calories, it’s the equivalent of 160 calories per bowl I’m aiming at: a half-cup’s worth of uncooked rice. That’s how calories are measured on my bag of rice!

Roughly cut up your fresh mozzarella into bite-sized pieces. I use 8oz because that’s how it’s usually sold, no other reason! Divide equally between your six bowls on top of your rice.

Dice your chicken, again dividing between the rice bowls.

Cut all the cherry tomatoes in half and place in a cast iron skillet. (I don’t have a problem with them sticking at all in mine?) Drizzle a couple tablespoons of a good balsamic vinegar over the tomatoes, and turn the heat to medium. Keep stirring every couple of minutes until the tomatoes release their juices and turn kind of ‘sauce-y.’ 

Divide the tomatoes up on top of your rice bowls.

Servings: 6

Calories per serving: 335

Seafood and Spinach Dip

Rich and Creamy Shrimp and Crab Spinach Dip with Garlic and Parmesan 

SEAFOOD AND SPINACH DIP

Ingredients

1/2 pound shrimp, peeled, deveined, and chopped

1/2 pound lump crab meat

12 oz frozen spinach, thawed

8 oz cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning

Salt and pepper to taste

Pan spray, to cook the shrimp

Tortilla chips (or whatever, crackers or bread if you’re not GF) for serving

Directions:

Cook the Shrimp: Coat a cast iron skillet with pan spray; add shrimp and cook over medium heat until pink and fully cooked.

Prepare the Dip: In a large mixing bowl, combine the softened cream cheese, sour cream, mayonnaise, minced garlic, Old Bay seasoning, salt, and pepper. Mix until smooth and well combined.

Add the Seafood and Spinach: Stir in the cooked shrimp, crab meat, spinach, mozzarella, and Parmesan cheese until everything is well incorporated.

Bake: Preheat your oven to 375°F. Transfer the dip mixture into an oven-safe dish and spread it out evenly. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the dip is bubbly and golden on top.

Serve: Remove from the oven and let the dip cool slightly. Serve warm with tortilla chips (or whatever, if you’re not GF) for dipping.

Kcal: 300 kcal per serving | Servings: 8, the original recipe said