Shrimp Soft Tacos for Cinco de Mayo

In recent years the celebration of Cinco de Mayo has become quite popular in the United States.  So, if you are looking for something to make for Cinco de Mayo on Saturday, these are definitely my suggestion.  They have some traditional Mexican flavors that also just happen to be flavors that make me think of summer, which is just around the corner.

These tacos are topped with a jalapeno coleslaw, which would also be tasty on the side or served with an entirely different dish.  The coleslaw has quite a bite to it so if you would prefer it a little tamer, just reduce or even eliminate the jalapeno.  If you like pepper without the heat, try substituting bell pepper.  Red or yellow bell pepper would even add to the appearance.  I used corn tortillas just because I like them, but you could also use flour tortillas.  In the photos it is served with black beans and corn.  This is not really a recipe, but I will include it because it really is a good compliment to the tacos.

Note:  Please be careful chopping jalapenos.  I recommend using gloves because they can irritate you hands pretty badly and that is not even the worst of it.  If you were to forget and touch your eyes, it could be really bad. 

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Shrimp Pasta with Lemon Cream Sauce

Shrimp and pasta always make for a quick and delicious meal, but I enjoyed this more than most.  It is great for weeknights when you don't have the time or energy for an involved recipe but still want something really good.  When I came up with the recipe, I knew I wanted shrimp and pasta and started looking at recipes online, but none of them seemed to be exactly what I was looking for so I threw together my favorite elements of three or four of them, and it worked wonderfully.


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Green Curry Chicken

I just love the coconut curry combination, and this recipe will definitely fulfill that craving.  It is just a quick throw-it-together kind of meal, but it has lots of flavor.  It is great for a weeknight when you want something really good, but don't want to spend the evening in the kitchen.  The amounts are really just guidelines and can be adjusted for your own taste.  For that matter, you could substitute any of your favorite vegetables for these too, but for me that coconut curry combination just isn't complete without the butternut squash, so I really recommend keeping it.  You could serve it over any rice, but I used jasmine cooked with refrigerated coconut milk instead of water.

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Daring Cooks Challenge: Braised Short Ribs with Grits

This challenge was a lot of fun and yielded wonderfully delicious results.  I used the hostesses (Carol) recipe for Red Wine-Braised Short Ribs.  I only made a few very small adjustments to the original recipe and chose give it a southern twist an serve it over grits instead of mashed potatoes, noodles, or polenta.  Here is her recipe with my adjustments added in.


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Basil Shrimp with Feta and Orzo

This is another adventure in low calorie eating, and again, it is not my recipe because my creativity doesn't usually extend to low calorie adventures.  But, now that I have tried a few, I might see some ideas of my own for the future.  Speaking of which, I may be missing in action some while dieting.  I am going to try my best not to be, but you know cooking and thinking about food is kind of detrimental to the whole dieting thing.  Now, back to the shrimp... you can find the recipe here at Nutmeg Notebook.  It is a quick and easy recipe that is full of flavor, and flavor is something you definitely need when dieting.



Here are some more photos:

Daring Cooks' Challenge: Patties

I am trying to loose weight, so I opted for baked patties.  My original recipes also lean towards the highly caloric, so for this challenge a started looking through the low calorie blogs I frequent to find a suitable recipe and wound up with this recipe for crab cakes from Skinny Taste.  They were delicious and easy to make.  I doubled the recipe because I knew my husband and son would want more than one crab cake.  Using a half cup measure, I only got six patties/cakes instead of eight though, so if you are doing Weight Watchers, you might to adjust the points value depending on how many you get.

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Hoisin-Glazed Chicken with Cabbage Slaw

Ok, so I'm trying to eat healthy, so I will be trying some recipes out there that I can post a link to so that you can try them to.  If I adapt them, I will post that here too.  Don't worry, not everything I am posting will be healthy.  I doubt I can stay away from baking entirely or for very long, but you are going to be getting a dose of good for you stuff too.  This recipe can be found here:  Hoisin-Glazed Chicken with Cabbage Slaw.  It is a Real Simple recipe.  I didn't change it, though I did make about 1 1/2 of the recipe to account for the males in the house wanting a bit more.  It is good, inexpensive and quick - perfect for a weeknight.  I cut up my vegetables a good bit more than what they have pictured.

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Stuffed Pumpkin

I suspect this blog really will have mostly baking on it even though it doesn't seem this way right now.  Well technically, the pumpkins are baked, but they are definitely not cake and cookies, if you know what I mean.  My farmers' market selling is done until May, and I guess I am in the mood to cook other things.

I won't post the recipe here because I got it here:   http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130704456 , and I sure you can follow the link. It is a Dorie Greenspan recipe from NPR.

I bought these two little pie pumpkins at the farmers' market, and had stuffed some last year and wanted to do it again.  I couldn't find the recipe I used last year, so I found this one.  I pretty much followed the recipe leaving out the chives, but throwing in a handful of kale.  Really they were delicious.  We all ate way too much.  You should try it.