Madison House Chef

Shrimp Tacos with a hint of Lime

shrimp cooked with lime and spices, served on a fresh corn tortilla, avocado, and chipotle infused sour cream

Here’s a new (to MHC) recipe that has already gone to “family favorites” status.

Rick Bayless’ Soft Taco Filling offers a no-fail, delicious (delicioso!), fresh tasting recipe that takes only a few minutes to cook. The shrimp can be served hot, for example on tacos, or cold as on a salad.

Smoked Salmon, Cream Cheese and Sprouts Sandwich

Delicious!

Since the MHC household is back into the school year routine, it’s packed lunches for us all. This morning I put a Smoked Salmon sandwich with cream cheese, capers, and alfalfa sprouts on Nature’s Own Sandwich Rounds (a recent find). Their Nutrition Facts show a decent product and they rate an A on Fooducate.

Here are the layers for this satisfying sandwich.

Red Curry Glazed Salmon

One evening not long ago the four of us sat at the kitchen table playing the card-board game Sequence. Just for the record, Ken and Madeleine managed to beat Gregory and me 2 games to 1. To what shall we attribute this victory? Luck? Good strategy? Cheating? (No!)

We shall attribute their win to the fact that Madeleine had eaten BRAIN-FOOD: salmon.

 

 

Baked Salmon with Fresh Baby Spinach

 
This is still one of our all time favorite ways to eat baked salmon; even the kids eat it.

When I first posted this recipe we were eager to eat and thus I missed the photo op prior to the first bite.  This time I clicked the shutter just prior to the first application of the fork.

The sauce has a pan asian flair with the sweet orange juice and the savory ginger balancing one another nicely.

 

Grilled Shrimp with Cilantro, Lime, and Peanuts

 

These Grilled Shrimp with cilantro, Lime and Peanuts are fresh with a great balance of flavors.

They’d be great as tapas, for lunch with a salad or simple light sandwich, or with cocktails.

We enjoyed these as part of a grilled tapas/small plates dinner (also made Bacon Wrapped Jalapeno Chicken Bites and Mini Burgers on Chips)

 

Sweet and Sour Shrimp (with photos)

When we lived in South Bend there was a tiny, delightful, store front Thai restaurant downtown that had the most amazing tofu stir fry (for lack of a better title or term), Thai spring rolls, and a sweet and sour sauce for the spring rolls that was simply amazing.  It was a perfect blend of sweet and savory/sour with a hint of heat.  I have drooled for that sauce time and time again. Tonight, I think I found it!

 

 

Planked Trout

 

Crispy Baked Fish

Quick. Easy. Healthy. Delicious. A taste of the UK.

In the continuing quest to recreate fish and chips that are not deep fried, Ken has put together another fish recipe whose satisfyingly crispy coating come from toasted panko (bread crumbs).

This recipe was inspired by a recipe in one of my favourite (spelling intentional) UK food magazines Good Food Eat Well which costs me over $1000 an issue … gosh I hope airfare goes down soon…

Baked Salmon with Fresh Baby Spinach

There is a significant reason why the only photos here are from prep and the steps leading up to baking.  Once the fish was plated, it was eagerly anticipated, quickly blessed, and devoured with abundant ‘mmmmmms’ before I could even think about photos. Oh, and the plates were beautiful and colorful, a treat not only for the palate, but also the eyes, but alas it was not to be. Because, not only did Ken and I enjoy the delicate and flavorful fish, and Madeleine her fair share, but Gregory and two of his friends gobbled up every morsel and continued to return to the sauce pot even after the salmon was gone to ladle the sweet reduction over rice, vegetables, and even the crackers that had come out with the cheese.  Keep in mind, these are hearty eating, 14 year old high school students who were eating this salmon dish. When teen boys eat like this, a food endorsement has been made. 

Thai Red Curry with Salmon (with photos)

For our main meal today, my husband, Ken prepared this full flavored Thai dish from the BBC GoodFood website; this recipe was first published in Sept. 2007 in BBC GoodFood magazine.  It’s easy to make and filled with satisfying taste, texture and aroma.  

The original recipe calls for green beans, but we opted for asparagus since it looked very good at the grocery and the addition of red pepper likewise was due to good looking produce.  This merely goes to show the versatility of red curry.

Shrimp Scampi, Low(er) Fat (One Protein-Three Meals)

Shrimp was on sale this week at the local HEB and looked pretty good, thus one of our primary proteins this week will be brown gulf shrimp.  The flavor of gulf shrimp is unmatched; I couldn’t imagine going back to white or tiger shrimp (not to mention the fact that white/tiger shrimp are no longer good, healthy, sustainable seafood sources… that’s another topic).  Gulf shrimp taste like… well, the sea.  Maybe, it’s that they actually have taste other than ‘fishy.’

What to make with shrimp … one of our all time favorites is Shrimp Scampi.

Mini Crab Cakes

 

Crab cakes have such versitility as a meal or appetizer. Likewise, the seasoning and 'sauces' can be tweaked to taste. 

 

 

 

 

 

Shrimp and Soybeans with Peanut Sauce

 

This evening’s supper became bloggable from the first bite.  “Blog this before you forget the recipe,” Ken said. 
Delicious!

 

 

 

 

 

Buffalo Shrimp (Hot and Spicy)

 Buffalo Shrimp and Pineapple Salsa

Ken and I have a real love for buffalo style foods -- buffalo wings for example -- and have still not found a local place that makes a sauce that we both crave.  Therefore, I've continued to refine our homemade buffalo sauce and we've tried it on a variety of foods. Most recently we've put the buffalo sauce on shrimp.  Yum!

 

Crab Cakes with Roasted Red Pepper Couli

KAG is perfecting his (soon to be famous) roasted red pepper couli.  Most recently he added it atop Maryland style crab cakes. 

Delicious.   

The couli begins by roasting the red pepper in the oven at 400 degrees for at least 45 minutes.  Place the pepper uncovered in a foil lined baking pan. The foil helps keep the pan from ending up with much pepper-sludge, though we now have an old pan that is being used solely for roasting red peppers so the sludge issue is not much of an issue.   (KAG prefers oven roasting to over the flame roasting.  Oven roasting keeps it from inheriting a 'burnt' taste -- we want roasted here, not burnt!) 

Midway through the roasting, puncture a small hole in the side with a sharp knife to allow the excess pressure from the moisture/steam to escape.  If the red pepper is tight it has a good chance of exploding in the oven.  Can you say messy?

After 45 minutes or when pepper is very tender and collapsed, remove from oven, peel skin, cut into large pieces. After the pepper is prepared, place it and 2 tsp of balsamic vinegar (give or take depending upon the size of the red pepper)  in food processor and process until very smooth.  That's it!   Serve on, under, along side, with ... a myriad of 'nibblies.'