angelskates's Blog

Midnite Magic Shrimp And Egg Oriental is one of those magical dishes that only takes 5 minutes to make and that can be transformed magically into dozens of different presentations.

Since it combines shrimp with hard boiled eggs, it is very cost effective, even at the cost of shrimp today. Use a good quality frozen, peeled, cooked shrimp and thaw them in the refrigerator for safety.

The rich Oriental flavored dressing is spiked with wasabi for a real flavor kick.

Read the full recipe here

Midnite Magic Shrimp and Egg Oriental

Enjoy

Angel 

I want to talk a little about my philosophy of food.  I will be posting a number of recipes here over the next few weeks and you will notice that many of them make a large quantity....

I know that many of you live by yourselves or with one or two others and that you may think twice about preparing food in quantities more suited for large families or groups....

You can of course adjust the amounts and make smaller batches... but I encourage you to think again about that....  The recipes will tell you if the dish will be good as a leftover and if it will freeze well.  Many dishes freeze very well and can be put up in the freezer in small portions that can easily be reheated on the stove, in the oven or in the microwave for great home cooked meals in minutes....

Think of all those frozen dinners in the freezer at the store.... Do any of them really deliver the culinary pleasures promised by the pictures on the front of the box?  I don't think so.  

But I freeze up my own good cooking and have nice sized portions of good tasting home cooked food ready in minutes for those times I just don't feel like cooking a meal.

As an added bonus the food is seasoned just the way I like it..  So often commercially prepared food tastes so salty to me.  And it always contains chemical additives that I don't use at home. 

I get myself some of those little plastic containers with airtight lids and freezer bags and freeze up my leftovers.  Sometimes I double a recipe and put half up in the freezer.  For example, lasagna... make two and freeze one unbaked.  Want lasagna for dinner tonight?  Put the frozen one in the fridge the night before and when you get home from work or school just bake it and serve it.  No one will know you did not spend the afternoon making lasagna.

You not only save time, but you can save money by using your freezer.  If you read my recipe on Fragrant Rosemary Roasted Chicken you will see that I buy chicken breasts on sale for less than a dollar a pound, roast them off, and then freeze them.  I put each one up in a zippered freezer bag after squeezing out the extra air and keep them in the freezer until I need them.   Reheated you would not know that it was not fresh roasted.

Another option would be to pull the meat off the bones and freeze up bags of just chicken meat.  It is then ready to add to soup or stew or caccitore or to make a quick chicken salad.  Or top nachos or.... you get the point.... the options are endless.....

By buying in quantity on sale, I get high quality food at half the price or less.   Literally half the price or less.

I do the same with recipe ingredients that I commonly use such as red or yellow bell peppers.  I get them off the day old table in the produce department, dice them up and freeze them.  They are then ready to be added to recipes when fresh peppers are several dollars each.  I have ones in the freezer that I only paid a quarter for off the discount table.

So, dont be afraid of leftovers, and use your freezer as a tool in your kitchen.  It will save you tons of time and money. 

Chef Emeril Lagasse's Southern Shrimp and Cheese Grits

Chef Emeril Lagasse's Shrimp and Cheese Grits...a Southern classic comfort food. Historically, grits were a daily staple in the Deep South, homemade cheese was plentiful and shrimp could be caught for a days work and little cost.

This traditional meal appeared frequently on the table as it cost so little and required mostly work, not money.

When you shrimp in shallow water with a cast net or a small boat you catch lots of little shrimp that are not good for barbeque or fried shrimp. This was a common, quick and easy meal that used those smaller shrimp.

Today we savor the creamy richness of the cheese grits so reminiscent of Italian polenta with the briney sea flavor of sweet Wild Caught American Shrimp from the Gulf.

The farm raised shrimp so prevalent in the market today are good in some dishes, but are not as sweet and the Wild Caught American Shrimp and have a different flavor.

This is one of my favorite recipes from this collection of Emeril's best.