Son of a gun, we'll have big fun on the bayou...

A long while ago, my husband mentioned that he was in the mood for some sort of Cajun pasta.  It was around Lent, so I thought - why not make it a Cajun shrimp pasta and kill two birds with one stone?  The problem was finding the perfect recipe.  I wanted one that didn't use heavy cream and also one that wasn't too spicy or complicated.

Basically, I wanted something that didn't exist.

My sister-in-law shared her recipe with me (which was a huge help), but sort of like all recipes that are awesome - it didn't involve a whole lot of perfect measurements or instructions.  Those are absolutely my favorite recipes - the ones that you know are finished by a feeling rather than by a window of time or oven setting.

Those recipes are also very difficult to replicate.

SO, using her suggestions as a guideline and another recipe as framework, I set out to make my own Cajun shrimp pasta.  I'm happy to say, it was a wild success.  I'm also happy to say, that I actually wrote down what I did so I can share it with you here.

Who's hungry?

{Cajun Shrimp Pasta}

Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil
- 1 lb. of shrimp (I use frozen, forgive me.)
- 1 tablespoon of minced garlic
- Cajun seasoning (probably about a tablespoon, but you're just going to eyeball it)
- juice from 1-2 lemons
- 2 tablespoons of butter
- Garlic powder (you'll use less than the Cajun, but ditto about the eyeballing)
- Sliced mushrooms (one small can or 4-5 fresh; dealer's choice)
- 1 red bell pepper (sliced)
- 3/4 cup of milk
- 2 tablespoons of cream cheese
- 1/2 box of whole wheat linguine (cooked)
- fresh shredded parmesan
- ground pepper
- kosher salt

Look at the size of this pepper! Insanity.

Directions

- Start by thawing (if necessary) and marinading your pound of shrimp.  I like mine being cleaned and deveined, but if you're so inclined do all that yourself - go for it.  Toss shrimp in olive oil, minced garlic, juice of half a lemon, and Cajun seasoning.  Let it sit in the fridge for about 20 minutes.

- After your shrimp has had time to marinade, melt two tablespoons of butter in a large skillet and sauté the shrimp in it.  At this point you can add another good sprinkle of the Cajun seasoning as well as some garlic powder.

- Let this simmer until the shrimp is mostly cooked and then add the mushrooms and the sliced bell pepper.  Meanwhile, you can start boiling your linguine.

- Stir everything around so it gets nice and covered in the butter and squirt in some more fresh lemon juice.

- Add milk and cream cheese to the pan.  [Side note: You can use any sort of cream cheese you want. We almost always have Chive & Onion in our house, so that's usually what I use.  The cream cheese just aids in the sauce-thickening process.]

- Let all of that cook down until it becomes a nice, creamy sauce.  I usually like to let the sauce thicken up to the point where it starts to coat the spoon when I stir it.

- Toss in the linguine, add the parmesan, and season with the kosher salt and fresh ground pepper to taste.  PREPARE TO BE AMAZED.

Waiting for the dinner bell to do the bell thing...

I am so sorry I have sucked so badly as a blogger this week!  I hope to be back to posting at least a few times a week next week.  I have lots of posts planned, just no time to get them ready to go!  Gah.  Anyway, a couple of times a month I will be sharing new recipes I have tried as part of our meal plan. Remember, I also repin the pins for all of the recipes I try through Pinterest on my board "I Made This" so make sure you are following!

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Smashed Potatoes - This poor meal is just never going to get made!  I realized after I planned it, that my husband and I already had plans to have a date night.  We ate at this amazing local Italian place and had a wonderful time, but sadly did not make the meal plan for October 5.  It was leftover from last month's meal plan.  Oh well.  There were a few questionable days on my original meal plan, so I might get to this later in the month.  Otherwise, maybe November will be the lucky month?  Sorry for the lack of recipe review.  I'm trying to get myself together.

Orzo Salad with Rotisserie Chicken - I could eat stuff like this all of the time.  However, my husband is almost always on the fence about it.  Fortunately for me, he LOVED this recipe.  As in, I had taken only a few bites of mine and he was heading for seconds.  This dish is awesome!  We added rotisserie chicken which was something the person I pinned it from suggested, but this could easily be a side dish sans meat or even as a stand alone vegetarian dish.  (Grilled chicken or shrimp might be delicious as well.)  The recipe even gives ideas for making it vegan by omitting the feta, and I could see that being delicious as well.  For something so simple, we were very pleased.  I also ate it for lunch the next day and was surprised by how well it held up!  YUMMY.  Will definitely have some repeat performances in the NMOTB house!

Chicken Crescent Roll Casserole - Initially, we were going to do a different recipe (one that we've already tried), but at the last minute I decided to try something new.  I forgot to take a picture, but trust me when I say it turned out looking a lot like the ones on the website.  I don't cook this sort of thing for my family very often, but sometimes you just need some comfort food and this is definitely it.  If you're not into the processed thing, this definitely isn't for you, otherwise, this is quite a delicious little meal.  It's a little on the labor intensive side as far as rolling the crescents and such, but everything came together nicely.  We served this with some broccoli.  Mashed potatoes would have been awesome on the side as well, but I didn't get that far.

Parmesan Garlic Quinoa - There are two or three pins on my blog that get more repins than anything else.  This recipe is one of them.  I finally decided to try it as a side dish for some tilapia we had this week.  To be honest...I'm not sure what all the fuss is about.  Part of it might be because I totally read something in the directions wrong and cooked the onions and quinoa separately.  Whoops.  If I made it again, I would not screw up the recipe and also would definitely cut the basil in half (totally overwhelmed every other flavor).  I also cut the red pepper flakes by a lot.  For our family (including my spice loving husband) even half a teaspoon is too much red pepper.  Then again, I'm not totally sure I would make this again.  It's not bad.  It's just not for me.  Has anyone else tried it?  Was it as amazing as the pins make it seem?

Pasta with Tomato Cream Sauce - On the fly, I decided to add shrimp to this even though we usually do one meatless meal a week.  (I usually don't count fish as meat anyway, but I'm Catholic, so that's kind of our thing.)  For the shrimp, I marinated it in fresh lemon juice, garlic, kosher salt, and freshly ground pepper while I got the pasta started and then sauteed it in about a tablespoon of olive oil before adding it  once the pasta was finished.  It paired nicely with the pasta.  Which is good.  Because this pasta is OUT OF THIS WORLD.  I avoid using heavy cream in our recipes.  Especially during the week when we opt for lighter fare (usually).  However, how glad am I that I ignored that rule for this recipe?  It is SO simple and just DELICIOUS.  I can't believe so much flavor came from such a simple (and EASY) recipe.  The fresh basil on top?  Perfection.  I will absolutely be repeating this recipe (and truth be told, it doesn't need a protein of any kind - it's great on its own).  I'm eating the leftovers for lunch tomorrow, so I can't report on how they heat up, but it's pasta so you know it's going to be AWESOME.  This recipe made enough for the three of us to have big portions and still enough for leftovers for all of us for tomorrow.  You could probably cut it in half to feed less people. YUM-O.

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I'll be back next week on the blog hopefully sharing some original recipes of mine and maybe writing a post that has nothing to do with food (GASP.)  In the meantime, maybe you all could cook up some good questions for Advice For Other New Moms.  Even if it's a question you already know the answer to - I could use some inspiration up in here.   Have a good weekend my friends!

Oops, I did it again...

A couple of times a month I will be sharing my reviews of the new recipes we have been trying as part of our meal plan.  In an unprecedented event in the history of meal plans, ALL of these recipes were not only successfully executed - they also all tasted great!  Lots of winners to share with you.  I'll be back doing the same with a few more recipes at the end of the month, so keep checking back!  I also repin the pins for all of the recipes I try through Pinterest on my board "I Made This" so make sure you are following!

Broccoli Cheddar Soup - I have been searching for a good broccoli cheddar recipe that didn't use fake cheese or a Cream of Whatever soup as a base.  It's actually really hard.  Especially if you search specifically for a Bread Co. copycat recipe which appear to always feature a lot of processed ingredients (and something tells me Bread Co. isn't using Velveeta...maybe I'm wrong.)  So, when I saw this recipe, I vowed to make it immediately.  It looked super easy and super yummy.  I was right!  The only change I made to recipe was that I didn't notice that it called for whole milk, so instead I just used the 1% we had at home.  Didn't really seem to affect the recipe much, I probably just had to simmer it a little bit longer before it thickened.  I knew that we weren't really the puree types (plus, though I love to use it, I despite cleaning out my food processor) so I just mashed up the broccoli a bit after the soup was done and the broccoli was all soft and delicious.  Definitely a winner.  I think it was maybe just a bit bland, so perhaps next time I'll add a bit of garlic or even a little bit more onion.  I was also impressed by how quickly it all came together.  The perfect weeknight meal!  Who knew?

Cilantro Lime Pasta Salad with Chicken - Oh.  My. WOW.  My cousin posted this recipe saying she had fed it to her family and that they really enjoyed it.  As an afterthought, I went and pinned it thinking it would make a nice summer recipe and then promptly forgot about it.  BIG MISTAKE.  If I would have known, we would have eaten this every.single.night.  WOW.  Besides having a lot prep work (my mise en place took FOREVER), it is quite possibly the best recipe ever.  We made only two changes to fit our tastes: subbed another avocado for the mango (not big on mixing the sweet and the savory) and we added a bit more seasoning to the chicken (it only calls for salt and pepper).  My husband grilled it up outside (while I was busy cutting up ALL THE THINGS).  Everything about this recipe made us so happy.  I had two huge servings and I'm not even sorry.  (It's actually pretty low on calories and packs a TON yummy nutrients, so WIN WIN.  I should have had THREE servings.)  I also feel this recipe could be amazingly adaptable.  Throw in more veggies or different ones than you see here.  Omit the meat if you're so inclined.  I was a bit concerned about the spicy factor with both cayenne pepper and jalapeno, but it actually was the perfect level of heat, but you could probably let go of one or the other to take out a little more spicy just in case.  (I would leave one otherwise I could see this going from amazing to bland in about 30 seconds.)

Baked Artichoke Chicken - This was a surprisingly easy meal to put together and make for as sophisticated as it looks (and tastes!)  We're still trying to figure out our oven in this house so sometimes our cook times are a little longer than we expect.  This chicken took longer in the oven than stated on the recipe at 350 (and then boosted to 375 when I realized halfway through that it was still pretty much raw.)  I also used boneless/skinless chicken thighs for mine and I would really like to try it sometime with a whole chicken (I just get a little skeeved when cleaning them, so it isn't worth the battle on a week night.)  I wouldn't say it is something I will necessarily be jonesing for again any time soon, but it was definitely a success.  I found the flavor profile to be really interesting and we both really enjoyed the briny-ness of the artichoke paired with the richness of the chicken.  I omitted the tarragon simply because I had none, but I'm not sure I'd even know it if it was in there.  We served this with cous cous and steamed asparagus.

Pizza Soup - Sigh.  As predicted this was hugely popular with my husband although for me it was just okay.  I mean, I actually spent most of my life only tolerating pizza to begin with, so I don't know why I thought I would like it in soup form.  Oh well...  I did all of my chopping for my vegetables and browned the sausage the night before we were serving it and stored it all in the refrigerator so that I could just throw it together in the morning.  That will help you a lot since this really is a meal that can be thrown in the crock pot in the morning and will be ready when you get home. (I just want to HUG the people who come up with recipes like that.)  We also added one bay leaf to the crock pot, it is our favorite ingredient when making any sort of red sauce.  It makes an otherwise boring sauce have SUCH an interesting flavor profile.  Definitely check that out.  I would also recommend that if you are using pork sausage that you skim the grease off the top of the soup before serving it.  Oh, and tempting as it may be - take it easy on the mozzarella.  Though it adds to the overall pizza-ness of the dish, it gets all clumped up and doesn't really work the way it is supposed to if you get too much.  (Learned that the hard way.)  A little sprinkle is enough.

Cacio e pepe - I've been looking for awhile for a nice, simple, AUTHENTIC cacio e pepe recipe.  For those who do not speak Italian (myself included), "cacio e pepe" means "cheese and pepper" which is all this side dish really consists of: spaghetti noodles (we used whole wheat), freshly grated Parmesan cheese, and freshly ground pepper (and maybe a tiny bit of salt.)  That's.  It.  Unfortunately, you'll find lots of recipes for it that involve more than these simple ingredients and they're RUINING IT.  What makes cacio e pepe so great is that it is so so so simple.  This is the perfect recipe for that.  Creating the correct cacio e pepe recipe is an art (one that I have far from mastered), but if you follow the link above, they give a lot of great tips for how to make a nice creamy sauce.  The recipe (which gives its measurements in metric - how's THAT for authentic) calls for about 14 ounces of spaghetti and 8 ounces of cheese (thank you conversion calculator.)  I just cut it in half to feed my family of 3 (and my husband had seconds and we still had plenty of leftovers.)

Grilled Street Corn Salad with Cilantro Butter Shrimp - Oops.  So, here's the thing (and the inspiration for the title of this post.)  When I wrote about making meal plans, I mentioned that flexibility was at the utmost importance.  Evidently, being realistic is of equal importance.  Because when I looked at my meal plan for the week of September 8-14, I was like "Who does this chick think she is?"  We had a lot of complicated meal planned for one week PLUS some of them (such as this one which features FOUR different components) was planned for a weeknight and I just don't see that happening.  (I tend to do this sometimes.  I have so many yummy recipes I want to try that I overextend myself without really realizing it until it is too late.)  Instead, I made this recipe for Shrimp and Guacamole Tostadas that we have had a million times and LOVE.  They were delicious (as always.)

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Did anyone try any new recipes this month?  Let me know how they turned out.  I am ALWAYS looking for new things to try - look at how well it has been going for us!