Monday, November 24, 2008

Red Lobster Shrimp Scampi

**Warning, this recipe is not cheap, and you must be 21 or older to make it...or at least buy the ingredients.**

1 cup white cooking wine
1/2 c unsalted butter
1 lb raw shrimp, peeled, de-veined
3 tsp minced garlic.

Melt butter and mix with other ingredients. Cover shrimp with butter sauce and bake at 350* for 6-7 minutes. Be careful not to over cook the shrimp (or they will get rubbery). Shrimp is done when it has turned pink.

The last few times we have made this recipe, we have been disappointed that we can feel a burning in our throat as we eat the shrimp...aka not all the alcohol burned off. So we had to keep cooking it until it did burn off, and then the shrimp was over-cooked and it all went to pot.


So. Tonight I made this recipe again and I swore not to get my husband or myself drunk off our shrimp scampi. We value our temple recommends. What I did tonight was melt the butter, we used salted butter (I think it flavors better), and wine in a sauce pan. I cooked it to about boiling, and then I simmered for a few minutes. We also added the garlic while simmering to get the flavor in the sauce. Pour the butter sauce over the shrip and put it in the oven un-covered.


We've used the pre-cooked shrim a few times, so you just have to watch it to know when it's done (because it's already pink). We put the shrimp in the oven for about 8 minutes. We knew it was done when we could open the oven door and not feel like we were walking into a bar. Seriously, if all the alcohol isn't cooked off it smells like a drunk. A very garlicy drunk.


Enjoy! Pin It

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

1-2-3 Peanut Butter Cookies

1 large egg
1 cup sugar
1 cup peanut butter

Mix ingredients together and bake on cookie sheet (tablespoon sized portions flattened with a fork) for 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees.

This has to be the easiest recipe ever created. And it was probably made easier by the fact that Tyler made them since I was a little under the weather. Have you ever seen an easier recipe? And it's quick and not to expensive either since it's mostly things you have on hand. Tyler used half creamy and half crunchy peanut butter and they were divine.


Thanks Hanna! Pin It

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Chocolate fondue in a CROCK POT!

I found this awesome recipe here. I knew I just HAD to try it out and I'm so glad I did. It's mondo easy and super good. Here's the recipe:

1 1/2 cups chocolate chips (semi-sweet, dark, milk, or white. Your choice.)
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla
optional (*Note from Deborah: You know that I do not promote the use of alcohol, especially in recipes where the alcohol does not cook off. However, I told you I'd leave recipes in their original form, so I have. Furthermore, I think these may give you an idea of different ways you could flavor your fondue.)
you can doctor this up with:
1 T Grand Marnier
1 T rum1 T Peppermint Schnapps
1 T Bailey's Irish Cream
1 tsp peppermint, orange, coconut, etc. extract
pinch of espresso powder
The Directions.
The proportions here fit into a Little Dipper. Although the booklet that comes with the Little Dipper says that it only holds 1 cup of contents, I proved this wrong with my earth-shattering discovery that a whole can of Progesso Clam Chowder fits perfectly.

If you do not have a Little Dipper (psst. the holidays are coming...) you can put an oven-safe dish inside of a larger crock pot. Do not add water. There's no need to create a water bath for melting chocolate in the crock pot. It melts nice and slow. Or! you can quintuple the recipe and have a good ol' time.

Put chocolate chips in the crock pot. Add the heavy cream and teaspoon of vanilla. Cover. Plug in and cook on low (or the ON setting for the LD) for about an hour. Stir. Serve with apple chunks, banana slices, cubes of pound cake, strawberries, or marshmallows.

Isn't this the perfect recipe? It's easy, it's entertaining, it's delicious, it's impressive, and it is SO good! If I gave out gold stars, this would get five.

I tripled the recipe because we had company coming over. It was more than enough. But that's ok because guess what? It re-warms nice and easy and might almost be better the second day
.
Mmmmm, I love chocolate. Tyler prefers milk chocolate to semi-sweet, so that's what we used. But it might be a little too rich for the faint of heart.


I freeze my chocolate chips to make them last longer. I did put frozen chips in the recipe. It took a little longer for them to melt, but it was ok. It just meant that I had to stir every ten minutes or so to make sure the outside melted chocolate wasn't burning.


In goes the cream. Yes, we used heavy whipping cream like the recipe calls for. You'll only need a pint. Like I said, I tripled the recipe and had about a half cup left of cream.



The melted chocolate makes me think of Willy Wonka and the fat kid who gets sucked up into the tube because he fell in the chocolate river. If the river was made of this chocolate, let me just tell you that it'd be worth it!



And here:

We have Kadie, Kaleb, Ryan and Tyler. We just put the crock pot in the middle and made everyone swear on pain of death that they wouldn't double dip. We served marshmallows (strawberry and regular, but you honestly can't taste anything but fluffy chocolate), pineapple (canned, but you could use fresh if your ambitious), maraschino cherries, banana slices, and apple slices. They were all someone's favorite. We wanted to try strawberries, but they were outrageously expensive.



We're not fancy, we don't have fondue sticks. We just used forks (or hands as Tyler is demonstrating) and they worked swimmingly.
This is so good, you really should try it. It'd be a great dessert idea for company or for Valentine's Day.
Cheers!
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