Runaway October

When­ever any­one asks me where I’d like to eat for din­ner, the first thing to pops into my head is Out­back Steak­house. I’ve had Prime Rib from many many places but I pre­fer it from Out­back by far. I guess you could call me an Out­back Prime Rib fan­girl, I’ll never tire of eat­ing there!

Not too long ago I decided I needed to change things up and order some­thing dif­fer­ent. I set­tled on the Shrimp En Fuego. It’s a lovely com­bi­na­tion of Shrimp, Mush­rooms and Toma­toes in a spicy cream sauce served over an open baked potato. Yum, huh? It seems that when we eat out, I almost always get some­thing heavy in mush­rooms since Matt refuses to eat them.

(Photo by Sarah Caron)

Since we don’t often eat out, I decided I’d try and wing it at home after find­ing a great sale on shrimp. The Inter­nets weren’t so help­ful for a recipe, so I gath­ered all the tips I could find about it and dived in. I can’t tell you how alike it is com­pared to Outback’s because I don’t have the option to try them next to eat other, but it turned out really good. Spicy.

Shrimp En Fuego

Serves 4, dou­bles perfectly

Ingre­di­ents:

• 4 Baked pota­toes, prefer­ably with the skin salted and oiled
• 1  jar Cheesy Ragu Clas­sic Alfredo Sauce (I was lazy and didn’t make my own)
• 1 Table­spoon Chipo­tle Chili Powder
• 3 table­spoon Chili Gar­lic Sauce (Com­monly called Rooster Sauce, and found in the eth­nic food sec­tion of most markets)
• 1 pound fresh shrimp (frozen may be sub­sti­tuted, if thawed), deveined and tails removed.
• 1 pound mush­rooms
• 2 cloves gar­lic, minced or pressed
• Salt and Pepper
• 1 pack­age cherry toma­toes, halved.

Prepa­ra­tion:

1. Pre­heat oven to 350°F.
2. Scrub pota­toes and poke with a fork a cou­ple times. Rub the out­sides with olive oil then roll or rub with medium grind sea salt. Place in oven and cook until desired doneness.
3. When pota­toes are almost done, com­bine alfredo sauce, chipo­tle pow­der, and chili gar­lic sauce in a medium sauce pan. Warm over medium heat, stir­ring occasionally.
4. If you wish, the amount of chipo­tle and chili sauce can be adjusted now. I had to keep the spices low or The Hubs and The Boys wouldn’t eat it.
   

   My food pho­tog­ra­phy isn’t very good, but you get the idea.

5. While sauce is warm­ing, sauté shrimp, mush­rooms and minced gar­lic over medium high heat until shrimp is pink and mush­rooms are ten­der. Add salt and pep­per to taste.
6. If you wish, you can add the sauce to the pan of shrimp and mush­rooms, mix­ing every­thing together, or keep them sep­a­rate. Place open potato on a plate, layer with shrimp and mush­rooms, then sauce with halved toma­toes on top. (It looks bet­ter that way. For the ease of feed­ing my horde I mix every­thing together.)
7. Don’t for­get to turn off the oven.
8. Enjoy!

So last night as the two kid­dos and I crammed into the tub (scary thought, huh?) for a leisurely soak, I real­ized that I say some really stu­pid things.

Don’t make your lit­tle brother angry!!

• Why not? Is he going to turn into an ax-wielding mon­ster. The thought makes me laugh. Those two teeth of his would fit per­fectly into the face of a psy­chopath. Will he turn into the Incred­i­ble Hulk? If he was green maybe peo­ple would stop touch­ing his head. I could tell them he has a con­ta­gious dis­ease. Take that nosy old ladies at the supermarket!

Do you under­stand me?

• Does it mat­ter? Even if the under­stood they’re not going to lis­ten. They can bob their lit­tle heads and say ‘Under­t­snad’, but the point is they don’t care what I say.

Don’t you dare!

• Again, what am I going to do? Put them in a time­out? Big Whoop. Time­out is the same as play time, you just have to face a wall for a cou­ple seconds.

What were you thinking?

• Again, it doesn’t mat­ter. With a lim­ited vocab­u­lary it’s really hard to express that you thought stick­ing your fore­skin in the vac­uum cleaner tube and then clos­ing it would be fun. It’s also hard to explain that cov­er­ing your­self in per­fume, includ­ing open wounds, seemed like a good idea until you feel off the bath­room counter. And even if mama did under­stand you, she’d still be mad. A blank “pity me” stare works better.

Boys! Be nice!

• “We are” is typ­i­cally what I hear. I guess when you’re under 3 run­ning the baby’s foot over with a wooden truck is nice.

What things do you find your­self say­ing as a par­ent that make you won­der why you bother to say it at all?