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!

 Manic Mon­day for July 21

What’s your favorite beach in the world?

I’ve actu­ally only been to a few beaches… The beach in San Diego was crowded, dirty and pretty much ghetto — not my first choice. The only other beach I’ve been to are the ones in Rocky Point, Mex­ico. So I’ll have to answer this ques­tion after I’ve trav­eled the world a lit­tle bit more.

What’s the next coun­try you want to visit?

Ire­land, hands down, though Ger­many, Bel­gium and Asu­trailia are all pretty evenly tied for second.

What one thing are you crav­ing today?

Does peace and quiet count? Or a maid? I am crav­ing a meal that some­one else cooks for me and cleans up after­wards. Or a prime rib from Out­back, I always crave those. Or Honey Hot chicken wings from The Vine. I should prob­a­bly go cook din­ner now.