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!

I have a hard time cook­ing for my brood some most days. Some don’t like mush­rooms, some don’t like any­thing spicy, some don’t like food that requires work (such as chicken wings), some just don’t like any­thing like lit­tle Rowan. It can get frus­trat­ing when you’re flip­ping through a cook­book list­ing off deli­cious recipes and every­thing gets vetoed by one per­son or another. It’s also frus­trat­ing when you give up and choose some­thing and it doesn’t get­ting eaten quickly enough to not grow slimy in the fridge. I know. It’s hard to believe that hap­pens in this house.

Matt, the boys and I stopped by a Half-Price Book store the other night, and I res­cued a cou­ple beat up low­fat cook books for a dol­lar a piece. Can you imag­ine the groans that caused? “Low­fat? You mean ‘Fla­vor Free’ right?” Etc etc. But there are actu­ally quite a few recipes that I think will end up being keep­ers. This recipe is one of them.

Seafood is not some­thing we nor­mally eat. I’ve never been huge fan, Matt doesn’t see what the hype is about, and kids will be kids, right? My brother on the other hand… We made a dou­ble batch and picked up a pound of shrimp on sale for less than 5 dol­lars. Every­thing else I pretty much had on hand.

Even a large serv­ing of the dish comes in under 350 calo­ries. The pasta makes it very fill­ing, and the broc­coli gives you lots of good vit­a­mins. Am I the only mama blessed with kids that gen­er­ally love vegetables?

Par­don my bad pic­tures. The sun had gone down before I started din­ner. Oops!

Pasta in Gar­lic Sauce with Shrimp and Broccoli

Adapted from The 99% Fat-Free Cookbook

This clear, thin gar­lic sauce is a note­wor­thy change from the heavy mound under which pasta typ­i­cally is buried. It lends both a per­me­at­ing fla­vor and a gloss to the pasta, set off by flecks of seafood and veg­eta­bles.

Yield: 4 servings

Ingre­di­ents:

• 10 gloves garlic
• 1 cup 99% fat free, reduced sodium Chicken Stock
• 8 ounces uncooked thin-strand spaghetti
• 2 table­spoons water
• 1 pound broc­coli flo­rets (About 1 large head)
• 1/2 cup sliced white onion (About 1 small onion)
• 1/2 pound cooked medium shrimp (About 24) peeled, deveined, and halved
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh dill
• 1/8 tea­spoon red pep­per flakes
• Salt and Pep­per to taste

Direc­tions:

• Put the gar­lic and stock in a small non­re­ac­tive sauce pan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat to low and cover. Sim­mer for about 20 min­utes, until the gar­lic is soft and eas­ily smashed with a fork. Trans­fer the con­tents of the pan to a food proces­sor or blender, and purée until smooth. Set aside.
• Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the pasta, stir­ring to make sure the strands don’t stick together, and cook over high heat to desired ten­der­ness. (3 to 4 min­utes for home­made or other fresh pasta, 8 to 10 min­utes for dry pasta.)
• Mean­while, put 1 table­spoon of water in a non­stick fry­ing pan and bring to boil over medium heat. Add the broc­coli and onion and reduce the heat to low. Cover and cook for 3 min­utes. Add the shrimp, dill and the remain­ing table­spoon of water. Stir, recover and cook for 4 to 5 min­utes more. Remove from the heat.
• When the pasta in done, drain it in a colan­der and return it to the pot over very low heat. Add the gar­lic purée then mix well to coat the pasta. Add the broccoli-shrimp mix­ture and the sea­son­ings. Toss together until well blended and serve immediately.

Nutri­tion info:

• Calo­ries  316.1
• Total Fat 2.5 g
  • Sat­u­rated Fat 0.2 g
  • Polyun­sat­u­rated Fat 0.9 g
• Monoun­sat­u­rated Fat 0.2 g
• Cho­les­terol     110.5 mg
• Sodium     613.3 mg
• Potas­sium     416.4 mg
• Total Car­bo­hy­drate     49.7 g
  • Dietary Fiber 4.8 g
  • Sug­ars 2.1 g
• Pro­tein     22.2 g
• Vit­a­min A 30.0 %
• Vit­a­min B-12 14.1 %
• Vit­a­min B-6 15.8 %
• Vit­a­min C 115.2 %
• Vit­a­min D 0.0 %
• Vit­a­min E 7.2 %
• Cal­cium 7.8 %
• Cop­per 9.1 %
• Folate     39.6 %
• Iron     25.0 %
• Mag­ne­sium 10.6 %
• Man­ganese     18.5 %
• Niacin     30.3 %
• Pan­tothenic Acid         6.3 %
• Phos­pho­rus         14.5 %
• Riboflavin     22.1 %
• Sele­nium 36.7 %
• Thi­amin 36.0 %
• Zinc     8.8 %