Szechwan Shrimp

I haven’t bought shrimp in a while because it’s so expensive, but I found myself really craving it the other day.

So I bought some.

I really don’t know how to say Szechwan but I do know that I think it’s yummy. I had a recipe bookmarked on allrecipes.com from one of those daily emails that they send out, so I thought I’d give it a try. Seemed simple enough.

The sauce starts out with some water.

Some ketchup…

Soy sauce (I prefer low sodium)…

Corn starch. I thought it was really interesting to mix it in with my sauce instead of later dissolving it in some water and adding it, but I like it this way better. Eliminates a step and makes the result less watery.

Honey…

Crushed red pepper flakes…

And ground ginger…

I like pretty pictures of ingredients not quite mixed up.

Also, then I went back and redid the whole thing because I realized I wanted more sauce than the recipe called for. We’ll come back to this.

Next, I turned to the shrimp.

I’d wanted more sauce than the recipe called for because I planned to incorporate broccoli, which wasn’t in the original recipe.

Sauté it all up.

Once it had started to heat up, I added the sauce. I figured it needed time to simmer, especially with that cornstarch in there.

To serve, just put some rice in a bowl

And spoon the shrimp and broccoli right on top. Simple as that!

A really nice weeknight dinner. Not a lot of effort or dishes, but a lot of flavor. Here’s the recipe, if you’d like to try it!

I know I’ve been behind in posting. I have term papers due. Enough said. I’ll be back on track soon!

Andouille and Chicken Creole Pasta

Sometimes I like to try to find recipes that venture into Cajun flair, since hubby grew up eating Cajun food. I’ve been told it’s impossible to make “real” Cajun food outside of the area, since you can’t get “real” sausage or other essential ingredients, but I thought this recipe would be a good compromise because it has ingredients I can get in Maryland.

I made it once, about a year and a half ago. At the time, I had cut way back on the spice in the recipe, since the reviews all said that 3 tablespoons of creole seasoning is far too much, but even so it was too spicy to enjoy and all the effort was wasted. I had Andouille in the fridge, so I thought I’d try again, cutting back even more.

My ingredients weren’t exactly fresh. Here are some frozen chicken breasts and some frozen green and red bell peppers, which I had cut into strips prior to freezing.

I thawed out the chicken enough to cut it up, and then also sliced up a package of Andouille sausage links. If they look a little funny around the edges, it’s because I’d opened the package a few days earlier for another recipe and didn’t seal it up properly. Oops.

Sautéed the sausage and chicken with a bunch of creole seasoning until they were about halfway cooked. The recipe called for 3 tablespoons of the seasoning. Last time, I used 2 and it was far too much. This time, I think I started with about a 1/2 tablespoon and added more as I went.

Added in the peppers. Should have added fresh mushrooms, but I didn’t have any. And I forgot that I had a can of sliced mushrooms in the cupboard, but those are never as good as fresh anyway.

When the veggies have cooked and become tender, stir in some chicken broth

And milk (I used skim)

I poured them together to give me something to do while I was waiting to dump them in… I don’t think this is necessary!

Also, measure out some garlic powder and lemon pepper seasoning to add to the mixture.

Nom nom nom… it’s starting to look and smell delicious.

However, it’s extremely liquidy. The recipe calls for a 1/4 cup of corn starch dissolved in 1/2 cup cold water. I never use that much when I thicken my sauces, but then again this was a LOT of liquid so I figured I didn’t have a choice.

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And then just simmer for a while, letting the whole thing thicken up.

I thought about serving this with rice, since the linguini it calls for seemed odd, but I asked hubby which he’d prefer and he said linguini. Linguini it is.

It did turn out well. Hubby liked it a lot better this time, since the heat wasn’t overpowering to the point where we couldn’t even taste anything. Personally, I thought it tasted corn-starchy. I think it’d make more sense to add less liquid – maybe half the chicken broth and half the milk – and then you wouldn’t have to work so hard to thicken it up. Of course, you could also use cream in place of milk and then use even less, but that’d be a lot more fattening.

But it was good, even the leftovers. A nice, flavorful change up from the usual red sauce.