Seafood Soup

This seafood blend is a wonderful product.  Shrimp, calamari, and little baby scallops.  Throw in some fish, or some extra shrimp, and you have a ton of protein for an easy, quick meal.  I've made this seafood soup twice in two weeks now, and served it once to company.  It is a yummy and filling soup for any seafood lover.

Seafood Soup
1 32. oz container fish stock
1 can light coconut milk (or regular)
2 cans water
1 onion, diced
3 celery stalks, diced
3 large carrots, diced
2 tsp minced garlic
1/4 cup fish sauce, like red boat
salt and pepper to taste
1 bag trader joe's seafood blend
1 bag shrimp, chopped fish, langostinos, etc
1 bag frozen cauliflower florets

Saute your veggies in some EVOO until translucent, 5-7 minutes, in a large stock pot.  Pour in your seafood stock, coconut milk, and water, and add your garlic and salt and pepper.  Bring to a simmer.  Add your fish sauce, and taste.  Add more, or more seasoning, to taste.  When you've gotten it right, add in your frozen seafood and cauli.  Bring back up to a simmer and you're done!  This tastes great right away, and really good after a day in the fridge.   Enjoy!

Weeknight Thai Coconut Spinach and Shrimp with Peanut Sauce

Weeknights can be rough, amiright?  Whether you work or not, work from home, rush home in rush hour traffic, etc, they are just all around rough.  At our house, there is a very brief window of time where many things happen at once- get home, walk the dog, feed the dog, cook and eat dinner, give S a bath, bedtime routine, clean up after dinner, put S down, etc.  This is usually squeezed into 2 hours or so.  Moral of the story- we ALL need some quick and easy recipes, using freezer ingredients, that you can throw together fast and with a minimum of dirty dishes.

For me, there are a couple freezer lifesavers that I would seriously die without.  Shrimp and spinach are two of those freezer staples that are regularly called upon to be the basis of a nutritious, filling, and GFG approved meal.  

You may have also noticed by now that I am pretty partial to Asian flavors, Thai in particular.  I loves me some Thai.  Unfortunately, I don't eat it too often because most of the dishes have lots of noodles in them and who knows how much added sugars.  And let's face it, with a two year old, we're not eating in restaurants much these days anyways!

Thai Coconut Milk Spinach and Shrimp with Peanut Sauce (3-4 servings)

1 bag of frozen spinach, defrosted

12-15 medium/large raw shrimp (defrosted and peeled)

1 cup light coconut milk (or use full-fat)

4 tbsp peanut flour

2 tbsp soy sauce

1/4 tsp toasted sesame oil

2 tbsp thai chili sauce

2 tbsp water

1/4 tsp garlic powder

2 scallions, chopped

some EVOO, or a bit of toasted sesame oil, for cooking the shrimp

salt and pepper 

Get out two sauté pans.  In one pan, heat some oil (I used hot chili garlic oil) for the shrimp and cook just a few minutes per side until opaque and cooked through.  Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and garlic powder before flipping.  Remove from heat when finished.  In your other pan, heat up just a tiny bit of oil, and dump in your defrosted spinach.  Season with salt and pepper, then pour in your coconut milk and let it come to a simmer.  While you are waiting for that, get a medium sized bowl to make your peanut sauce.  Combine your peanut flour, sesame oil, soy sauce, chili sauce, garlic powder, and water, and stir well to combine.  Spoon half of this mixture into your spinach and mix well to incorporate.  The rest you'll spoon over your shrimp.  To plate, place shrimp on top of spinach, top with peanut sauce, and cover with scallions/green onions.  Dinner done in 15-20 minutes.  This is a healthy, filling, protein, vitamin, mineral, and fiber packed meal.  Peanut flour is my newest favorite ingredient to have around.  Do you ever cook/bake with peanut flour?  What are some ways you use it?  I am curious to know if you can use it as a breading- any ideas?

Hope you try this one out!

Shrimp and Tilapia with Lime

This is becoming an easy summer routine- grilled/broiled/baked protein of some kind on top of a salad.  Easy, yummy, light, and fast.

Shrimp and Tilapia with Lime
1/2 lb raw shrimp, shells off
2 tilapia fillets (roughly 6 oz each)
favorite lettuce
1 tomato, chopped
1/2 english cucumber, chopped
2 limes, juiced
kosher salt
3 tbsp EVOO, plus a bit more for coating the fish and shrimp
sprinkle of cayenne
sprinkle of black pepper

Throw you raw shrimp in a bowl and marinate in the juice of half a lime, and a dash of EVOO and salt.  On a foil lined baking sheet, place your fillets and coat with a little EVOO, then squeeze the other half lime over.  Sprinkle liberally with salt and cayenne.  My baking sheet had enough room for the fish and shrimp.  Spread your shrimp onto the baking sheet and bake everything together at 350.  Your shrimp will be done quickly, so check after 8 minutes or so, depending on how big they are.  Remove them and place onto a plate with a spatula.  At this point, set your oven to broil just to crisp the fish up.

While the fish finishes cooking, take your remaining lime and juice it in a bowl, then add your EVOO.  I like dressings tangy but if this is too acidic for you, add a bit more oil.  Sprinkle some salt and pepper and cayenne and whisk or mix with a fork.  Throw your lettuce and chopped tomato and cucumber into a bowl, and top with shrimp and fish.  The whole process start to finish is like, 25 minutes.  Super fast dinner for any night of the week.

Clothes Make the Girl Inspired Tropical Chopped Salad

I am definitely not going to take credit for this recipe- however, I tweaked it quite a bit until it became a much different recipe, and I feel it's worth sharing with you as it is easy, filling, healthy, yummy, and a toddler-approved version.

The original recipe is here- which I highly suggest you try too!

Tropical Chopped Salad
1 red pepper, chopped
1 orange/yellow pepper, chopped
1/2 english cucumber, chopped
1 avo, chopped/diced/sliced
2 small mexican/honey mangos, sliced, or 1 regular mango
8 ounces cooked shrimp, chopped
juice of one lime
your fave lettuce
salt to taste
chili powder, to taste

Throw all your chopped stuff in a big bowl.  Add your lime juice, and a liberal sprinkle of salt and chili powder.  Toss well- the avocado and lime juice will make a sauce/dressing.  Let sit for at least 5-10 minutes, then adjust seasoning accordingly.  This salad is crazy good.  Makes 4 servings if a side, or 2-3 large servings as a main.  Mel's version calls for red onion and cumin, which I'm sure would be great, but no way would S eat it with onion.  Great summer salad!  

Thai Shrimp and Snowpeas

Are you an "eyeballer?"  Or do you measure everything meticulously?  Do you read the directions on a recipe before you start or do you just jump in without preparing?  Yeah.  I am both an eyeballer and a jumper.  I rarely measure when cooking and never read through the directions fully.  That's what I love about cooking as opposed to baking.  I can get away with both.

I had pinned a shrimp recipe awhile back and after finally picking up some Thai Red Curry Paste last weekend I was ready to give it a shot.  I am not going to post a recipe because it was so dang easy.  Takes 10 minutes to prepare.

Thai Shrimp and Snowpeas- Saute four sliced scallions in a little oil and add some minced garlic and salt, let cook for a few minutes.  Then add a tbsp of thai red curry paste and cook for another minute.  Add your shrimp and cook for three minutes.  Pour in coconut milk, between half and one cup, and a few liberal dashes of fish sauce.  Stir and cook for a minute, then throw in your snowpeas.  Cook until veg are heated through and shrimp is done.  Super easy, super fast.  M and I ate ours with chili garlic sauce to give it some heat, but S scarfed hers down happily without it. 

I need to get some recipes together for this weekend.  We aren't all that into hannukah and we have no family in town so this weekend is going to be long and pretty uneventful.  Lots of cooking, hanging out, and family time, just the three of us.  I'm just kind of sick of baked goods.  Sick of almond flour, coconut flour, flour in general.  Maybe it's time to play with my ice cream maker again.

I hope you all have wonderful, fun, and happy plans for this holiday weekend and for New Years as well.  However you spend your time, and whoever it's with, may it be pleasant, joyful, healthy, and happy.  Much love to you all and your grain-free, gluten-free, sugar-free, whatever-free families! XoXo GFG