South Western Egg Casserole

We had a pancake dinner last night at church and it was suggested that people bring breakfast like sides to accompany the pancakes. So since I could remain relatively anonymous I decided to try something different.

 . . . if you can't experiment on your brothers and sisters in Christ who can you experiment on?

I wanted something relatively plain. Something a child could scrape the top off of and eat. Something without bread or cheese or meat. I've got friends and family members who don't eat any of these things and they all seem to want to come to dinner at once!

If there's no bread I want it filled out a little anyway so I chopped up some new potatoes I had leftover from another meal. They were raw so I threw them in a pot with some cold water and a generous amount of salt. By the time they came to a boil they only needed about 5 more minutes of cooking time.

While the taters were boiling I buttered a 9X13 dish. Do you save your butter wrappers for this? My grandma always did. Of course, butter in wrappers was a lovely new fangled invention to my grandmother! They had their own cow. Evidently you are the milkman in central South Dakota in the 30's.

Potatoes are tender! Drain them and throw them in the bottom of the dish. Mine had some water clinging to them so I let them sit uncovered for a minute or two. Soggy potatoes are no good! The salt water should of soaked into them and flavored them nicely. As soon as they're dry looking you can cover them up with foil or a lid.


Chop up some red bell peppers too! They'll add a touch of sweetness to our dish.

I sliced up some mushrooms. I love a good meaty delicious mushroom! They're not very meaty at this point so we need to meatify them!

Heat some butter in a skillet. When butter browns it forms all sorts of lovely nutty flavors! You can make really delicious dishes based almost entirely on browned butter, lemon and salt.

Throw the mushrooms in and throw in a little salt. Just a tad to help them give up their moisture. At first it'll seem like they've soaked up all the butter and nothing else is happening but eventually . . .

They'll release their lovely mushroom juice and start to brown! I threw a touch of black pepper in these. Plus a really tiny minced clove of garlic and the smallest sprig of fresh thyme from the garden. After I threw the thyme in it occurred to me that a 1/4 tsp of cumin powder would of been more south westerny but heck I really like thyme in mushrooms.

When the mushrooms are all shrunken bites of meaty deliciousness take them out of the pan and put them in a bowl. Oh look! We have fond. We're going to have to do something with that later.

Throw the peppers in. I just want to wilt them a little. No salt for these babies. I only cooked them for a minute. I didn't want raw peppers on my casserole. If your pan is hot enough they might get a little char on them.

Take the peppers out and put them in a bowl like the mushrooms. Look at all that brown goodness in that pan! That is flavor! We've gotta retrieve that. Pour in half a cup of dry vermouth or any other dry white wine.

It should bubble and spit at you some! Scrape all the bits off the bottom and get them boiling in the wine. Go ahead and turn the heat off and set the pan of goodness aside. Mind you, if you taste this stuff it probably won't taste very good to you. It's sort of bitter and vinegary but acid is one of those tastes that balance out a dish!

Let's get crackin'

and pourin'

and saltin'

and seasonin', if you can't find dried ground chipotle peppers where you're at you could use some of the canned ones chopped up finely. This was convenient though.

Mix all of those things up really well . . .

. . . and pour it over your potatoes. Bake it for 30 minutes in a 375 deg F oven. Now if your potatoes were still pretty steamy hot this might be done in 25 minutes. If you were working with cold potatoes and had put this casserole in the refrigerator overnight I imagine it could take more than 60 minutes to get this cooked.

Go ahead and add your mushrooms and peppers to your egg dish while its hot and they'll warm right up! I also added some chopped fresh cilantro but for some weird reason neglected to take a picture of it! I personally think a little sliced green onion would be delicious on here or even inside with the potatoes!

The custard is firm with just enough salt to make the eggs a star. The chipotle pepper gave that hint of smokiness that us Midwesterners LOVE with eggs. The mushrooms were lovely rich chunks of umami flavor. The peppers were sweet, moist, and made the casserole stand out with pretty color. The cilantro added a vegetal bitterness and aroma that's usually only offered in classic french herb omelets.

I will admit my casserole was neglected a little because it didn't look like your average egg casserole but everybody who tasted it really liked it.

Or . . . at least . . . that's what they said to me.

I really liked it. I think I've finally found an egg casserole I can serve to my family!

South Western Egg Casserole

1 1/2 lbs red potatoes, 1/2 inch dice
1 red pepper, sliced into bite size pieces
8 oz. mushrooms, sliced
1 Tbsp butter
pinch of fresh thyme or cumin powder
1 clove of garlic minced
1/2 cup dry vermouth (any dry white wine will do)
12 eggs
1 pt. half and half
1 tsp salt
1/8-1/4 tsp chipotle pepper
1/2 cup cilantro leaves, chopped

Preheat oven to 375 deg F.

Cover potatoes with cold salted water. Bring to a boil and cook till tender, drain. Place potatoes in a buttered 9X13 inch baking dish.

Heat butter in 10 inch skillet over medium heat. Add mushrooms and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. Add thyme or cumin and minced garlic. Saute until all moisture has disappeared from pan and mushrooms appear golden brown. Remove from pan and hold in a bowl. Add bell pepper to pan and saute until wilted, approximately 1 minute. Remove peppers from pan. Deglaze pan with wine, scraping up fond from bottom of the pan. Turn heat off and allow liquid to remain in pan.

Mix eggs, half and half, salt, and chipotle peppers until completely mixed. Whisk in wine. Pour over potatoes and bake around 30 minutes.

Garnish with sauteed mushrooms, peppers, and chopped cilantro.

Shrimp Pasta Salad

There's nothing quite like a good pasta salad. Especially on a hot day! We've had a few hot days this month and I jumped at the opportunity to make this taste treat!

Boil your pasta in some heavily salted water. You know I'm talking 2 teaspoons of salt in a half gallon of water! Otherwise you really are going to have to let your salad set in the fridge 24 hours to get some flavor in those noodles. What type of threshold do you have for self denial? Mine is low and my thighs attest to that.

I'm using elbow noodles since it's what I have on hand. I really prefer rotini pasta in a salad like this. Cook 'em until they're done to the tenderness you like in a pasta salad. I like mine a little chewy! Then drain them and rinse them with some cold water. It'll stop the cooking process.

Now embarrassingly enough I drained my noodles and when I checked them I discovered several were less than done! So I rinsed them with a little more water a couple of times while I was preparing the other ingredients. They soaked up enough excess water they were fine by the time I put them in the salad.

Now to make a really tasty dressing we need to get some good shrimp flavor going. One way is to make shrimp stock. Of course that requires you cook your shrimp from scratch! I'm going to assume you've got some frozen precooked shrimp. Thaw them out and pinch their tails off. You don't want tails in your pasta salad do you? Put the tails in a little dish. We'll use them in a minute. Stow your shrimp in the refrigerator.

We're going to base our dressing on this. There's a cup of clam "juice" in here and you want to boil it down to half a cup. So put it in a pan and start it boiling. How long it'll take depends on how high you turn the heat up and how big a pan you use!

I had some frozen artichoke hearts I wanted to use in the salad so I actually threw them in the broth to thaw out. Mmm! After they were cooked a little I picked them out and added . . .

The lemon, a little garlic and a bay leaf. They'll give good flavor to the dressing. You should also add the shrimp tails at this point. If you thawed your shrimp in the bag like it recommends on most packages you can even throw that liquid in here. Bring it to a boil!

Strain it after its reduced to around half a cup. (You'll have the smallest bit covering the bottom of the pan.)

You'll need a half cup of mayonnaise! Isn't it pretty? I just want to eat a big spoonful right now!

I threw in a couple of green onions. I mixed them up and let them sit in the mayonnaise for a minute or two while I was boiling down the juice.

Mix your stock and your mayonnaise together!

I added a little celery seed because I was out of actual celery! I love real celery in this dish. If I had known I was out of celery I would of added the seed to the broth while I was boiling it!

Taste it and add salt and pepper as you like it. I obviously like it peppery! Now if I had it on hand I would of added some Old Bay seasoning at this point.

This is what's going in the salad! Look at the disproportionate sizes! This is why I prefer rotini! Oh well nothing a knife can't fix.

That's better!

My ingredients were all a little too pastel and savory for me so I decided to add some raw bell pepper chunks. For crisp sweetness! I like a little texture in my salads.

Toss it all together to chill! Garnish with a little chopped parsley if you like! This is so light and refreshing! The shrimp is briny and meaty. The pasta has a nice chew to it. The artichokes are rich and tender. The red pepper adds a crisp sweetness. Parsley has a herbaceous bitterness I crave in all things.The mayonnaise is where it's at though! It has all the seafood flavor in it and the lovely tang that mayonnaise is known for. If you like serve this salad with a lemon wedge so guests can amp up the acid right at the table!

This salad is delicious with celery and peas in it too! Which I hear normal people have laying around their refrigerator and freezer . . .

Shrimp Pasta Salad

1 lb cooked shrimp, shelled
8 oz. frozen artichoke hearts
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 lb cooked pasta, macaroni, rotini, or shells

For dressing

1/2 cup mayonnaise
2-3 large green onions, sliced
1/2 tsp celery seed
1/2 cup shrimp stock
salt and pepper

For shrimp stock

1 8 oz bottle clam juice
tails from shrimp
1/2 lemon sliced
1 clove garlic
1 bay leaf

Make shrimp stock. You can poach your artichoke hearts in the stock if you're including them in the recipe. Stir dressing ingredients together. Chop shrimp and artichokes as necessary to make salad ingredients similar in size. Mix dressing and salad together and enjoy. Refrigerate for an hour for best results.

Beer Poached Shrimp

With the coming of warm weather we're all watching our waist lines a little closer. I've also been breaking out a few cool make ahead meals too. Boiled shrimp is just the ticket!

I have a few issues with boiling shrimp. I'm never quite sure how much to salt the water! Some shrimp is really salty and others are really bland. Then of course there's the fact that a lot of it gets over cooked just waiting for it to "come back to a boil." Oh and if you have to go help a screaming child you know it's going to over cook in about 30 seconds! Who likes shrimp jerky?

What about a kinder and gentler cooking method? I was watching Alton Brown poach some fish and started to wonder . . . about shrimp.

These packets of goodness have been on sale a LOT lately. Thank you Lenten Season! I like them because they make a cut down the back and clean out the digestive track for you. Ick!

We need a flavorful poaching liquid! So let's start out with these lemon wedges I had in the fridge! Since I'm using a nice big 12 inch skillet I would normally slice a lemon thinly for this but the wedges will do since I cut them up last night for dinner. I threw in a couple of bay leaves too!

Some peppercorns too! Red pepper flakes would be delicious in addition but I was feeding a few friends . . .

I thought I was done so I threw my shrimp in! They're bigger ones 26-30's. Did you know that means there's 26-30 per pound? Helps to know if you're making shrimp cocktails!

Ooops! I forgot shrimp's best friend, garlic! Throw a couple of those in there too. If you don't want to peel them just rinse them off and give them a bang with a knife so the poaching liquid can mingle with the garlicky goodness.

Some thyme leaves too! Don't forget the thyme! Normally, I'd throw in some fresh thyme still on the stems but mine is just coming up and isn't quite ready for me to start harvesting it. :(  I am going to add my shrimp to another recipe and it needs to look nice so I'm wrapping my thyme up in some cheese cloth.

Now for some flavorful poaching liquid . . . you want a mild beer. My hubby and I call this "camping" beer. You can drink it all day while camping and don't have to supplement with water because its so weak! Okay that's OUR theory at least. Now if you want to substitute an actual flavorful craft beer I would recommend ,using a cup of beer and adding a half cup of water to it. I'm thinking a Boulevard Zon or a Pale Ale might be nice. This is a lovely application for any of your standard Budweiser, Miller, or Coors products too! You know if somebody leaves one at your house . . .

Pour it in and turn the heat on low! Yes, LOW! We want to avoid a boil for as long as possible. I unloaded the dishwasher, and did a Sudoku puzzle while this was warming. For those of you worried about bacteria and other organisms does it comfort you to know that 140 deg F for 5 minutes has killed just about everything dangerous in it?

Look it practically covers it! I do this with up to two lbs of shrimp. By the time the shrimp thaws it's all under the beer. Stir it periodically. You want to get the shrimp thawed out good before it starts to cook. Oh and salt! Add about half a teaspoon or even better add a teaspoon of Old Bay Seasoning. If a seasoning has been around for 60 years you know they're onto something!

It's all thawed! That only took 10 minutes or so.

Look! It's starting to get pink! If you can turn your heat any lower do it. Slow and steady wins the prize!

They're all pink and firm now so I fished them out with a strainer! At this point if you have no other plans you can just cover them with some plastic wrap and throw them in the fridge to chill.

They babies are sweet, juicy, shrimpy deliciousness! They taste of the salt and the sea. They're done all the way through yet they're tender because you didn't over cook them.

I'm going to use the poaching liquid and the shells to make a nice shrimp stock. These shrimp are actually headed to a shrimp salad today. They're perfect for it because they pack a punch of shrimpy flavor. Besides, how else can you economically feed four adults shrimp as an entree?

Beer Poached Shrimp

1-2 lbs frozen raw shrimp
1 light beer, 12 oz size (or 1 cup craft beer with 1/2 cup of water added)
1/2 a lemon, sliced
1-2 bay leaves
2 sprigs fresh thyme, or 1/2 tsp dried
3 cloves garlic, smooshed
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 tsp Old Bay seasoning or 1/2 tsp salt

Mix all ingredients together and cook over low heat until shrimp are pink and firm.  (It should never reach a boil!)