Shrimp With Garlic Shallots And White Wine

We sauteed Shrimps, Shallots, Garlic, White Wine and Butter together and served this dish over pasta. This is a very simple recipe that can serve up to 4 people. When shopping, we chose a small package of raw de-veined shrimp (61-70 count per pound). If you want bigger shrimp, you'll get a lower count. Since our shrimp is going over pasta and has to feed a bunch of hungry kids we opted for the smaller size. This is also handy if you want left overs or folks wants seconds. To start things off we got a pot of water boiling while we did our prep work (I would caution those that prep slower to wait until the shrimp is almost completely cooked until you start boiling your pasta). As soon as the water starts boiling, we added our spaghetti and let it begin to cook. After finely chopping up 2 shallots, and 4 cloves of garlic, we sauteed these in 4 tablespoons of butter instead of olive oil while our pasta cooks. We're using butter as a base, because it's more flavorful and less greasy. We peel all the shrimp and add them to the garlic shallot mix and saute everything until they shrimp are nice and pink. When our shrimp are all almost cooked, we add in 2 cups of white wine and let everything boil and cook until the alcohol smell is gone. We picked up some beautiful Pugliese bread from Nugget this evening to serve with our dinner and cooked up some spinach in olive oil and garlic, to serve as a side dish. Next we take a strand of pasta out with a fork and fling it against the wall. The rule of thumb here is "If it sticks to the wall it's done!". Now before closing this entry, I wanted to mention a discussion I had with some folks at work today. We were discussing exactly how we go about planning our meals, and here are a few helpful things that we do in our family to make things a little easier. 4 Ways To Simplify Your Shopping 1) Have a Flexible Meal Plan If you go food shopping once a week or once every two weeks it's a good idea to make a meal plan for the time period between now and your next time food shopping. We like to list our meals for 2 weeks and have a rough outline of what we want to buy that will fill our meal plan. 2) Take Advantage of Whats on Sale Now is where the flexibility comes in. Your meal plan can and should make allowances for whats on sale at the store. If you have planned London Broil and steak prices are crazy, you should probably look for something cheaper... like Carne Asada (a dish we will be preparing soon). 3) Break Down Your Meats After we go shopping we come home and break down our meat into proper portions for cooking a dinner for our whole family. This saves time having to defrost more meat because you ran out, or not having enough to make a complete meal. It's also easier to keep inventory of what you have. 4) Buy Fresh! You should go back to the supermarket at least once or twice a week to restock your vegetables so that you are always using fresh ingredients when you cook. Fish is also a dish you want to have as fresh as possible. I'm Joe - owner of Pool Marketing and Pool Contractor and this is my recipe for a great meal.

Slow Braised Pulled Pork Sandwiches

This is a continuation of a dish that we started preparing last night along with the Lemon Pepper Chicken Breast Salad we made. After slow braising the pork roast for 4 hours, we took it out and refrigerated it over night. This allows all the flavors from the chicken broth and onions and spices come together and really adds a lot of flavor.



Tonight we took out our roasted pork and began to sauce it and allow the flavors to soak in for another hour on a low simmer while we prepared the garlic bread and potato wedges. After separating the pork with two forks, we let the pulled pork soak in a mixture of KC Masterpiece and Stubbs Pork Marinade and just a little bit of Ketchup to cut the heat a bit and add some sweetness.





Yesterday afternoon we picked up some sourdough baguettes from Nugget market (for those back east, they're kind of like Whole Foods) to use for our pulled pork sandwiches this evening. We cut them, smeared them with a nice butter and chopped garlic mix, (Mikie and I added some roasted pepper garlic seasoning to our portions).




We then broiled the garlic bread for 7 minutes until golden brown (soft on the inside, crunchy outside is what you're going for). We also cut up some potato wedges, seasoned with garlic, salt, pepper, and I snuck in a little bacon salt on the fries too.





We cooked them for 35 minutes at 400 degrees until cooked but still soft. It's very easy to overcook these if you're not careful. I like my potatoes nice and soft but still fully cooked. The longer you leave them in the more crispy they will become but it's so damn easy to overcook them we err on the side of caution sometimes.




The end result was a very tasty meal for four that we all enjoyed. I can honestly say that our sourdough garlic bread pulled pork sandwich was one of the tastiest ones that I've ever eaten. I like a pickle with my pulled pork sandwich. Kosher Dills are my favorite.





There is one alas, that puts my own invention to shame and that is Cubbys Pulled Pork Sandwich in Hackensack, NJ. If you live in the area, I suggest you try it for yourselves. They have old school Birch Beer and Sweet Potato Fries. It's unbelievable. Cubby's BBQ: http://www.cubbysbarbeque.com/