Breaded Shrimp and Vegetable of the Week

One day last week there was nothing in the fridge to cook and Tyler didn't feel like having any of the pre- made meals I have stashed in the fridge (not even chili with the promise of fresh biscuits!), so I had to put my thinking cap on. Shrimp is easy to defrost quickly so I started there. But then I was stuck. I didn't have lemon juice to make a lot of the recipes I was finding and there was no feta cheese to make my favorite shrimp dish. I knew I wanted have this rice as a side dish (I don't recommend it), so I came up with this breaded shrimp. It's easy and quick and perfect for dipping- Ranch dressing for Tyler as always and PC Memories of Bengal Curried Mango sauce for me. It's all about the dipping.

So, to the Vegetable of the Week. Following the theme of my previous post, each week I want to use one vegetable in a few ways to bump up the nutrition in our meals. Last week was kale*. I usually use kale in soup and that's about it. I also found that I like it in other dishes as well. I chopped it up, steamed it in a pan with salt and pepper and added it to the rice as you can see in the above photo. I also added some to pasta. Just put chopped kale into the pasta pot for the last 5 minutes of the pasta cooking. I still have a few leaves left, so I'm going to try kale chips today. I'll report back.

*With leafy or thin-skinned vegetables I try to buy organic as these vegetables can absorb more pesticides. Also, I just saw that peaches have the highest pesticide concentrations of any fruit- another one to buy organic I would say.

One Year Ago: Deep Dish Pizza, the best Granola, Chaussons Aux Pommes 

OVEN BAKED SHRIMP

Serves 4

• 1 lb large (31-40 count) shrimp, cleaned and peeled
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 tsp cayenne 
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tbsp Dijon mustard
• water
• 1 cup panko bread crumbs
• cooking spray

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Dry shrimp on paper towels. Mix flour, salt, pepper, cayenne in a Ziploc bag. In a shallow bowl or baking dish, mix egg, Dijon, and a splash of water. Place bread crumbs in another shallow bowl or baking dish. Line a baking sheet with foil and spray with cooking spray.

Put shrimp in bag with flour, seal, and shake to coat the shrimp in flour. Working with a few shrimp at a time, remove from bag, shaking off excess flour, coat in egg mixture, then in bread crumbs and place on baking sheet.

Bake shrimp 11 to 13 minutes or until just pink all over (you'll be able to see the color a bit through the bread crumbs) and they are curled up. Ensure to flip them over half way through cooking.