My Cooking Spot

When Girl Meets Kitchen

Baked Cajun Lemon Shrimp

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Baked Lemon Shrimp

 

The hubs and I have been on a real shellfish kick as of late. I think it is because finally I convinced him to try a piece of lobster dripping with melted butter, and he hasn’t looked back. Ever since he had that mouth watering bite, he has been willing to try all shellfish. I am not complaining. I have always had a love for it.

I have always been intimidated when it comes to cooking shellfish. I have never cooked lobster or crab and I have always wanted to try cooking them, but it is such a finicky dish. At least for me anyway. I always feel that I will undercook or overcook shellfish and there is that fine line of being rubbery. And I am not a fan of that at all.

So I thought I would start out slow, and give shrimp a chance and see if I could make it at home, and feel like it tastes like it was cooked at a restaurant. I have tried making shrimp in the past, with less than desired results.

I wanted to try it again. I thought the first step is to find a good shrimp. I went to Whole Foods and asked the guy behind the fish counter what they use and what he suggested to buy. He steered me to some uncooked jumbo shrimp. He advised that if I bought the pre-cooked shrimp, I would be cooking it twice, and then it would be super rubbery. I didn’t even consider that, so I am glad I asked him.

This recipe is so easy, and literally can be on your table in 10-15 minutes. This is my favorite shrimp recipe, and crazy easy.

Lemon Shrimp

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Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas

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Hey everyone! It’s Madison from The Wetherills Say I Do again. I’m back with another one of our favorite recipes. Growing up in New Mexico, I’m used to having green chile on everything. If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, check out my green chile mac & cheese post from a while back. Okay, you back?

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I love traditional enchiladas, you know, corn tortillas and that red enchilada sauce? In New Mexico, we do things a little differently and in my house, we do them even more different. I have always preferred flour tortillas to corn tortillas, so I really wanted to create a recipe that captured the heart and soul of enchiladas but with flour tortillas. Start with some shredded chicken, add sour cream and a bit of cream of chicken, top with green chile and shredded cheese and there you go!

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This recipe is super easy to make. I almost always make shredded chicken using my crock pot. It’s so easy to throw everything in the pot before work and it’s all ready to go once you get home. I love it! You can also bake or boil your chicken and then shred, whatever is easiest for you. Because of the mixture of sour cream and cream of chicken soup, you wind up with a creamy and delicious combination to mix with your chicken.
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Zucchini Ribbon “Pasta” with Almond Basil Pesto

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With bikini season around the corner, I have been looking for ways to cut some calories, but I don’t want to cut any taste out, because that never works for me. I am too much of a foodie. I have heard of using vegetables in place of pasta, but I don’t have a mandoline, or the machine that cuts the veggies into the cute spaghetti strings, so I had to compromise.

I decided to take a vegetable peeler and just peel my slices of zucchini into beautiful ribbons. I actually liked it a lot better. I have been trying to think of other vegetables that I could peel into ribbons. Eating healthy can be fun! Or so I like to tell myself.

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I also wanted to get some healthy omega vitamins so I decided to make an almond pesto rather than using the traditional pine nuts. I like the nuttiness flavor that the almond brings and the texture of the almonds replace the parmesan cheese that I did not add. However, you can absolutely add parmesan to this recipe, I just chose to exclude it to save some calories, and I didn’t miss it for one minute.

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Green Chile Broccoli Mac & Cheese

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Some might say it’s a little sad… but I really do love mac & cheese. I used to be all about the boxed stuff, but within the last few years, I’ve really taken to finding some delicious and creative recipes that take mac & cheese to a whole ‘nother level.

Just to give you an idea of how good this mac and cheese is, I made this pan full on Monday night, it was gone by Wednesday at lunch. And there were only two of us eating it. It’s still mac and cheese so I won’t go promising that it’s completely healthy, but you can at least feel good about knowing exactly what you’re eating, which is something you can’t say about the boxed stuff.

 

Alright, you might be thinking, broccoli and cheese, I get that. But green chile? Let me back up. I’m from New Mexico, where we put green chile on everything. I’m not talking about chili you see at a cook off or chili peppers from the produce section, I’m talking about THE New Mexico state vegetable. It’s a type of pepper only grown in New Mexico because of the extreme dessert climate. It can be used similarly to jalapeños or more like a salsa that goes on top of different food. New Mexicans eat it on everything, from breakfast eggs to chicken enchiladas at dinner. I’ve had green chile mac and cheese many a time at a local restaurant.

The broccoli, green chile, and bread crumb topping add so much complexity to a relatively simple dish! Each bite has a totally different consistency, based on whichever combination of ingredients you get. Green chiles are known to be spicy, although I didn’t find the canned green chiles to be spicy at all. If you aren’t crazy about spice, you might skip the green chiles. But if you love it, I might recommend two cans of the chiles, so there is enough for the whole dish.
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