We really like shrimp and grits so since I had some shrimp in the freezer and Karen recently posted her recipe for Lemon Butter Shrimp with Bacon & Cheddar Polenta on her “Backroad Journal” blog, a plan was born. Since Cindy had been wanting to cook, she took over those duties and followed Karen’s recipe except we had no cornmeal and I didn’t want to make a store trip, so we used Quick Grits and made extra to ensure leftovers. Plus we served more smaller shrimp to use what we had.
If you’ve been reading this blog awhile, unlike many of you who create dishes, you know I'm pretty well just a recipe follower with the occasional light recipe adaptation until this meal. Dennis recently posted the recipe for Creamy Chicken Alfredo Lasagna on his “Ask Chef Dennis” blog and the ingredients appealed to me. We had ricotta, spinach, and chicken that all needed to be used but I didn’t have enough noodles to make lasagna and wasn’t willing to make a store trip so I used on hand ingredients and heavily adapted his recipe. As it turned out, we had 24 oz of ricotta, only half a bag of spinach (I thought we had 1½), and no mushrooms so the recipe below was born. You can get the original recipe and pics by clicking on the above link.
I’m aware that ham or lamb with sides make up the typical Easter meal, but for past several years I haven’t been inclined to go with a traditional meal for certain occasions plus I had some shrimp in the freezer that I wanted to use. So, I opted to make Creamy Tuscan Shrimp that we had raved about several years ago and I made extra sauce so we could have it over pasta. Eliza's family and Cindy's friend Ernie joined us to make a party of eight.
I have good family genes for a long life but I as I approach my 80th birthday I finally realize I could overcome the good genes with my bad behavior, especially by being way too heavy. So, I decided to give one of the weight loss drugs a try and my doctor prescribed Zepbound by injection and so far I’m losing four pounds/ week and my clothes are fitting looser. I’m well pleased with how it’s going and I’m never hungry. I eat breakfast around 11am and supper around 6pm and I eat whatever I want but I don’t want near as much of it and if I stopped my fermented grape juice intake, my loss would be even greater.
We continue our seafood-a-thon into week two with swordfish and tuna.
Swordfish
Our next seafood meal was Swordfish Puttanesca using our go-to recipe which
we hadn’t had in a few years and just as before it was delicious and a hit with the three of us - Cindy raved about it, even the leftovers. I served it over small shell pasta.
As mentioned in the last post, Bev is gone so Cindy and I are having our twice/year seafood-a-thon and it began with the Greek Salmon in the previous post. We had 1½ lbs. of fish left over and she turned them into Salmon patties using the recipe from “Natasha’s Kitchen” while we had mid-March snow showers when a cold front went through.
So, it’s that time again when Bev and Pat head off to Sint Maarten ( Caribbean Island) for a couple of weeks at Pat's timeshare and Cindy and I are dog sitting and eating fish and first up was Greek Salmon using our go-to recipe. And while thinking about what to have with it, the same day up pops the recipe for Best Italian Salad Recipe (Restaurant-Style) from the “Ask Chef Dennis” blog. I did the salmon and Cindy made the salad and followed the recipe as written but used Great Northern Beans and omitted the pepperoncini.
