Shrimp & Pineapple Skewers with Rum Butter Dipping Sauce

Happy Memorial Day!

Back in 2007, we were grilling out at a park during spring break. Coincidentally, we were grilling the same meal back then. But it's so yummy that we've kept it in our recipe collection and fall back on it on occasion. It's a slight adaptation from this recipe. The grilled, prosciutto wrapped shrimp are fantastic with the marinated pineapple. And oh, the rum butter sauce. Rum and butter? In a sauce? 'Nuff said.

Ingredients:
2 tbsp lime juice
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp minced gingerroot, plus 1 tsp
2 tsp minced garlic (about 3 cloves)
1 tsp red pepper flakes
24 medium uncooked shrimp, shelled and deveined
1/3 lb prosciutto
1 small pineapple, cut into 1" cubes
2 tbsp shallots, minced
1/3 c. dark rum
6 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into pieces and kept cold
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp cayenne
handful of fresh cilantro, chopped

Soak skewers (if wood/bamboo) to prevent burning while on the grill. To make the marinade, place the lime juice, olive oil, 2 tsp of gingerroot, garlic and red pepper flakes into a bowl to combine. I mix the oil and lime juice first to make sure it is combined before tossing in the other ingredients.

Toss the shrimp and pineapple in the marinade and marinate while the grill is heating up, about 15 minutes.

I like to prepare the rum butter sauce before placing the skewers on the grill just so that I don't have to run between the two.Heat a pan to medium or medium-low heat and pour in the rum. Add the shallots and remaining teaspoon of gingerroot. Stir to combine and let simmer until the alcohol has burned off. Add one tablespoon of butter at a time, making sure to stir to combine so that the mixture doesn't break. Remove it from heat once all the butter is incorporated. It should make a pretty thick sauce.

Wrap the shrimp in thinly sliced prosciutto. Then place the shrimp and pineapple on skewers. Grill about 4 minutes per side, or until shrimp is pink and cooked through.

Remove them from the grill. Remove from the skewers and place onto a plate or platter. Sprinkle with the chopped cilantro and serve with the rum butter sauce for dipping.

We served this with brown rice and grilled corn on the cob.

Hope you all have a good (and tasty) Memorial Day with your families. Thanks to all those members of the armed forces who have and continue to serve our country.

Quick Fixin: Teriyaki Salmon with Easy Brown Rice

We've been pretty busy lately. I started working full time just as my licensing exam was over and our wedding planning kicked into high gear. So, quick and easy meals have been my saving grace. This recipe in particular takes almost no effort.

Ingredients (for fish):
1 fillet salmon
Teryaki sauce - I recommend Soy Vay teriyaki if you aren't making your own

Place the fish and teryaki sauce in a plastic zip top bag. Marinate for 15 minutes, no longer than one half hour. Place skin side down on a hot grill until the meat of the fish is cooked and it peels easily from the skin.

Ingredients (for rice):
1 1/2 c short grain brown rice
2 1/2 c water
1 tbsp butter, unsalted
1 tsp salt

Place the butter, water, and salt in a 9" x 9" glass baking dish and heat in the microwave for 5 minutes. Once heated, stir in the rice and cover with aluminum foil. Place in a 375F degree oven for 1 hour. Remove the rice after one hour and fluff with a fork before serving. This is an easy way to cook rice, with no burning the bottom, that I learned by watching, who else, Alton Brown.

We typically serve this with a salad or some other vegetable. Because corn was on sale this week and looked better than I've ever seen Florida corn, we had a few grilled cobs.

What are your favorite quick fix meals?

Avocado Kiwi Salsa

My boss came in to work the other day and had me taste her homemade salsa. It was a nice, refreshing combination of kiwi and avocado. Of course, then I asked for the recipe, thinking how nicely it would go with the fillet of snapper I had in the freezer.

Ingredients:
4 kiwi, diced
2 avocado, diced
2-3 tbsp cilantro, diced
3 tbsp lime juice, diced
2 jalapeno peppers, diced
1/2 orange or red bell pepper, diced
1/4 c red onion, diced

Mix everything together in a bowl to combine. I would recommend if you don't like heat to remove the seeds from the jalapeno.

We grilled the snapper fillet (seasoned with salt, pepper and olive oil) and served with a heaping side of the salsa. It went great with the fish and the leftover salsa went perfectly with some tortilla chips.

Beet Green & Goat Cheese Ravioli

Did I tell you? I got a pasta machine! Yes, after the hassle of making thin sheets of pasta with a water glass, I invested in a pasta machine. And this thing is wonderful. I love it. In one day I turned out 100 various ravioli to stash in the freezer for those "I'm too tired to cook" nights and even made a little bit of fresh spaghetti. So far, we've pulled the beet green & goat cheese from the freezer and made them as a side with our beef tenderloin roast. I love steak and goat cheese so this was a perfect combination.

This recipe is based on the recipe for the Goat Cheese Ravioli I had made before, but instead of spinach, we used the greens from our first beet harvest for the greens. It took a bit longer to steam the beet greens, and they needed to be torn apart because they were a bit large, but this basically is the same recipe. I love the fun pink color that it gives to the filling. Festive!

The other big change from the first ravioli recipe was the pasta dough. Remember I had mentioned the recipe from The Silver Spoon? Well, it uses a ton less egg (yay! even cheaper!) and took a bit more kneading, but was definitely lighter and more tender than the first recipe I used for pasta. We still had to tweak it a bit, since it was a bit dry, but I've listed the modified recipe here. Also, instead of the egg wash, I just would spray the pasta sheet with a water spritzer if they got a bit dry while filling. It seemed to work a lot better than the egg wash and kept the edges sealed well without making the edges tough at all in texture.

Ingredients (for pasta dough):
1 3/4 c all purpose flour (the Silver Spoon recommends type 00, but I have yet to find it)
2 eggs
salt
3 tbsp water

Fill a bowl with the flour and salt, or alternatively, place the flour and salt in a mound on your slipmat or non-stick surface. Crack the eggs into a separate bowl and mix lightly. Make a well in the flour and fill with the eggs and water. With your fingers, whisk the eggs and being pulling the flour into the eggs. Mix the flour into the eggs until it begins to get stiff, then being to knead. Some of the flour may not be mixed in, that's okay. Also, add more flour if the mixture is too wet or more water if it is too dry.

Once it is a uniform, smooth mixture and seems well incorporated (about 10 minutes of kneading), rest the ball under a damp cloth. To make the ravioli, I divided the ball (it looks so small, it's deceiving) into 4 parts and rolled one at a time to make sure the dough didn't dry out before I could fill and seal the ravioli. I also ran it through the pasta machine a few times on the thickest setting, folding it over on itself afterward and repeating to finish the kneading and to prep the dough before rolling into the thin sheets.

Make sure to make your filling ahead of time (before the dough), so you aren't scrambling around while the dough is getting dry. I also found this, like the previous ravioli, to scoop better into the ravioli when it was a bit cold. So, toss the cheese and beet green mixture into the fridge while making the dough to get it a bit firmer in texture. Once the dough is rolled thin, place the filling 1" apart on the pasta sheet. Cover with a sheet of the same size. Pinch the air pockets and seal between and on the edges surrounding the filling.

Cut the raviolis apart and place on parchment paper or another non-stick surface. Freeze for later use, or heat in salted boiling water until tender, about 5 minutes.

I'll be posting the other ravioli recipes as we thaw them from the freezer and make them. Look forward to:

• Sweet Potato Ravioli (a whole wheat pasta!)
• Mushroom Ravioli
• Sausage Ravioli
• Chicken ravioli

and whatever else I can think up in the meantime!

I Love Sundays

Because guess what I was treated to today?

Eggs Benedict! Made by my fabulous fiance and topped with homegrown tomatoes.