(Note: this is a guest post from Matt LaCasse. He and I have traded recipes since before he started #cookchat.)
If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve been seeing me use the hashtag #hawaiidiet. As a part of this diet, my wife and I get 8 ounces of meat a day, but that’s limited to seafood, chicken or turkey. Up to this point in my life, I’ve had a saying that goes something like, “If it’s from the sea, it’s not for me.” I’ve had to get over that since one can only eat so much chicken and/or turkey. So, I turned to the one place I knew I could get a fantastic shrimp recipe. The host of this here blog.
God bless Aurora. She sent me this recipe for shrimp. I’ll give the recipe (from Self Magazine) as it’s supposed to be made first:
- 1 cup dry orzo
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- 1 cup chopped onion
- 3 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
- 1/4 cup white wine
- 1 can (28 oz) whole, peeled tomatoes
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
- 1 tablespoon capers
- 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes
- 1 pound medium shelled and deveined shrimp
- 1/2 cup feta
#Hawaiidiet also bans dairy products, so the feta was out, and I’d never heard of capers before this, didn’t have any on hand, and so ended up substituting cilantro. Orzo was also out due to the no carbs aspect of the diet. So, here’s what I ended up using:
- 2 Tsp olive oil
- 1 cup green onions (Didn’t have an onion on hand, used these instead, worked great)
- 1 Tb garlic powder (Thought I had garlic on hand, but I didn’t. This worked OK)
- ¼ cup red wine vinegar (Again, didn’t have any white wine on hand)
- 1 can whole peeled tomatoes
- 2 tbs parsley (I used dried parsley)
- 1 tbs cilantro
- The rest of the ingredients I used as listed
This was a GREAT recipe. It was a bit spicier than I had expected, but that wasn’t a bad thing. There’s LOTS of flavor here, and I really wish I could have used feta and orzo as I have no doubt that makes this taste completely different. It was a little over-tomatoey, but I’m chalking that up to the lack of feta and orzo. The cilantro added a little citrus twist to it, which I really enjoyed and would add to the original recipe; then again, I’m a cilantro freak.
Thanks to Aurora for passing along the recipe! This and a tilapia recipe she passed along have been big hits at Casa de LaCasse and will become a part of the regular rotation.