Kitchen Experiments And A Movie!

It was a busy weekend at our little home in the boondocks!

After our shopping trip on Saturday, I had plenty of goodies to choose from for ingredients for Sunday's dinner. Among all the other goodies we acquired was a 2 lb. bag of jumbo shrimp. With that calling out to me, it wasn't difficult to decide what to play with for our Sunday meal! I chopped up an onion and a red bell pepper. Then I crushed and minced a couple cloves of garlic, and I finely minced about a 1/4 cup of fresh ginger. I popped all that in the pan which had been busy heating up a a bit of vegetable oil. I cooked and stirred all that until the onion started to turn opaque. I then scooted the whole mess off to the side and added the shrimp I had cleaned and shelled. I cooked that, turning it once, until it was pink, and removed it.

By this time the wonderful aroma I'd been enjoying in the kitchen had filled the whole house and was drifting outside where it reached my children's noses. They began visiting me more often then, checking on my progress, asking when dinner would be ready. Not long now...

Once I removed the shrimp I added a cup each of coconut milk and unsweetened pineapple juice to the pan. I hesitated for a moment to enjoy the new scents, then proceeded to add a couple tablespoons of soy sauce. It was then it occurred to me that the sauce was going to need something to add some "body". I removed a bit of the liquid, stirred it up with a couple teaspoonfuls of cornstarch, then added it back in with the sauce in the pan. That thickened things up a bit more than I wanted but it worked. Next time I think I'll stick with 1 tsp. of cornstarch to make it more of a light sauce than a gravy consistency...Anyway.... It was pretty much done now. I just popped the shrimp back in and stirred it a few minutes to heat through.

While all this was going on I had some rice cooking on a second burner, and broccoli steaming on a third. Amazingly it all was finished at the same time! I served the shrimp & sauce over the rice with broccoli on the side and lime wedges.

This little experiment actually turned out pretty good, considering it was all kinda put together as I went along. Pa and I both thought it was missing something, but we like things a bit more "kicky" than the kids do. They thought it was great just as it was. Pa and I found squeezing the lime over it all really perked it up for us. Next time I think I'll add a green bell pepper, and maybe something else...I haven't figured out the something else yet though. Any ideas? It needs just a wee bit of a "kick!"

Yesterday was another beautiful sunny day. I decided to take advantage of the sun and get some laundry done. It's so nice to smell that sweet fresh aroma on our clothes again! I really miss that during the winter months.

Saturday Night At The Movies

This week the kids chose something a little different than the "usual" fare for the Saturday night viewing. I found Enchanted ,narrated by Julie Andrews to be amazingly entertaining. The kids loved it, and Pa and I had fun picking out the classic story lines it was borrowing from. The kids even noticed a few, and got quite a kick out of that. I don't think this would be a good movie for younger children to watch, at least not without their parents close by, as there are a few scary scenes. Think Snow White, but more realistic, as well as a bit of King Kong, only subbing a really mean dragon (or serpent of some sort) for the big ape. My 10 and 11 year olds both thought it was great though.

This evening, I'm having fun with another kitchen experiment. This time we're utilizing the outside grill though, so Pa gets to help! The grill also adds another element to the experimental aspect so...Keep your fingers crossed it turns out. After all, there's no pizza place nearby to call in case of emergency in the boondocks ;)