Coconut Shrimp April 8, 2008

Dude.

I love shrimp. So, I find a lot of main dish recipes, appetizers, salads and anything else I can to use shrimp. Even though I hate peeling them but then you know they’re good and fresh.

Coconut Shrimp

1 egg

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

2/3 cup beer (I used an NA lager)

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

2 cups flaked coconut

24 shrimp

3 cups oil for frying

1) In medium bowl, combine egg, 1/2 cup flour, beer and baking powder. Place 1/4 cup flour and coconut in two separate bowls.

2) Hold shrimp by tail, and dredge in flour, shaking off excess flour. Dip in egg/beer batter; allow excess to drip off. Roll shrimp in coconut, and place on a baking sheet lined with wax paper. Refrigerate for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, heat oil to 350 degrees.

3) Fry shrimp in batches; cook turning once, for 2 to 3 minutes, or until golden brown. Using tongs, remove shrimp to paper towels to drain. Serve warm with your favorite dipping sauce.

Original recipe found here - it’s got 5 starts on Allrecipes!!

Give Me a Big Challah! February 27, 2008

Last year, I had a personal goal of mastering a variety of soups.  This year, it’s the year of kick ass bread.  I think I can do it, but there is a little more science involved with bread, so there’s not always a guarantee that everything will turn out OK.  So, imagine my glee when my first attempt at challah bread turned out lovely.  I followed the recipe out of my 2007 The Best of America’s Test Kitchen cookbook, which you can’t access on their site without a membership, but I did find the same recipe here if you would like to make your house smell divinely of fresh baked challah bread.  You can let me know how it goes…

Scrapbook layout February 15, 2008

One of the nice thing about hobbies, is that sometimes other people can’t do them and they want you to do it instead. For money! Woot!

I have been making 9×9 scrapbooks for baby gifts and will start work on the 4th one, for hire, in the next week or so. I create 32 pages of baby’s first year moments, do delivery room and newborn photos to get the album started for the new parents, and do layouts leaving room for them to add photos at a later date of those special milestones.

Here is a page I did in a book I just completed of mom and dad with their new baby boy on a page. The nice thing about the 9×9 size, you can do a couple photos on the page or one larger one, they are quite fun!

Baby Blanket February 8, 2008

My BIL and SIL just had their 3rd girl at Christmas.  Making a baby blanket for her was how I spent November and part of December.  I cast on 110 (give or take, can’t remember now) and just did straight knitting of each color before the skein ran out.  I used 2 skeins of each and, hold on to your hats, it’s pajama yarn and was the SOFTEST blanket in the history of babies, I kid you not!

French Onion Soup January 24, 2008

In my 2007 quest to master soup, here is another of the success stories and I must confess, it was kick ass. And, honestly, on a scale of 1-10, I think French Onion soup garners at best a 3. It’s not one of my favorites. But it is one of hubby’s favorites so I decided to seek out a great recipe I could make well. Tyler Florence’s recipe was the winner and I thought it tasted fantastic - pretty good considering it’s not one of my faves.  The baguette croutons were the best part….yummy.

Protected: All Alone on Parents’ Night November 29, 2007

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Protected: The Lean Years November 11, 2007

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Protected: In the Beginning… November 6, 2007

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Pretty Witch Costume October 30, 2007

Last year, I made Zach’s scarecrow costume.  This year, it was Sammie’s pretty witch.  I thought it turned out pretty cute and took less time than I thought it would, especially since I lost days working on it to take care of a barfing kid!

Look at My Clematis and Schtuff October 16, 2007

Even though everything is dying now, I have to show you.  I have two lantern poles, one in my front yard and one in the back.  The one in the front yard I planted a bright purple clematis vine and this year it finally got bigger and leafier and produced multiple blooms.  Up until this year, it never got very tall or had a lot of blooms going on.  Is that purple gorgeous, or what?

In the back, I planted morning glory seeds and have only had mediocre luck.  One time just when the plants was getting wound up to the top and starting to produce blooms, hubby whacked off the whole thing by the roots and that was the end of that.  All that time and waiting…nuttin.  This year, I waited, and waited.  Finally, some activity started up the post and it got very green, no blooms even happened until almost September.  But, wow, this sucker got really big and full.  It was fun to watch.  And, you can’t see the light under there anymore, it swallowed up that whole post.