The Pioneer Woman’s Summer Stir Fry

We’re Back!!  After a long and glorious trip up to Maryland for a visit with Mom Mom and GP, we are finally home.  Three weeks is a long time to be away….but I’ll tell you right now, I did not miss cleaning my house! =)  There’s something so refreshing and renewing about getting to do whatever you want…with no guilt!!!  But. More about our trip later.  I’m still getting caught up on emails, laundry and uploading pictures.  So, stay tuned for some highlights.

For tonight, I want to share a little piece of Heaven I made for dinner tonight…courtesy of The Pioneer Woman.  She is one of my many bloggy idols, and so when I saw her new cookbook in Costco….I splurged.  With vacation comes lumps….mostly in the tummy, hippy and bummy areas for me.  So I’ve been craving fresh and healthy.  So I decided to try Ree’s Summer Stir Fry (which I later also found on her blog!).  Here’s her original recipe.  I tweaked it a bit to fit my current veggie situation (and give a little nod to Maryland with some Old Bay!), so here’s my take on it:

Summer Stir Fry (Old Bay Style)

Ingredients:

2 squash

1 big ole zucchini

1 red pepper

2 cans (or fresh) of corn

3 mushrooms (because no one in my house likes them but me and there will be so many other veggies the others won’t notice!!)  *wink wink*

2 Tbsp butter

2 Tbsp olive oil

salt and pepper

Old Bay

2 cloves of garlic

about 1 lb of shrimp

some rice to put it all over if you’d like

 

 Dump 1 Tbsp of butter and 1 Tbsp of oil in a really big pan over medium heat.

Dice all the veggies that you have.  Put them aside.

In the skillet, heat up your garlic and shrimp for about 3 minutes, or until they are opaque. Put aside.

In the same skillet, add the other 1 Tsbp of butter and oil, and dump your veggies.  Cook on medium for about 10 minutes.  If you are going to cook rice to go with your meal, do it now.

Add salt, pepper and Old Bay to taste….if you are from MD, that means a lot!! =)

I admit that I had no fresh corn…so I went the canned route.  Not bad….but fresh would have been better!

 Sidebar….my basil plant really missed me while I was in Maryland.

Remember when I taught you how to chiffonade basil in my recipe for pesto?  Yeah. Do that.

Add the shrimp back into the stir fry and heat over medium.  Sprinkle the basil and squeeze the lemon on top.

And….YUM.

And it’s even better with this.  Firefly (vodka) and Lemonade. What a fantabulous way to kick off the summer!  Thank you Pioneer Woman!!

Spinach, Spinach, Everywhere: A Recipe for Pesto

I love Costco. I could just wander around in there for hours, and quite often…I do!! I always go in with the best of intentions of buying a bunch of healthy stuff in bulk….thereby forcing myself to fix healthy dinners for my family every night. But usually, I buy all those goodies, and then they go bad before we can eat them. Case in point: Spinach. I always look at the spinach from Costco and think it will be just enough for 4 or 5 big salads. But after 6 meals with spinach…we are spinached out and it doesn’t even look like we made a dent! And the leaves are already starting to get slimy!

So I turned to my February edition of Southern Living (Oh! How I LOVE that magazine!). Ans they happened to have a recipe for spinach-based pesto. Perfect! And I can freeze it too. Well, I made a few tweaks, so here is my version of Southern Living’s Spinach Pesto.

Ingredients:

2 cups of spinach leaves

1 tsp dried cilantro

1 Tbsp fresh chopped basil

2 Tbsp lemon juice

1/2 c to 3/4 c grated Parmesan cheese (to taste)

1 garlic clove

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 c olive oil

1. Shred your Parmesan cheese. I actually only used 1/2 c in my recipe, but you could go up to 3/4 c if you like a creamier, cheesier pesto.

2. Chop the fresh basil…I used the chiffonade method, which involves stacking the basil leaves, rolling them up and then slicing the rolls.

3. Combine all ingredients except for cheese in a food processor (or in a baby food maker, like me!). Add cheese slowly to mixture, blending until smooth.

4. Store in airtight containers. Use with pastas, vegetables, bruchettas, or other appetizers.

Enjoy!