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Happy Memorial Day!

Now that I’ve gotten that rant out of my system, on to more happy thoughts!

BEER!!

We’re in Lilburn today, attending a lovely party thrown by our lovely new friends Topher and Martha.

Tomorrow we’re on our deck, drinking beer and grilling the hell out of some dead animals!

BEER!!

:-)

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No Worky Weekend #2

We took a No Worky weekend last week, thinking that we’d be busy this weekend… Not.

I begged two of our clients for input on their respective projects, with no result. Harumph. I hate it when I have a whole weekend to do significant chunks of work and the client simply doesn’t offer me any content. I can’t finish one client’s website until he furnishes me with descriptive content for his site. I can’t do anything with the brochure client until he provides me with the contents of the brochure so we can see how many pages we’ll have, etc. Grr.

So, in lieu of real work, we had friends over both Friday night and last night. We’ve had a great time socialising with some people we really like. :-)

Our friend-who-is-a-client dropped in last night to say HI and tell us that his new site (done by us) has already brought him a $12k job!! The site’s been up, oh, about 3 months and it has already brought in 6.5 times what he paid for it! W00t! That is truly gratifying in a business (web design) where all I hear about is how shady the web “designers” are and how many thousands so-and-so paid for a site that does nothing for his business. Knowing that our clean little site brought our client a $12k gig is really, really GREAT! We were on Cloud 9 all evening!

Heather was over last night when our friend-who-is-a-client dropped by and it looks like she may be able to do some work with his company, which is also fabulous! Serendipity definitely smiled upon us all! :-)

Our young artist friend, Kate, came and hung out with us Friday night. She’s done with school and in limbo until July when she moves to London to continue her art school career. So, since she was up the road at Java Monkey, we invited her to come camp on our deck and drink beer, which she quickly agreed to. :-) We are throwing her a going away party the 3rd weekend of June (Sat June 16), so mark your calendars and look for the Evite soon!

My only concern about this party is the ages of the people Kate may invite. She is very young and I really don’t want the liability of underage people drinking and then driving. We’ll have to set up some ground rules about that and I’ll spell it out in the Evite. All I need is some kid getting fucked up and me getting blamed for encouraging underage drinking!! Oy!

We’ve been very very socially active for the last couple of months, which is why we’ve been staying close to home for the last couple of weeks. We’ve got to reign in the wanton spending! We’re financing a trip to MI in August then DragonCon on the heels of that over Labour Day. The way it’s going, we may have a hard candy Christmas this year. :-( But it’s ok, we have enough fun all year ’round that having a lowkey Christmas is small price to pay.

I’d like to sneak in a long weekend jaunt to Savannah sometime soon before it gets too damn hot. I really do need to get the hell out of here for a few days. ::sigh:: Guess we’ll play it by ear!

I also talked to a guy from Phoenix the other day who was singing the praises of his city to me. He listed off 6 major tech companies who have large offices there and he says the pay vs cost of living is really good, too. Phoenix was on my short list already, but now we’re going to look closer at it. Heather says that Phoenix sucks and I shouldn’t even look at it, but I feel that it’s worth looking into.

Both Nick and I have the itchy foot to get out of here. Moving will be a huge stress, but talk about making a new start!! Damn, moving across the country, changing jobs, me perhaps having to GET a “real” job… It’s overwhelming to think about. On the other hand, however, it’s very enticing. As much as I love our friends here and will miss them horribly, it’d be nice to have a totally new environment to explore. New trees, flowers, grass, birds… New, CLEAN air to breathe… New home to fix up and decorate… New people to meet. Yah, it’ll be hard, but I think it’ll be really good for us. It’s still a few years off, but it WILL happen.

Well, I guess that’s it for the stream of consciousness post today. Off to futz with a couple of websites.

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Layered Shrimp Dip

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Layered Shrimp Dip

This is a great party dip! You can add crab to this for even more seafood goodness.
Course Appetizer
Cuisine American
Keyword party dip, seafood, shrimp dip
Prep Time 20 minutes
Servings 8
Author misangela

Equipment

  • Glass pie plate or other rimmed glass dish

Ingredients

  • 8 oz whipped cream cheese whipped makes for a lighter, more consistent dish
  • ½ Cup mayonnaise optional if you don't like mayo
  • ½ Cup sour cream a little more if you skip mayo
  • ½ Cup cocktail sauce
  • 2 Cup finely shredded cheddar or cheddar jack cheese
  • 1 pound salad shrimp, cooked and thoroughly drained cooked in liquid Old Bay (or Zatarains) with 1 tsp salt (do not use powdered boil mix)
  • Old Bay liquid boil OR Zatarain's
  • Old Bay powder to taste
  • 3 roma tomatoes seeded, diced small, salted
  • Frank's Hot Sauce or whatever you like
  • 4 scallions finely sliced on the bias
  • 2 Tbl fresh dill, minced (use half if dried herb) OR substitute cilantro or parsley if you prefer

Instructions

  • Gather all your ingredients and prep anything that needs to be cut up before you start cooking. Mise en place will make your cooking experience much more efficient.
  • Blend together cream cheese, mayo and sour cream until smooth. Spread on the bottom of pie plate. Sprinkle with Old Bay.
  • Spread cocktail sauce over the cream cheese layer.
  • Add shrimp on top of cocktail sauce. Sprinkle with Old Bay and dot with Frank's.
  • Add cheese over shrimp.
  • STOP HERE if you are holding this dip more than a couple of hours for service. You can hold for up to a day in the fridge. If you add the tomatoes too early, the dip will be soggy.
  • Add tomatoes, scallions and dill for service.
  • Serve with a cracker selection.
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Chipotle Shrimp Cups

Chipotle Shrimp Cups
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Angela's Chipotle Shrimp Cups

These are a party favourite! I found the recipe years ago in the newspaper and have refined it to suit my taste. The original recipe is from Cooking LIght, my recipe is more flavourful and less light!
Course Appetizer
Cuisine American, Mexican
Keyword party appetizers, shrimp appetizers
Prep Time 45 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Servings 40 pieces
Author misangela

Equipment

  • mini muffin tins
  • gallon sized plastic bag or piping bag

Ingredients

  • 1 50ct wonton wrappers round ones if you can get them

Filling for Cups

  • 1 ½ pound salad shrimp fresh or frozen is fine, thaw if frozen and drain thoroughly
  • 1/3 cup crab boil I use liquid boil, use what you like
  • 1 ½ cup finely shredded cheese I like mexican blend, use what you like
  • 1 cup whipped cream cheese room temp
  • ½ cup jarred roasted red peppers diced
  • 1 cup salsa any red salsa is fine
  • 2 Tbl chipotles in adobo finely diced, with adobo
  • Salt to taste
  • 8 scallions finely sliced for garnish
  • ½ cup cilantro chopped for garnish

Instructions

  • This is a two part recipe: cups and filling. You can bake off the cups in advance if you like. Do all your prep in advance of cooking. Mise en place will make your cooking go much smoother. Read the notes about holding these appetizers.

Making the Cups

  • First, thaw the wontons if frozen. Spray mini muffin tins with food release (Pam). Tuck the wontons into the muffin tin to make little cups. Bake them off at 350°F until lightly browned. Do not turn your back on these! They burn in a heartbeat. (If you prefer, you can substitute little phyllo tart shells for the wonton cups. They will need to be baked off before you fill them, just as the wonton cups.)

Making the Filling

  • In a 2 qt saucepan, put in shrimp and cover with water. Bring to a boil and add crab boil. Cook a couple of minutes until shrimp are opaque. Drain and rinse with cold water. Set aside and allow to drain.
  • In a large mixing bowl, mix together cream cheese, shredded cheese, peppers, salsa and chipotles. Mix gently. Add shrimp and fold in gently. Adjust the salsa amount to give you a thick paste (think thick icing). Fold in half the scallions and herbs, set aside the rest for garnish. Filling should be just a little saltier than you think it should be. Trust me. Refrigerate the filling at least half an hour before using.
  • The appetizer can be held until service unassembled. Just refrigerate the filling and garnishes and keep the cups at room temp.
  • When it's time for service, use the muffin tins to hold the wonton cups so they'll stay upright easier. If you use the phyllo cups, line them up on a baking sheet. Cut the corner off the plastic bag (about 3/4 of an inch up) so you can pipe the filling into the cups. Fill the cups about 3/4. Bake off at 375°F for 10 minutes or until lightly browned and hot. Garnish with reserved scallions and parsley and serve immediately.

Notes

These appetizers WILL NOT HOLD. They get soggy. So assemble and cook immediately prior to service.  They will not be around long enough to get soggy once they are served, they are a big hit at parties. 
This recipe will make from 40 - 50 pieces, it just depends on how you fill. This is enough for about a dozen people. If you're having a big party, you'll need to double this recipe. Count on 4 per person. They are THAT popular! 
Photo credit: Holly Clegg via myrecipes.com 
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Spicy Clam and Sausage Soup

clam_sausage_soup
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Angela's Spicy Clam and Sausage Soup

This is an old recipe of mine that is a go-to for me. Sometimes I use andouille sausage for a really spicy dish! I've tweaked it over the years. I'm converting this in Nov 2019, the original recipe was posted in 2007, so I can promise you, this is a really great soup!
Course Soup
Cuisine Italian, Mexican, Spanish
Keyword andouille, chorizo, clam and sausage soup, italian clam and sausage soup, italian sausage, spicy clam and sausage soup
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Servings 6
Author misangela

Equipment

  • 6-8 Qt stock pot

Ingredients

  • 3 stalks celery ½ in slices
  • 2 carrots thinly sliced
  • 1 med white onion ¼ inch dice
  • 1 leek thinly sliced white only [OPTIONAL but recommended]
  • 5 cloves garlic minced; use more if you like
  • 1 pint cremini mushrooms small container, sliced
  • 1 pound Italian Sausage Sweet or Spicy, removed from casings (OR andouille)
  • olive oil
  • 2 Tbl butter, salted
  • 2 Tbl tomato paste Use the kind in the tube
  • 2 Tbl flour for roux to thicken
  • 3 cups seafood stock (shrimp shells make great stock!) OR water with 2 bouillon cubes in a pinch
  • 1 14oz can baby clams with juice or two small cans
  • 1 14oz can san marzano tomatoes diced or crushed (or crush the whole ones)
  • ½ cup sherry sub white wine
  • ½ tsp dry thyme
  • ½ tsp dry oregano
  • 1 tsp dry basil
  • ½ tsp red pepper flakes
  • ½ cup fresh flat leaf parsley chopped
  • 1 lemon zest and juice
  • S/P to taste
  • Grated Parmesano Reggiano garnish

Instructions

  • Prep all the ingredients before you start cooking. Mise en place will greatly improve your cooking experience.
  • In a large stock pot or dutch oven over medium heat, add olive oil and butter. When butter is melted, add in celery, carrots, onions, leeks and garlic. Sweat until soft and translucent. Add in all the dried herbs.
  • Turn up heat to medium high and add mushrooms. Stir to release the water from the mushrooms and keep other veg from overcooking. When mushrooms have wilted, add in the sausage, breaking into chunks as you go. Turn down heat if things start to brown too much. When sausage has rendered its fat, add in flour and stir for one minute. (This is making a roux.) Stir in tomato paste.
  • Add stock and stir thoroughly stir up all the fond (stuck bits) from the bottom of the pot. Add in tomatoes and sherry and bring up to simmer. Simmer for about 5 minutes then add in the clams and juice. Bring back to simmer for another 5 minutes.
  • Turn off heat and add the chopped parsley. Add fresh lemon juice and zest. Check seasoning.
  • Serve with grated parmesan on top and a chunk of crusty bread.

Notes

There are many ingredients to this soup, but it is really worth it. I sometimes substitute andouille or chorizo for the Italian sausage. If you use one of these other sausages, substitute cilantro for all the basil and oregano,  use fresh cilantro instead of parsley and use queso fresco or grated manchego for garnish to drive home the flavour profile.
You can't go wrong serving crusty bread with this soup!