Creole Shrimp and “Rice”

Posted on by Sam Boyd

This is quite the uncomplicated recipe, but it ends up being awesome due to a simple trick of resting it.

Ingredients

  1. 20 ounces of raw and peeled jumbo shrimp
  2. 1 medium green pepper chopped
  3. 1 medium onion chopped
  4. 3 8″ stalks of celery chopped
  5. 1 tablespoon of coconut oil
  6. 2 tablespoons dried lemon peel
  7. 1 large cauliflower, riced
  8. 2 tablespoons salt, yes it seems like a lot, but wait for it
  9. 2 tablespoons minced garlic
  10. 1 tablespoon “Penzey’s Cajun” spice mix.  (Now, we use pretty much only stuff from Penzey’s, but I assume that any Cajun spice would work for this.  You can get this particular spice here.  It’s delightful.  We do not receive any compensation for hawking their stuff by the way.)

Recipe

  1. Take the onion, pepper, and celery and put in a skillet with the salt and oil.  Sweat this on medium heat until the onions are translucent, should take about 10 minutes or so.  (This is why you are using so much salt, when you cook salt without water, the lack of alkilinity in the mixture causes the salt to break down into its component minerals, thus seems less salty.)
  2. Add the lemon peel and garlic at this point and turn to medium high heat.
  3. Add the shrimp and remaining spices.  Give a couple of good tosses to coat it all and cover for about 2 minutes.  Repeat this process until the stuff is all cooked through, mainly the shrimp.
  4. Remove all of this from the pan and put into a bowl or dish and cover with foil for about 15 minutes.  Everything should come down to room temperature.  This is a good secret in a lot of shrimp cooking.  It will finish cooking and not be rubbery.
  5. While that is happening, take the entire riced cauliflower and put in the same skillet (hope you used a big enough one, if not you have an extra pan to wash, huh.) Increase the heat to high stirring often, the goal is to heat the cauliflower without losing the crunch and without it becoming soggy, this should not really take more than 5 or so minutes.
  6. Take of the heat and combine the shrimp mixture with the cauliflower.
  7. Now, you have two choices and they depend upon how big your dish and skillet are.  I did not mix it all together in the skillet because I had a really big bowl.  I mixed it in that.  If your skillet is big enough, you can mix it there.

We made this for a dinner for a couple of friends and it was a big hit.  The amazing thing about it is that it needs 2 tablespoons of oil and 20 ounces of shrimp and amply fed 5 people (counting myself twice).  That means that each person took in 1/2 tablespoon of oil, 4-5 ounces of shrimp, and 2-2.5 cups of veggies here.  That’s awesome.  And I do not want to hear about how it’s not “Creole” it’s Cajun blah blah blah.  There is citrus and slight caramelization on the veggies, not cajun things.  Don’t give me any crap people   🙂  Please try it out and let me know what you think of it.

Cajun Chicken with “Rice”

Posted on by Sam Boyd

Ingredients:
1. 8 drumsticks (I use drumsticks or dark meat for this recipe because it provides a stronger chicken flavor. If you are really looking to go lighter, use chicken breasts)
2. 1 head of cauliflower “riced” (this means break it into chunks and put in a food processor until about the same size as rice)
3. 1 can of diced tomatos well rinsed.
4. 3 cloves of garlic, minced.
5. 1 medium onion, minced.
6. 1 teaspoon of the following: paprika, salt, celery seed, garlic powder, black pepper, onion powder, oregano, red pepper, caraway, dill, turmeric, cumin, bay, cardamon, basil, marjoram, rosemary and thyme. (Looks like a lot, right. That’s cause it is. Use any decent cajun seasoning that has no sugar in it, that’s what I did. We use Cajun Seasoning from Penzey’s: https://www.penzeys.com/online-catalog/cajun-style-seasoning/c-24/p-351/pd-s)
7. 1 tablespoon dried cilantro
8. 3 tablespoons vegetable broth/chicken broth

Recipe:
1. Clean and wash your chicken, put the 3/4 of the rub on it generously, then put in a preheated oven at 375 degrees for about 25 minutes, or until done. Drain off the liquid into a pan, then cover with foil.
2. In the saucepan, add the tomatos to the chicken liquid, bring to a simmer, cover for 10 minutes.
3. Toss the cauliflower in the remainder of the rub and add to the pan with the vegetable broth and recover for another 10 minutes.
4. Take lid off, smell, say yummy.
5. Stir the mixture around until well mixed, then leave uncovered for abot 10 minutes on medium heat.
6. Unwrap your chicken and pour whatever liquid is left onto your “rice”.
7. Put on plate, sprinkle with cilantro, eat.
8. Say yummy again.
This recipe will make approximately 4 servings, each having 2 cups of veggies each with about 3.5-5 ounces of chicken. We ate, two, then packed the other two up for work lunches.

Black Beans and “Rice”

Posted on by Sam Boyd

Ingredients:

1.  1 cup yellow, red and orange peppers diced

2.  1 medium onion diced

3.  1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed

4.  1 cup vegetable broth

5.  1 tablespoon cumin

6.  2 teaspoons each of salt, pepper, dried basil and coriander.

7.  1 head of cauliflower “riced”.  This refers to taking a head of cauliflower and grating it so that it is the size and consistency of white rice.  Not as small as doing a cauliflower pizza crust, but close.

Recipe:

1.  Saute the onions, peppers with about 2 tablespoons of the vegetable broth.

2.  When soft, add the spices and saute for about 3 minutes, it should smell pretty awesome

3.  Add the vegetable stock and black beans. Bring to a boil.

4.  Cover with a lid and turn the heat to medium low and simmer for the amount of time it takes you to grate your cauliflower.

With the cauliflower, you can do a couple of different things.  If you want a more “al dente” feel, do not cook it, the heat from your bean mixture will make it plenty hot enough.  So just put it on a plate and pour some black bean mixture over it.  If you want a softer feel, then microwave the whole cauliflower for about 4 minutes before you grate/dice it.  Once ti cools, you will notice it is a little softer.  Choice is yours.  Picture above is the more “al dente” version.