1hundredsixty8

In the interlude between the gloom-saying of the Republican National Convention last week and the raucous opening of the Democratic convention, I gave my brain some time off from ruminating about politics. One of my escapes is the kitchen, where I find preparing a good meal a therapeutic experience. Since I prepare dinner in our household (which is usually just Barbara and me) most evenings, I work at injecting variety into my cooking, trying new ingredients and new approaches. Recently, I have been using quinoa as a replacement for the variety of rices we usually enjoy- Jasmine, Arborio, brown. Quinoa is a far better nutrient than rice & offers new possibilities. Which leads me to...

The next part. We have spent the last five winters in Cape Coral, FL, on the Gulf coast, where seafood is abundant and appears on the menus of most restaurants. A popular Southern dish is shrimp and grits, a simple meal that lends itself to many variations. One that got my attention is “Ralph’s ‘Killer’ ShrimpNGrits”, a staple of the menu at Cork Soakers, a Cape Coral wine bar-restaurant. Their iteration uses polenta rather than grits, tops it with sauteed shrimp and bathes it in a spicy, tomato-based sauce.

Creating a similar dish has been on my mind for a while. The trigger was the quinoa- it occurred to me to replace the grits with the grain (yes, I know, quinoa is technically not a grain). In this sense, the dish I ended up with was more like shrimp and rice, but the Cork Soaker recipe was my inspiration. What I did was make a tomatillo sauce to mix into the cooked quinoa, topping it with shrimp sauteed in lemon and butter.

Tomatillo sauce: Blanch three or four tomatillos for 2 minutes. Let them cool, then cut them into chunks. Put these into a blender along with a few tablespoons of olive oil, the juice of one lime, two cloves of garlic, half-cup of chopped cilantro leaves, salt and pepper. Blend this into a smooth sauce and fold into the cooked quinoa.

This was my first try. I may do a variation using a lemon-butter sauce and grated parmesan. I may try adding green chile to the tomatillo recipe. (If you live in New Mexico, as we do part of the year, you know about green chile.) Perhaps a pesto sauce.

Next idea; Using quinoa for stuffed peppers… Or stuffed tomatoes. Maybe stuffed mushrooms...