A Jeanne in the Kitchen

If somethings has shrimp in the name, it’s a given I am going to like it. This is also pretty true for any most kinds of Italian food too. Preparing shrimp in an Italian way, well, that is definitely going to be a winner, no doubt about that. 🙂

I made Tuscan styled shrimp, or at least that’s what I am calling it, and it was oh so good. I loaded it up with spinach, artichoke hearts, garlic, onions, tomatoes, mushrooms and of course lots of huge jumbo shrimp. Shrimp and seafood are not traditionally part of the Tuscan diet, as Tuscany is landlocked and plunged in the center of rolling hills, but today, anything goes. Traditional Tuscan food is more centered around meats, cheeses, wild game, and of course fresh vegetables and bread; all the foods that come from the land.

Tuscan styled foods are simple foods made in a light sauce, usually made with olive oil and/or broths. They are made using fresh, high-quality ingredients that bring out the natural flavors in each dish. They are made with fresh aromatic herbs and peppers, garlic, onions, tomatoes, lemons, legumes, just to name a few. All the foods I love. I cook this way all the time. Sometimes, they are referred to as “poor man’s food or cucina povera“. I must really like poor man’s food a lot, because, no matter what style I am cooking in, these are the dishes I tend to gravitate to the most.

Cucina povera became the way to cook in order to survive when Tuscany was a poor, rural area. With access to limited ingredients, Tuscans got creative in the kitchen to make the most of what they had by embracing a no-waste philosophy. The magic of cucina povera lies in the frugal Italian cook’s ability to transform humble ingredients from the Tuscan countryside into simple, flavor-packed dishes.

Tuscan Styled Shrimp

1 1/2-2 lbs large shrimp or prawns, peeled and deveined

4 cups baby spinach, stems removed

2 large tomatoes, diced

1-2 cups sliced mushrooms

1 can artichoke hearts, drained and cut in half

1 onion, diced

1-2 TBSP garlic

salt & pepper to taste

red pepper flakes to taste

1 TBSP capers

2-3 TBSP olive oil

2 TBSP lemon olive oil, optional

2 TBSP lemon balsamic vinegar, optional

1 cup dry white wine

1-2 cups chicken or vegetable broth

1-2 tsp basil

1-2 tsp oregano

1-2 tsp marjoram

Get a large skillet very hot, then add the olive oil and lemon olive oil, if using. Add the shrimp and cook until completely pink, about 2-3 minutes per side. Remove and set aside.

Saute the onions and garlic for about 2 minutes, then add the spinach and mushrooms. Cook for an additional 5-7 minutes, stirring frequently.

Add the wine and cook down for about 1-2 minutes, or until most of the liquid has evaporated. Then add the tomatoes, capers, chicken broth and seasonings.

Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and continue to cook for about 7-10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the artichoke hearts and re-add the shrimp at about the last 2 minutes of cooking.

Drizzle more lemon olive oil or lemon juice on top and mix in, then serve over cooked pasta or cooked cannellini beans. This is a light sauce, so a lighter pasta is perfect. I used angel hair pasta. You do not want a heavy pasta. The delicate flavors of the sauce will get lost on it. Top it with some fresh Mozzarella or Parmigiano, serve it with some warmed bread and chilled wine, and dinner is done. !Buon Appetito!

You can also use this same sauce for chicken too.

Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.

I can’t believe it. It is so late in the duckling season, but I still have baby ducklings. I’ve heard that ducks can lay 2 sets of eggs during a season, but I have never heard of 3 sets. Sure enough though, I was very pleasantly surprised to see more baby ducklings. There was a momma with her 2 new babies, just swimming along the lakeshore, having a good time. So this means, I currently have ducklings in all stages of “babyhood” right now, all at the same time. How cool is that? 🙂

These ducklings were earlier in the season.

They have all grown up to be teenagers, and now they look like this.

This has definitely been a season full of surprises, that’s for sure, and I love all these wonderful surprises too. Keep them coming. 🙂

It’s been a lemony blueberry kind of summer. I have made lots of goodies using this delicious pairing, and most likely, there will be more yet to come. Like chocolate and peanut butter, lemon and blueberry are two great tastes that taste great together. They bring out the best in each other.

I was planning on making something different for my coffee cart, but I still had blueberries that I needed to use, so a lemon blueberry upside down streusel cake it was. Yet again, it was a big hit. This week’s coffee cart did have a few leftovers on it though, but I attribute that to the fact that we had two baptisms yesterday, and we offered a wide array of ice cream treats following the baptisms, allowing everyone a chance to celebrate the occasions with something cool to help beat the heat. 🙂

I call this cake an upside down streusel cake because the streusel “topping” was actually on the bottom of the cake this time.

Lemon Blueberry Upside Down Streusel Poundcake

Had I made this cake in a 9×13 baking pan, the streusel would have been on top, but I chose to make into a bundt cake this time. I wasn’t thinking about the streusel topping when I added it to the cake before baking it. But of course, I had to flip the cake onto my serving platter and the topping was now on the bottom. Oh well. These things do happen. As my mentor, the one and only Julia Child would say, ” never apologize when cooking. Act as if the results were the intended results all along”. How can I argue with logic like that, right?! 🙂

Preheat the oven to 350* F or 190* C.

Spray your pan with cooking spray. If you want the streusel on the bottom, use a bundt cake pan. If you want the streusel on top, use a 9×13 baking pan.

The Streusel

3/4 cup flour

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

4 TBSP cold butter, cubed

Mix everything together until it all resembles coarse sand and set aside.

The Cake

2 1/4 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups sugar

3/4 or 1 1/2 sticks softened butter

3 large eggs

1 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp lemon extract

1 cup blueberries, or mixed berries, lightly coated in flour

Coat the berries in flour and toss gently. i actually had a few balckberries and raspberries included as well.

Combine all the dry ingredients together and set aside.

Mix the butter and sugar together until creamy, then add the eggs, 1 at a time, mixing in between. Add the vanilla and lemon extract and mix again. Add 1/2 of the flour, mix, then 1/2 of the milk, mix, and repeat until it is all incorporated into the batter. Do not overmix.

Fold in the berries carefully.

If you are using a 9×13 baking pan, pour the batter into the pan and spread evenly. Add the streusel on top. If you are using a bundt pan, add 1/2 of the batter and spread evenly into the pan, add 1/2 of the streusel, then repeat, finishing with the streusel on top, which will be the bottom later.

Bake for about an hour or until the cake is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool completely before removing from the pan and slicing it to share with friends.

According to legend, though I think it was taken out of context, Marie Antoinette said “let them eat cake”. I think you should eat cake too.

Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay cool, stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.

Today, while Larry and I were sitting out on our deck, enjoying lunch, I spotted this beautiful Ferruginous Hawk way up high in a distant tree. At first I thought it was a Golden Eagle, but once I got my camera out and was able to zoom in on him, I saw he was not an eagle at all. The name Ferruginous means rust-colored, and they are very much like little eagles, so I wasn’t completely wrong at first. I only got a couple of good shots of him because he was so far away, and my camera didn’t want to focus in on him. It kept focusing in on things I could care less about instead. I really wish I could have gotten more pictures of him, but there is always next time. I love the hawks. I think he is absolutely gorgeous.

Life is full of surprises. You just never know what you’ll see, or when, or where. Keep your eyes open and be ready for the unexpected. Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay cool, stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.

Americans LOVE their chocolate. No doubt about it. In fact, the average American consumes about 9.5 lbs of chocolate every year. It is estimated that Americans will consume the equivalent of about 10,000 chocolate bars over the course of their life. WOW! We are second to the Swiss, who eat about 11.8 lbs per year, but we’re quickly catching up.

We also love our cookies. Nearly 93% of American households serve cookies, and most of the cookies served are chocolate chip, or some other chocolate variety. Cookies came to America through the Dutch in New Amsterdam in the late 1620s. The Dutch word “koekje” was Anglicized to “cookie” or cooky. The earliest reference to cookies in America is in 1703. So they have been around longer than America as a country has been. We love our cookies for a lot of reasons, but mainly because they are good comfort food, that often remind us of happy childhood memories and fun times, that, and … they taste good. The cookie possibilities are endless, and they come in so many shapes, sizes and varieties. Cookies have always been my favorite dessert, and most probably always will be. Mrs. Nash, my second mom while growing up, made cookies everyday, and everyday when Kathy and I were playing or after school, we always had a wide variety of delicious cookies as a snack. The house always smelled so good too. 🙂

When you combine chocolate and cookies together, well that is just a little bit of Heaven in every bite. How could you go wrong???? With it still being July, America’s birthday month, I decided to make some patriotic cookies to celebrate.

These are just chocolate cookies with red, white and blue M & M’s, but they are still fun and still taste very good. I used the same recipe for the chocolate peanut butter chip cookies, and just substituted the M & M’s instead. I also just place them on top so they would really pop rather than incorporating them into the mix.

Chocolate M & M Cookies

2 1/2 cups flour

3/4 cup cocoa powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/4 cups softened butter or 2 1/2 sticks

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp chocolate extract

1 10-oz package of M & M’s

Preheat the oven to 350* F or 190* C.

Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

Combine all the dry ingredients together and set aside.

Mix the butter and sugar together until creamy. Add the eggs 1 at a time, mixing in between. Add the vanilla and chocolate extract and mix again. You do not have to add the chocolate extract, however, it really makes the flavors pop. If you don’t use chocolate extract, use 2 tsp of vanilla instead. Add the flour 1/2 at a time, mixing in between until everything is blended together.

You can either fold in the M& M’s at this time, or leave them for the end and just place on top of the cookies.

Drop about 1 TBSP of cookie dough onto the prepared pans, roll into a ball, and lightly press to slightly flatten them if you like. Bake for about 10-12 minutes or until the cookies are set. Allow the cookies to cool for about 5-10 minutes on the pan before transferring them to a baking rack to finish cooling.

Share with friends and savor the flavors.

In my book, there is nothing better than fresh, homemade cookies. YUMMY!!!!!

Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay cool, stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.

I thought I was going out early enough to avoid the heat. WRONG! It was still very hot. At first I didn’t see much at all, but I just had to look more closely. There was lots to see, even somethings I didn’t want to see, like a big bull snake slithering along the sidewalk, or another snakeskin in the grass or the dead goose on the rocks. But there were lots more things I enjoyed seeing, which made it a good walk indeed.

One of my neighbors always has such a beautiful garden, and she had moths, bees and a beetle or two in her garden that captured my attention.

Up the road, and on another lake, one of my other neighbors, who also always has a gorgeous garden, had a curious dragonfly perched on a stalk that was posing for me as well.

It was a good day, despite the snake. Despite the things we like, there are always more things we do like. Focus on the good things in life and make everyday a great day.

As you know, I like to give you all a bit of variety, to spice things up. So today, I thought I would share more food thoughts with you. Here are some quotes and quips that the pros are saying about why we cook. We get into cooking for the love of creating and sharing with others. Cooking for others is an act of love and it comes from the heart.

This so very true. You can read a recipe, and cook it, but you must always add that special ingredient called love to really bring it to life. 🙂

Inspiration comes from the produce, beautiful vegetables, delicious herbs, an amazing piece of fish, incredible meats. – Chef Aaron Bludorn

Also very true. I am inspired by seeing beautiful foods. The foods themselves are my muse. What I cook and prepare is from their inspiration to me.

Yes, yes, and yes!!!!!

Cooking for someone is a form of love for them. They are sharing their best for you.

Well said. It sure is.

Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay safe and stay well, and happy cooking. ‘Til next time.

I love sunflowers. They seem to be such happy flowers, always facing the direction of the sun. They come in many different, sizes, varieties and even colors, though most are a bright gold. They are popping up all over the place right now. Here are some different flowers of the sun that just captured my attention and looked pretty basking in the sun.

Even my own sunflowers are shining brightly. Dorrie and Juneau had to check them out too.

Have a bright, bright, sunshiny day.

I remember my niece had told me about someone she knew who would invite her over for dinner and ONLY serve an entree, with NO side dishes or anything else. That just seems so wrong and so odd to me. I do not get this concept at all. When I have people over, I do the opposite, and serve a bunch of different side dishes. I NEVER want to run out of food, though in my kitchen, that will never happen. But then again, I do love to cook, and I am Jeanne, from “A Jeanne in the Kitchen”. 🙂

Side dishes help make the meal and make it memorable. Yesterday, I shared my smoky BBQ sauce and short ribs with you. Spicy, Smoky Slow-Cooked Short Ribs Today I will give you the recipe for the broccoli and grape salad I served alongside those ribs.

Broccoli Grape and Bacon Salad

Just like with any good recipe, there are many different versions out there. As always, there are too many good recipes and not nearly enough time to try them all. My motto though, is to never stop trying. 🙂 This cool and refreshing salad is loaded with healthy nutrients that will help cool you down on those hot dog days of summer, and will tickle those taste buds as well.

1 large head of broccoli cut into florets and blanched

1 cup mixed grapes, cut in 1/2

1/2 cup toasted pecans, chopped

1/3 red onion, sliced very thin

4-5 bacon slices, cooked and crumbled

1/2 cup mayonnaise

2 TBSP apple cider vinegar

1/3 cup honey

1/4 tsp dry mustard

salt & pepper to taste

dash cayenne pepper – a dash is usually about 1/8 tsp

Cut the broccoli into small florets, and blanche them for about 5 minutes in boiling water. Drain and rinse in ice cold water immediately after, to stop the cooking process.

Once the broccoli is ready, toss it together with the grapes, bacon, pecans and red onions.

Combine the mayonnaise, seasonings, honey and apple cider vinegar, then use just what you need in the vegetable mixture. You don’t want to use too much or else the vegetables will be swimming in dressing.

Toss everything together and either serve right away or cover and refrigerate until you are ready to enjoy it with the meal.

You can vary this recipe by substituting cherries for the grapes, and/or using dried cranberries too. As I always say, don’t be afraid to play with your food. Have fun, be creative and see what happens.

Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay cool, stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.

I have to admit, I haven’t been out walking much lately due to the heat. In the early days of summer, it was very cool and even very rainy and wet. I loved the cooler weather. Once we got back from Hays, KS to pick up Dorrie, however, the weather made a very dramatic HOT, HOT, HOT change. Ever since our return home, the temperatures have been in the very high 90’s, almost 100*F, almost everyday. It gets super hot super early. Fortunately, I have tons of pictures I can share.

Here are some pictures of more squirrels, out playing and having fun.

Have a squirrely kind of day and have fun . 🙂