The Great American Seafood Cook Off
If you know me, you know I’m a foodie. My husband gets to hear my recipes, ideas, and spins on traditional food. Unfortunately for me he doesn’t like seafood as much as I do. Our child, hates it. I’m not sure how I got mixed up with these two, but thankfully my father in law is from Maine so we can dish on all things sea creature related. I think we talk more about shrimp scampi than we do anything else. Sort of sad, sort of hilarious. We frequent Red Lobster and Johnny Carinos, two of the best scampi restaurants.
The thing about scampi is that it’s a simple dish to create. I’ve done a version on the grill which just makes the flavors pop. Shrimp, garlic, olive oil, and butter. If you are one of those pull the spices out of the cabinet type of people then use the garlic salt. I prefer it over powder just because I like my food salty. Throw in a little pepper. The husband hates onion as well so I’ll sometimes do the dehydrated onion flakes just to add the flavor without the texture. Do you get that I’m working with a really picky family here?
You simply add it all in a makeshift foil tent and cook. Now, my favorite way to finish this is to cook up some fettuccini and pour it over the top. Garnish it with finely diced tomatoes, green onions, and parm cheese and voila you have a very simple dish that tastes like it’s from a gourmet restaurant. You can just as easily saute this all up in a pan in the house. The nice thing is that you can portion it out for one or fifteen just as easy.
What I want to see someone do is a cajun version of scampi. I’m sure all it would take was some dredging of the shrimp in a nice cajun spice rub. The truck here might be to finish off your shrimp first in a pan and then add butter and garlic, possibly pair it with rice and give it a Creole feel. I’m not quite sure, hence the reason I want someone else to do it! What about you? Do you have a great scampi recipe? Why not enter it into the Great American Seafood Cook off and see how you stack up?
If I can find the time I may attempt to do something Cajun this weekend with shrimp and enter it into the Seafood Cook Off. I’m pretty crafty in the kitchen and I don’t get many complaints so I should go for it. I’ve always wanted to enter a cooking contest like this. I can just imagine the prestige and bragging rights that would come with a win not to mention the chance to promote home cooking with domestic seafood in a positive way. It’s something that a lot of people shy away from for several reasons.
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