Thursday, January 5, 2012

Seafood Newburg: How to make boring flour, milk, and frozen seafood taste fantastic!

     Despite what my toothpick of a sister claims, my husband and I have other hobbies besides eating. One of them is Geocaching. We have been so busy with working several jobs and making our new house a home that we have not really been able to get out onto the road and trails until recently. We also have discovered a new game similar to Geocaching called Munzee. After work my husband and I have been meeting up to Geocache, Munzee,  get some fresh air, and exercise before heading home to raid the fridge and feast. Now that we are back to being more involved with our other hobbies, I don't always feel like making a big gourmet meal. Ok, that is a lie. I still can't wait to go home and cook but I want easy. When I think of easy meals though, another word pops in my head: boring.

     Tonight my husband wanted seafood over pasta. I wanted rice. I thought of shrimp scampi because it's quick and calls for less ingredients but to me that's boring. I spent the afternoon outside freezin my big tooshie off so I want a hearty meal to thaw out my rummy little bones. I decided on Seafood Newburg. I do not know why because I was not sure what it was and I do believe I have never eaten it before. I Googled it and came across several recipes. Cooks.com had an easy recipe I could readjust to my liking. I followed the recipe base: milk, flour, butter. I measured the ingredients then carelessly tossed my measuring cup into the sink and decided to do the rest on my own. I don't trust measurements. I trust my taste buds. I add stuff in and taste it until I say "That's good!"


    I added the sherry, worcester, salt, and pepper but not the ketchup. To be honest with you, I hate ketchup. It looks and smells nasty and I still have nightmares of my brothers feverishly dumping loads of the stuff on their eggs. Red on yellow is a hideous color combination. Look at Ronald McDonald for Christ's sake! Getting back on track, I was not going to ruin dinner with the K word so I used some leftover jarred vodka sauce instead. When I adjusted the flavor to my approval, I threw in some shrimp and scallops I defrosted earlier. I usually keep artificial crab meat on hand for last minute dishes such as this one but I did not have any today, to my dismay. I had to add a little more worcester and sherry so it wouldn't taste like seafood and bland roux. I quickly chopped up some fresh zucchini and onion and sauteed them in  a little olive oil and white wine with a dash of lemon pepper.  I added frozen peas for a super fast and yummy vegetable medley. Since I had to open a bottle of white wine for my veggies, I had to drink some too! Barefoot Pinot Grigio goes great with seafood. I served the Seafood Newburg over rice and in ten minutes my husband's plate was clean and gave me an outstanding 9.9!! He said it tasted like seafood bisque over rice and then admitted the vegetables rocked as well!  Not too bad for plain ole milk, flour, butter, and frozen blocks of shellfish in 30 minutes!

1 comment:

  1. most excellent review !
    I am glad I don't have to do the eating AND writing.

    Kudos, to both.

    ReplyDelete