Just Something I Threw Together: Fiesta Shrimp Salad

There is nothing like a big healthy salad! Now a days, there are so many choices

of salads to buy and make, you would have enough salad for life. Many

fast food chains (McDonalds) and modified quick serve ( Panera) offer salad

as a main meal. The salads can range from a modest 390 calories to a whopping 650 calories ( Panera's  Chicken Cobb Salad) Now, the salad itself without dressing has 430 calories. Not bad. But, pretty much everyone I know likes dressing on their salad! I, myself, am rather conservative with the amount of salad dressing I put on my salad.   

 

Panera's Chicken Cobb Salad clocks in at 650 calories! Don't let the healthy

appearance fool you. Courtesy of (Panerabread.com)

Premium Chicken Bacon Ranch Salad has 390 calories, and that's without dressing. Still this salad is under 600 calories, which is good for a main meal.

I like making my own salads because I know exactly what goes in them. If I really wanted to I could figure out the nutrition facts for my salad. This recipe doesn't have exact measurements, I just added as much as I thought was necessary to get a bite of everything. Who wouldn't want layers of crispy lettuce, creamy avocado, lime infused shrimp, corn, and flavorful black beans?! In addition I made a lime vinaigrette using lime juice, oil, and some spices. The recipe I found for this said to use 1/4 cup of dressing, I found that to be too much. In fact, I would probably skip the dressing and just squirt some fresh lime juice on!

 Ingredients:

1 small box/bag of mixed greens

1 small bag of frozen shrimp (fresh is good too)

1 can of Green Giant Fiesta Corn ( corn with red peppers)

1 avocado, diced

3/4-1 can black beans, drained and seasoned

1 1/2 cup cherry tomatoes, halved

2-3 tbsp butter

3-4 tbsp lime juice

salt

1 teaspoon cumin

1/2 tsp red pepper

Steps: Have avocado diced, shrimp defrosted (if frozen) and tomatoes halved.MICE EN PLACE!

1. Heat a large, non-stick skillet over medium heat. Add butter, lime juice, cumin, red pepper to the pan. 

Add frozen shrimp.

2. Cook until sauce has evaporated a bit and shrimp is tender, about 10 mins.

3. Assemble salad in the following order:

lettuce

shrimp

corn 

avocado

tomatoes 

beans

4. Squirt with additional lime juice.

5. Toss salad

6. DEVOUR

 Serving Size: 2-3 large entree salads

New Year's Eve Dessert ( for the win): Churro Cupcakes

Adapted from: Lady Behind The Curtain

This years New Year's Eve was one of the best NYE celebrations to date. I celebrated

with the love of my life and his mother. Obviously that is not many people, but it was amazing quality time with both of them. We were supposed to be with my boyfriends family members, but they cancelled and celebrated at a home much farther away. I didn't know that before I made the cupcakes so I made exactly 14 cupcakes because including me that's how many people would be there. I made these after coming home from work and I am proud of how they turned out. I dug out my piping bag and went to work. These were pretty simple to make ( even after 8:00) and scrumptious! The addition of cake flour and buttermilk ( my secret) makes them even better. The cake is slightly sweet and very tender. The cinnamon sugar topping makes a nice contrast with the cake and cream cheese icing. I did not use the cream cheese icing recipe because I did not feel like washing extra dishes at night (lazy me). Canned is fine if you are dolloping on a little bit as I did. As a last note, I made half of this recipe, but I will give the full amounts ,which makes 28 cupcakes.

      Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups cake flour

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

    1/2 tsp salt

  1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

2 sticks unsalted butter ( at room temp)

1 3/4 cup sugar

4 large eggs ( at room temp)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

* milk ( 1 cup buttermilk , 1/4 cup regular milk)

Cinnamon Topping

4 tablespoon melted butter

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon.

Steps: Have your eggs and butter at room temp. Have flours and other dry ingredients measured! 

MICE EN PLACE.

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Whisk both flours,baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a bowl.

3.Cream butter and sugar until fluffy.

3. Add eggs in one at a time. Scrape the bowl as needed with a rubber scraper.

4.Add flour mixture in 3 batches, alternating with the milk.

5.Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full until all the batter is used.

6. Bake for 20 minutes until cake is set.

7. Cool cupcakes ( I cooled them on the window sill) ;)

8. Brush with melted butter and dip each cupcake in the cinnamon sugar mix.

9. Pipe out small dollops of frosting with a piping bag.

These are some of the BEST  cupcakes I've ever had. They surpass Crumbs and other bakeries.