Chili-Lime Chicken and Sausage

In a previous post I told you about Pinterest and how much I love it. Well, I found a recipe for shrimp "boil" kabobs and I decided to adapt it.  It was too hot to grill, and I had chicken instead of shrimp... so here's what happened!

I cut up one package of Eckridge Sausage and one pound of chicken breasts into 1-1/2 in. pieces.  I put them in a bowl and tossed them with:

1 tbs. Pampered Chef Chili Lime Rub

1 tbs. Extra Virgin Olive Oil

The juice from 2 limes

Then I put them in a skillet {sprayed with Pam} over medium heat.

While they started cooking, I chopped up half an onion {if you like onion, you could use the whole thing}.  Once the chicken was almost cooked {after about 7-10 minutes} I added the onion to the pan.

Meanwhile, I had a few ears of corn boiling.  Once the corn was cooked, and the chicken+sausage+onion was done {5-7 minutes after adding the onion}, I added the corn to the skillet, turned the heat to low, and covered the pan.  This lets the flavor of the sausage, etc. mix with the corn.

 While this marinated {10 minutes, stir after 5 minutes}, I sauteed some zucchini in olive oil and the chili lime rub {cook over medium heat, about 3-4 minutes per side}.

Kenny said this was the best new recipe yet ;) I think he just likes it 'cause it's different. Anyway, I liked it and I hope you do too!

Fried Shrimp

For some reason I have been craving shrimp. Maybe it's because it's so hot that all I can think about is getting away to a beach somewhere. Who knows. But I decided to make some fried shrimp.  There is a recipe on the Kikkoman's Panko Bread Crumbs box. I added a little extra flavor, and they turned out very crunchy and very yummy!

Kikkoman's Crunchy Fried Shrimp

3 large eggs

1/3 cup all purpose flour

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

{1/2 tsp chili powder}

1 pound jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined, leave tails on *very important

1-1/2 cups Kikkoman Panko Bread Crumbs

Vegetable Oil for frying

If you have the Pampered Chef Coating Trays use them to dredge the shrimp {4-5 at a time} in the flour, salt, pepper, and chili powder (all mixed together), then in the eggs, and then coat in the Panko Crumbs.

 If you're lucky you will have a cute 3 year old to help you.

Pour enough oil into a large pot or deep pan so that you have about 2 inches of oil.  Heat the oil to 350* {I used the "medium-high" setting on my stovetop}.  Fry the shrimp in small batches until they are cooked through.  Mine took about 3-4 minutes to get golden brown, but the recipe says 1 minute. So I would suggest watching your shrimp.

Remove and drain shrimp on a paper towel.

I served mine with steamed rice and soy sauce.  Next time I think I will make fried rice :) These are very good!

New Obsession, New Meals

I have been obsessed with Pinterest lately! It's an amazing place that captures all of the fun things you find online and keeps them for you in an organized way. It's wonderful.

Thanks to Pinterest, we have had some yummy new-to-us dinners lately.  I hate that "dinner slump" where you get sick of making and eating the same stuff over and over.  Now I have a few new recipes to add to the rotation.  I liked a few of them so much I thought I'd share {the pictures are not mine, they are way better than I could do... they came from the site of the original recipe}!

These Ham and Cheese Sliders from The Girl Who Ate Everything were delish! I served them with Sweet Potato Fries {cut up a sweet potato into french fry sized pieces, toss in 2 tbs. extra virgin olive oil, season with salt and pepper to taste, bake at 400 degrees until desired crispiness}.  One thing I altered about the recipe- I omitted the mayo and miracle whip. I'm not a mayo fan. I'm not a fan of anything that even resembles mayo. It grosses me out. But these Sliders didn't need it anyway- they were so good! I've had them twice already.

Kenny's favorite new recipe is from Our Best Bites.  Their Baked Chicken Penne was pretty good. I didn't bake it, so technically I didn't follow the recipe all the way through. We just used the cheese sauce like any other sauce and it worked fine.

This Lemon Rosemary chicken from Sparkling Ink was yummy! It was perfect for summer- very light and fresh! I actually followed this recipe as written :)  I served this with Paula Deen's Cheese Biscuits and they were delish too!!

The last "new" meal we have had was the Honey Chicken from Blog Chef.  If you like Pei Wei's Honey Seared Chicken, you'll love this!! It is so good! I would recommend adding bell peppers and onions {like they do at Pei Wei} and serve it over steamed of fried rice. Yum!

I have a feeling that this is the first of many posts inspired by Pinterest :)

Enjoy!