Pesto shrimp with sweet pepppers, okra 'bhindhi', Spicy mango spinach salad

Everybody at the dinner table tonight insisted that I blog this dinner up, despite the fact that I didn’t photograph it all, as it was totally lip smacking good.

Okay. Okay.

I saw the large fresh shrimp at the fishmonger today and couldn’t pass them up. At the same time, I grabbed a container of the fresh pesto from the fresh pasta chiller, and the peppers to do a sort of mediterranean treatment. Here goes. Oh, and remember that I mostly shop at Whole Foods for the more exotic stuff, so if you can’t find an ingredient, that’s probably where it came from - noted with an asterisk*

Pesto shrimp with sweet peppers

You’ll need:

1 lb of fresh, large shelled and deveined raw shrimp

4 - 5 anchovy filets with their oil

1/2 cup of fresh basil pesto*

1/2 each small red, yellow, orange and green sweet peppers

1 tablespoon minced garlic

1/2 small red onion, frenched

3-4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1/4 cup vodka

salt

pepper

italian seasoning

Take 3-4 tablespoons of the pesto and use that to marinate the shrimp, for about one hour prior to cooking in the fridge. Heat your skillet over medium high, add the oil and swirl to coat. Saute the peppers and onions till almost tender.

Add the garlic and stir to combine.

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New Zealand 'Green Lipped' Mussels Gumbo

The grocery shopping expedition yielded some excellent, fresh okra and some wonderful, fresh New Zealand ‘green lipped’ mussels - which we like in a seafood broth with sausage and some vegetables. It’s a great thing to dunk artisan bread into.

Besides being fast, easy and healthy, it’s also fairly light on the budget and waistline. The mussels were $5.99 a pound and with the vegetables and sausage (another couple bucks for fresh, in-house made Marquez lamb sausage ) it’s not too expensive considering we fed three adults. Nobody went hungry.

It’s a simple matter of prepping the vegetables

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Shrimp, scallop and okra gumbo

This really is dinner in a flash - and it’s totally healthy, too. Did I need to tell you that it’s also really good? Oh, come on now. You’re reading my blog. You should already take that as a given.

If you read the previous post about buying okra - gumbo in the language of Natacha’s West Africa - then you should know that I was going to cook it tonight.

Since I had frozen shrimp and scallops in the freezer, that was a no brainer. Bake a couple sweet potatoes to go with it - and some FuFu (cassava paste) if you’re of the total West African persuasion, and dinner is served.

We’re light eaters around here, or I would have made a big salad to go with it.

Most everything West African seems to start out in a marinade of minced onion, garlic, ginger, Bay seasoning and cooking oil. And, that’s the way I marinated the shrimp and scallops, with the pierced habenero chile.

While that’s marinating, I assembled the other ingredients as my dutch oven pot was heating.

The other ingredients are the okra, which I sliced after removing the tips and tails, chopped onion, chopped red bell pepper, bacon and a can of diced tomatoes.

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Is okra really that weird?

Before I could dive into the okra bin at Whole Foods the other night, a woman and her husband slide in front of me - she’s dragging the produce guy with her. They just couldn’t figure out okra apparently, and the produce guy was equally clueless.

I wasn’t trying to be rude, but needed to grab a couple handfuls of the stuff and get on with my other shopping - so that’s how I entered the conversation.

“Ooooooh, is THAT okra?” she asks me, pointing like the okra was a weeping Jesus picture on a grilled cheese.

“What’s it like?” her idiot husband gushed.

I tried to give her the ClifNotes version - with the disclaimer that okra can be an acquired taste… you know, the snotty part.

I don’t think either of these oh,so fashionable nimrods had ever cooked anything more challenging than Lean Cuisine, and the bottom line for their interest in okra was the fact that Dr. Oz - whoever the hell he is ( actually, I know - and don’t care) - says that it’s the latest superfood. So, they were gonna eat it or else.

I wish Whole Foods could just taser people like this before they get in there and ruin it for the rest of us.

Anyway, I got my okra and split.

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