The See Food Diet
May 21st, 2008 by Marilyn
Lately I find myself struggling with a certain aspect of this food blog thing – the recipes. Now I love cooking, and it goes without question that I love eating. I could talk about it all day.
Look at it all day.
How about eating seafood all day?
At one restaurant job, I dipped peanut butter truffles for chocolate-peanut butter tortes every day. My favorite server would burst in the kitchen at truffle time and fly toward me with open hands, yelling “I’m on the SEAFOOD diet! I SEE food, I gotta EAT it!” I would double over laughing every time, and the staff could not believe what a total dork the baker was, every time.
I’m on the see food diet, too – I want it, want to sear it and sauce it and talk about it in my sleep. But cooking it and putting it on paper are different matters. You know, baking is science – and when you get the science down, you move on to art. Cooking is technique, and when you get the technique down, you can do whatever you want. And when I am doing whatever I want there are no recipes. No recipes works fine in real life but not so much on a blog, where one likes to see recipes now and again.
With that in mind I give you a favorite, embarrassingly simple pre-summer dinner. I whistled a happy tune in the kitchen knowing this dish gave great color, great taste, and when blogged, would need no recipe.
We Midwesterners do love to put on red-checked bibs and squeeze lemons and pretend we’re by the shore – and here I’ve thrown in a little local corn to sweeten the pot. Potatoes, sausage, seafood, steamed. Not groundbreaking but oh-so-good. It is a meal with no ounces or cups, and very few words. 
Easiest Shrimp Boil Ever
I wasn’t kidding about that no-recipe thing! Choose the right amounts for your crowd and enjoy.
small new potatoes, halved
fresh sweet corn, cut into sections
kielbasa, fully cooked and cut into chunks
large shrimp, shell-on
one bag Zatarain Shrimp & Crab boil
one bottle of beer (optional)
Bring a large stockpot full of water to a boil. Add the beer and Shrimp & Crab Boil seasoning bag, then add new potatoes and cook until almost soft and nearly done. Add kielbasa, then corn and shrimp. Lower heat and cover until corn is tender and shrimp are cooked through to pink. Drain entire pot, remove seasoning bag, and serve.
back at the old new house (as oppose to our new old house) we made low country boil every sunday night and we’d throw crab legs in there at the last minute. YUM! we need to start doing it again–too bad we don’t have a dishwasher (oh, how i miss thee!).
Most of my dishes are stand by recipes, so basically I know them, or sorta know them, or know what taste good in them, or know what I think may taste good in them. A dabble of this, a sprinkle of this, a… I think I will try this, this time.
I’m hungry. I just felt you should know.
In the kitchen today cooking for the out-of-towners! Make do with the shrimp & sausage. I’ll be back later with limeade and rugelach.
I’d eat this, but the rest of my family would run from the room… leaving more for ME!!
I made this tonight for dinner. It was my first time to prepare a shrimp boil (have eaten it many times though). It was SUPER easy and SUPER delicious. Thanks for the non recipe!