Sunday, December 14, 2008

Rosie's Sunday.

As you can see from the following two videos, Mr. Hawthorne and I are very simple people who delight in the most mundane of activities.
I think I may need an "On Air" sign for Mr. Hawthorne.
First, I must admit, I did no Christmas baking today. Instead, I decided to use up some items in the fridge and freezer and make seafood crepes.
Let's see, on the right, I have shrimp and MyCrabMeatShe'sFaux. At bottom, crepes leftover from Julia's Gateau of Crepes I made Thanksgiving and some Brie and Swiss cheese. On the cutting block in the back, from top left and continuing semi-clockwise, I have hot pepper, fresh thyme, frozen peas,
rice and cream, red onions, red and green peppers, my nutmeg grinder, an orange, mushrooms, flour, and butter.
And just let me show you this neat little gizmo Sister Hawthorne gave me. And it works very well. Thank you again, Sister Hawthorne.
First, I sauteed my mushrooms in butter.
When they were nice and browned, I salted and peppered, and added some sherry, cooking the alcohol off. (Don't add salt to mushrooms at the beginning. The salt brings out the moisture in the shrooms and they end up steaming instead of browning.)
After the alcohol cooked off, I added a bit more butter, then the flour.
I cooked the flour for a bit to get the raw taste out, then added some cream.
My homemade cayenne pepper went in.
A few grinds of nutmeg. And for crying out loud, can't anybody make a decent nutmeg grinder? The first one I had broke due to a design flaw and my second one, seen above, is hard to use, as in non-ergonomical.
I poured in the rice next.
Lowered the heat, and added in the green and red peppers, the red onion, and the frozen peas.
I juiced the orange and added that to the mix.
Chunks of Brie cheese on the left. Grated Swiss on the right.
Cheese gets added.
Thyme goes in.
And here's MyCrabMeatShe'sFaux and my shrimp, chopped and ready.
At this point, I decided to add in some celery.
Celery gets added in.
I saved some of the celery leaves, and chopped some parsley for garnish.
Seafood gets added in and is just barely heated through.
I added in a bit of milk to thin it out some.
Taste and adjust for seasonings. Needed more salt and pepper, nutmeg, and cayenne. Now, at this point, I wanted to add in some Grand Marnier and get a bit of a flare up. However, the pan was too full and I didn't want to overcook the seafood. Soooooo, I decided to use another pan for the Grand Marnier.
Oh, at the end of this video, I thought I'd turned the camera off, but I hadn't, so you'll see a bunch of video from the camera hanging around my neck.
Once again, I need to get an "On Air" sign for Mr. Hawthorne. Or maybe a muzzle. Mr. Hawthorne can be such a Nervous Nellie. He didn't know what I was doing and all of a sudden, he heard this WHOOOSH! Turned around, and saw the 3 foot flames. I can be quite the Drama Queen in the kitchen at times.
I poured the remains of the Grand Marnier conflagration into the seafood mixture.
Then I started filling my crepes.
Covered them with more grated Swiss cheese.
Added a bit more cayenne.
Micro-planed some orange zest.
And it's ready for the broiler.
Just a quick time under the broiler to melt the cheese, then I added minced celery leaves and parsley.
My seafood crepe.
That there's some good eatin'.
Bon appetit!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh my dog! Those videos were hilarious! Sounds like home to me! And those crepes look delicious, tho I hate to tell you I'm not much of a fish eater.

Marilyn said...

Looks delicious. Do not turn on the fan when you have the flames. You could suck the flames up into the fan and duct work.

Rosie Hawthorne said...

Mar, I had the fans turned off, dear. I know all that.

No worries!

Marilyn said...

Those videos are comedy gold, I tell you.