Bacon Wrapped Crab Stuffed Shrimp with Lemon Cream Sauce

Stuff You'll Need:

For the Shrimp:

1 lb Crab Meat

1/2 tube thingie of Ritz Crackers, crumbled

3 scallions, finely chopped

1/2 Red Bell Pepper, finely chopped

1/4 Cup Mayonnaise

1 Egg, beaten

1 Teaspoon Worchestsershire Sauce

1 Teaspoon Garlic Powder

1 Teaspoon Dry Mustard

1/4 Teaspoon Garlic Powder

Salt

16 Large Shrimp, peeled. When I say large, get 'em as big as you can find 'em!

16 slices of Bacon

** Note, to simplify the recipe, you can purchase pre-made crab cakes, mash 'em up and use that to stuff the shrimp. That's what I did, because I'm lazy. I've included directions to make the crab stuffing just in case you're not as lazy as I am, though.

For the sauce:

1 Tablespoon Olive Oil

2 Tablesppons Butter

1 Teaspoon Minced Onion

1 Teaspoon Minced Fresh Garlic

1/4 Cup Dry White Wine

1 Cup Heavy Cream

3 Tablespoons Pesto

1/2 Lemon, Juiced

Directions:

If you decided to make the stuffing instead of buying crab cakes, props to you! Combine the crab, crackers, scallions, pepper, mayo, egg, worchestershire sauce, mustard and garlic. Season it with however much salt and pepper you like. Now go ahead and put that aside for now.

Slice the shrimp down the backs and remove the veins. Its disgusting and gross, but it must be done. Make sure you slice deep enough. Now spoon that stuffing you set aside earlier into the shrimp. Wrap each stuffed shrimp with bacon and arrange them in a large baking dish.

Now, I'm paranoid about undercooking bacon, so I actually pre-cooked the bacon a little bit first. I cooked each strip of bacon for 30 seconds on each side first. Also, depending on how large the shrimp you got were, you might be able to get away with only using half a strip of bacon to wrap each shrimp.

Oh yeah, by the way, you were supposed to preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Since the oven is warm, throw the shrimp into the oven for 10 minutes. Flip the shrimp and cook for about 5-10 minutes more, until the shrimp are opaque.

After you've started cooking the shrimp, you can start making the Lemon Cream Sauce. Heat the oil and butter in a small skillet. Add the onions and garlic. Cook that until the mixture is nice and golden. Stir frequently. That should be about 5-7 minutes. It should smell delicious. If not, you're doing something wrong, but its too late to go back now, so... good luck. Add the wine and simmer for 5 more minutes, then add the cream. Simmer until the sauce is reduced by half. Add the lemon juice and pesto.

* More Notes: I served these over a bed of linguini and it was amazing. My roommate and I each had half a dozen shrimp over the pasta. Don't get me wrong, it was amazingly delicious, but incredibly rich. Next time I make this, I'm only going to serve 4 shrimp per person. These would also be pretty awesome served as an appetizer with the Lemon Sauce served on the side and used for dipping.

Oh, one more thing! When I first made this, I thought the sauce wouldn't be lemon-y enough using only half a lemon, so I used a whole one. Bad idea. Stick with half a lemon. Trust me.

Enjoy!

Lasagna

Stuff:

sauce:
1 cans tomato sauce
1 can tomato paste
1 can diced tomato
1/2 lb ground beef
2 dried bay leaves
handfull of fresh oregano, parsley, whatever herbs you thing would rock your tongue
1 lb spicy italian sausage (not in casing)
Some garlic, preferably fresh
1/2 white onion
some olive oil
bunch of mushrooms. I recommend portabello. I also recommend sauteeing 'shrooms in red wine. Not a must, but its nice.
sugar

pasta:
1 thingie of lasagna noodles.

Cheese:
1 lb shredded mozzerella
large container of ricotta cheese, I don't remember the size. I always think I buy the wrong one, but it always ends up working out
1 egg
more fresh parsley, if you've got it

What to do with the stuff:

sauce: finely chop the herbs. chop the onion relatively fine. chop the shrooms. chop the garlic. Unload the contents of all the cans into a large pot and mix that shit up nice and good. Turn the burner on low, just because. If you're going to sautee the shrooms in the wine, do that now. Put all the chopped shrooms into a pan with a wee bit of olive oil. Then pour in enough red wine to cover the bottom of the pan. Then pour in a little more. Then pour yourself a glass, cooking should be fun! Cook the shroom until about 2/3 of the wine is gone. From the pan, not your glass. If you finish your glass, just refill. Once the wine is mostly cooked off from the shrooms, they should be done. Throw that whole mess into the pot with the tomato stuff and stir. Now throw a little more olive oil into the pan and chuck in the garlic. Let that do its thing for about 5 minutes, then throw in the onions. Now let that do its thing for another 5 minutes or so. We're looking to carmelize those onions, so, yeah. When they look good, throw 'em in the pot! Now brown the beef and the sausage and throw those into the pot. Next add whatever herbs you want as well as the bay leaves. Stir. Let that amazingness simmer for, like, 4 hours.

That's right. 4 hours. You can let it simmer for less time, but the longer you let it go, the better it will be. Trust me.

After about an hour or so, you'll want to taste the sauce. Soemtimes it can be very acidic. If so, add some sugar to taste.

Cheese: Mix the ricotta, egg and parsley together. That's it.

Pasta: Sometime while the sauce is cooking, I pre-cook the lasagna noodles a little bit. Not a lot, just enough to make 'em flexible. they'll cook all the way while its in the oven.

Construction:

Cover the bottom of a glass pyrex dish with a little bit of sauce, then layer noodles, meatsauce, ricotta, mozzerella. Then do it again. Noodles, sauce, ricotta, mozzerella. That should finish off the ricotta. If not, you didn't do it right. Throw on your last layer of noodles. If you have any ricotta left, use it now. Then the rest of your sauce, then a thin layer of mozerella. I usually have sauce left over. It's delicious. Make sloppy joes or something. Oh, btw, you should have preheated your oven to, like, 350 or so. Now that your oven is preheated, cook the lasagna for about 20-30 minutes or so. Remember how I told you to put a thin layer of mozerella on the top? The reason you did a thin layer before is because now you're going to load it on. That's right. Load that thing up with cheese! Now throw it back in the oven for another 10 minutes! I usually crank the oven up to 500 for those last few minutes so that top layer of cheese gets nice and crisp.

Now, here's the part I never think to do because, at this point, you're starving, tipsy and it just smells sooooo good. Let the thing sit for about 5-10 minutes. If you don't, it'll serve a sloppy mess. If you let it sit, though, it'll hold much better when you serve it and actually look like a lasagna.

Enjoy!

I can love deeply, move mountains, and bring the star down for you from the sky, yet have a hard time expressing my feelings and seem like I'm hiding behind a wall
...
its funny how strange things seem somehow even more strange when you think about them at 2 in the morning
...
there's something out there, in the cold night, that's constantly pulling at me; trying to draw me out, but to where I do not know
...
head first
head strong
head on
just so long as we're moving on
One foot
in front of the other
...
I'm totally baffled by the opposite sex.
Not sure if you guys have noticed that from all of my ramblings, but its true.
Most times this is ok because... well... its the norm. I'm used to it. What kills me, though, is when I THINK I know what's going on and it turns out I am 100% wrong.
one hundred
percent
wrong.

Seriously. I think this should be a class in high school. Understanding the Opposite Sex. My goodness... talk about an essential life skill. I'd put it right up there with Economics. At the very least make it a section of Health class. You could put it just between the pregnancy stuff and the std stuff that way its surrounded by scariness so, hopefully, the kids won't start practicing too early.

Necessary life skill, though. Unfortunately Understanding the Opposite Sex is not a skill I have.

...

For so many years Racquetball was my outlet. My way to let out steam. Being trapped in that box just wailing on that little blue ball. Running. Crashing. Diving. All the while hitting that racquetball as hard as I could. It was good for me. All my pent up... well... pent up everything could be left on that court in a mixture of sweat and blood. I could leave the court completely drained of everything. I'd go home, shower, and emerge a fresh man in every way you can think of.

dashboard confessions

I'm not sure I've ever done this before.
In fact... I'm downright positive that I haven't.

I'm blogging with someone else in the room.

Its weird.

I feel like I'm being an exhibitionist. Like I'm letting someone see the most private part of me that there is.

I know that's silly. Everything I write I put out in the most public place there is for all the world to see. I don't really edit before I publish anything. I just write it and post it. 99% unfiltered. So why does it feel like I'm so exposed right now?

I guess its just the process.

No one's seen me write before.

Well....

I guess that still holds true.

My roommate is passed out in the recliner next to me. We were watching Stranger Than Fiction. And by "we were watching" what I really mean is that I watched it while he fell asleep 2 minutes in. He's been sleeping ever since.

I like that movie. Stranger Than Fiction. I like it a lot. It makes me wonder about how I write and what I write and what affect my writing has on the world.

It makes me wonder what I would write if I knew that everything I typed turned out to be true in someone stranger's life.

It also makes me wonder how my story is going to go. Comedy or tragedy? I realize that story hasn't been written yet, but everything I say, everything I do adds a sentence or a page or a chapter to that story. Where does it all lead?

It also makes me wonder what it would look like to go back and read all the pages that have passed. Once again, Comedy or tragedy? Some days its hard to tell which it is. Taken in its entirety, though, how does My Story read?

...

And on a completely different note....

I kind of want to tell you the story of a girl.

Actually, scratch that.

I really want to tell you.

The problem is that I still don't know how that one is going to go.

Well...

((for those of you not In The Know, that's how I start to say a majority of my goodbye's in on line conversations. I'll say something "the problem is that I still don't know how that one is going to go" and then I'll go "Well..." and then usually finish it off with "its time for me to hit the sack" or "its time for me to pass out" or "I'm sleep-E." Tonight, though, I think I"m going to go old school.))

Peace out and eat your vegetables, peeps!

Repeat: Female Vocalist

I was thinking about this earlier today... How hot would it hot would it be to date a singer? She wouldn't have to be famous or even a performer, really. Those would just be bonuses. Watching her sing a song on stage and knowing she was singing ti to me... That would be so hot.

But even if she weren't a performer and she just had a solid singing voice and enjoyed doing it... mmmm... She would inspire me to write, and my writing would inspire her to sing. We'd be like Sonny and Cher, except not as cheesy. And I wouldn't sing. Well... Ok... Lets be honest here. I'd still be cheesy, but she wouldn't have to be.

She'd sing me a song and I'd say the white guy equivilant of "Damn girl, you fine!" which would probably be something like, "my goodness, young female, you look quite nice this fine, summer evening." But whatever came out, it would be the right thing to say.

Cold Rain

I could hear it raining outside. The drops steadily beating against the window. I can barely tell if my eyes were open or closed. The darkness was like another person, lying there with me. I could feel it pressing against up against me, wrapping her cold arms around me, slowly drawing me in. But then I felt something else. Warmth. An arm resting across my chest. Hot breath on my shoulder. Its not like I had forgotten you were there, I just thought it had all been a dream.

I was smiling. I thought it had been a dream, but there you were. I took your hand to my lips and gave each of your fingertips a small kiss. You moved your body closer to mine, still sound asleep. I could feel you purring softly up against me and, slowly, I fell back asleep.

...

Trust me.
I know.
Sometimes I can be a bit... much.
I know this.
100%.
I like to think its part of my charm. My neuroses. Whatever you want to call it.
Its who I am.
This is also something I can't really change.
I can reign it in a little... but really, I don't want to.
I think its fun.
To be head-over-heels in love?
Yeah... that's the bee's knees, my friends.
I look forward to that.
To be all in.
That's my jam.
yeah....

Here's the thing, though.
Actually.
Nevermind.
...reigning it in.