Fearless Females: Favorite Recipe

 Share a favorite recipe from your mother or grandmother’s kitchen.  Why is this dish your favorite?

My mom doesn't cook, she burns water.  No really, she is an excellent surgeon but unless it is baking (very similar to lab experiments) or can be microwaved my mom is pretty useless in the kitchen.  However, her mother was a fantastic cook.  Homemade noodles, soups, roasts, you name it she could cook it.

One of my favorite recipes, and my mom’s too, was grandma’s Shrimp Creole.  I have begged for this recipe for years, after I lost my first copy, and finally got it from my dad this past December.  One of the last times I remember grandma cooking for our family she was making this dish. 

She lived with us the last few years of her life and usually she sat in the kitchen talking with my dad as he cooked.  Grandma was a talker.  She could spin a yarn that had you hanging on every word.  One night she decided to make Shrimp Creole, probably as a favor to my mom, and we loved it.  I can still see her sitting at the stove on a bar stool stirring the ingredients, tasting it, adding more, and being completely content. 

I have made this twice in my life.  Once in college for an “adult” dinner (we had friends over and I wanted to have a nice sit down dinner, you know, like adults) in which I learned the value of already peeled and deveined shrimp.  A few years later I cooked it again when I had a craving for shrimp, thankfully I remember the lessons from the previous attempt and the preparation for cooking took a significantly less amount of time.

If you search for it online there are several other versions of this dish out there.  Some call for celery to be added, or different spices   One day I may try these, when I am being more adventurous and not wanting a taste of grandmas cooking.

Hope you enjoy and if you try it let me know if you like it!

Shrimp Creole

Ingredients:

1 tbs butter

1 tsp flour

½ C water

1 C strained tomatoes

1 C chopped onion

3 lbs peeled and washed shrimp

2 cloves of garlic finely chopped

1 thinly sliced green pepper

Chopped parsley

Salt and pepper taste

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

Rice

Directions:

Melt butter in skillet.  Add flour to thicken.  Add the ingredients in order listed except Worcestershire sauce.  Cook for 20 minutes over low heat.  Add Worcestershire sauce.  Serve over rice.

Notes:

• 2 or 3 cans of shrimp may be used but just ass long enough to reheat (today I would say this means precooked frozen shrimp since I never remember seeing canned shrimp in my life).
• My grandma and dad both added garlic juice to taste for a more subtle flavor.