Shrimp Foulard ,Yummo !

You are NEVER gonna believe what I did yesterday ! It wasn't Earth shaking ,but all the same .... pretty stupid of me to do it . I have never done it before , and I hope like heck never to do it again !!! I was cooking Shrimp Foulard for our supper last night and managed to burn it into the pan ! The amazing part was that the pan was a heavy Teflon pan that shouldn't have burn food stuff stuck on to it . Not only was the sauce burned into the pan , but I couldn't get it to come off when I went to wash it .This is Teflon we are talking about here , you know , the NO STICK stuff ???

First , I let it soak in hot soapy water , for about 8 hours , lol ! That didn't work . I tried to scrape it out with a spoon . I was despite . That didn't work either . I soaked it some more in more hot soapy water . That didn't help any .I remembered a old friend of mine from high school days used to put soapy water in a pan and boil it on the stove until the burnt stuff came up from the bottom of the pan . Well , I tried that too . No love . SIGH !!!!  I boiled it one more time in hopes that this time it would work . Guess what ? It didn't .

I didn't want to take a steal wool pad to it , since that would scape off any of the now useless Teflon that might be left on the pan .SO , I tried several other methods , that of course didn't work either .By this time I am ready to just throw the dam pan away ! So what if it belongs to a matching set . I only looked for this set of pots and pans for 4 years before I found them . Who cares ? I had to get the thing clean .I fleetingly contemplated voodoo but I didn't know who to call , lol !

I talked to the thing , made a bargain with it , that if it would only come clean this time , I would never again boil milk in it .Do you think it cared ??? Oh , no ! The stuff was stuck like Chuck on to the bottom of that pan for good , like cement . I had to do it . I had no other choice . Really I didn't . I went to the kitchen drawer were I keep the soaps and sponges , and drew out the deadly " steal scrubber " .I brandished it before the pan in a menacing way . It wasn't scared at all . It just sat there in all it's burned glory taunting me . So , I did it ! I scrubbed it with the steal pad . I scrubbed and I scrubbed , and I scrubbed some more . After some time passed by , I began to see the bottom of the pan again . My arm was aching from the scourging but at long last that pan was cleaned of all the burnt milk . Sad to say only remnants of the Teflon remain . But at least I didn't have to throw away the pan . I think it learned a valuable lesson ... never let me cook Shrimp Foulard again in that pan . It has a bad attitude !

Here is the Shrimp Foulard recipe from our flagship restaurant we had in Houston .

Shrimp Foulard
4 tbs. butter
1 cup of crab meat chunks uncooked
2 cup of  medium size shrimp uncooked
4 cloves of crushed garlic , more if you LOVE garlic
1 quart of half and half cream ( if you live where there isn't any half and half you can subsistue 2 cans of evaporated milk with a can of cream added to the milk .)
1 pinch of salt
several loaves of french bread

Step 1.... melt the butter in a heavy sauce pan.
When the butter is melted and hot, BUT NOT brunt , add the crushed garlic.Stir garlic until soft and tender .

Step 2... Add the cream/ half and half/ canned milk ( which ever one you have ) . Add the pinch of salt . Stir  the sauce constantly  until it thickens over a medium low fire . Be careful it doesn't boil over .

Step 3 ... When the sauce is nice and thick (If the sauce is too thick , add a little milk to it ), add the shrimp and the crab meat . Stir  occasionally a additional 3 to 5 minutes so that the sea food may cook . Don't over cook the sea food . Now it is done !

Step 4....Serve in individual bowels . Eat by dunking the bread into the sauce and eating it with your fingers .Or you may break the bread up into the sauce ( not too much of the bread at one time ) and eat with a spoon , as you prefer .
Bonn Appitte !

Jokes From The Land Of The Flu

Things here are still basically the same in the Land Of The Flu . Moe and I are struggling to keep things up around the Condo . We had to call in reinforcements this week to help us out with the shopping , our son . That turned into a wonderful bonus because not only did he do the shopping for me , but then he cook a huge pot of chicken soup with all sorts if yummy veggies in it . I haven't had to cook for several days now and it sure was a big help.

Our son has always enjoyed cooking . He had his own cook book when he was just a little guy . He would always want to help out in the kitchen when I cooked ,as a little boy . The rule was , when you were tall enough to be able to look into the tallest pot sitting on the stove , then you could do some actual cooking over the fire ... with supervision of course .

Moe used to take the kids with him to work, to one of our restaurants in Houston, once in a while . They would come home with all sorts of adventures to share with me . They had learned how to peel garlic , or almost got locked up in the wine cellar, or the chief threatened to cut their ears off if they didn't stop nagging him for shrimp ,or in our youngest ones case , lime sherbet ! They were spoiled rotten by all the staff . 

The best part was they learned to enjoy all sorts of new foods that most childern their ages never tasted . They LOVED escargot , frog leggs , and Beef Wellinton . They had to be on their best behavior and were taught wonderful table manners so we could take them into any resturante and not annoy the other patrons dinnig there also . They loved these experences and it has helped them later in other life situations .

Now to change the conversation ...... I got this in a email today and liked it . Thought you might like it too . Have a great day !

If you're not familiar with the work of Steven Wright, he's the famously erudite scientist and comic who once said: "I woke up one morning and all of my stuff had been stolen and replaced by exact duplicates."

Here are some of his gems:

Borrow money from pessimists -- They don't expect it back.

99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.

82.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.

A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

If you want the rainbow, you got to put up with the rain.

All those who believe in psycho-kinetics, raise my hand.

The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

I almost had a psychic girlfriend.....but she left me before we met.

OK, so what's the speed of dark?

How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink?

If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.

Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.

When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.

Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.

Hard work pays off in the future, but laziness pays off now.

If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?

Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

What happens if you get scared half to death twice?

My mechanic told me, "I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.."

Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?

If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.

A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.

Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.

The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.

The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up.

The colder the X-ray table, the more of your body is required to be on it.

Everyone has a photographic memory; some just don't have film.

If your car could travel at the speed of light, would your headlights work?

And there were thes3e gems too !

 
Last night I played a blank tape at full blast. The mime next door went nuts.

If a person with multiple personalities threatens suicide, is that considered a hostage situation?

How come abbreviated is such a long word?

I went for a walk last night and my kids asked me how long I'd be gone. I said, "The whole time."

Is it true that cannibals don't eat clowns because they taste funny?

Why do you press harder on a remote-control when you know the battery's dead?

Why do banks charge you a "non-sufficient funds fee" on money they already know you don't have?
If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?

Why is it, when a door is open it's ajar, but when a jar is open, it's not a door?

Do married people live longer than single people or does it just SEEM longer?

Every so often, I like to go to the window, look up, and smile for a satellite picture.

I bought a self learning record to learn Spanish, I turned it on and went to sleep, the record got stuck, the next day I could only stutter in Spanish.

Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song?

I filled out an application that said, "In Case Of Emergency Notify". I wrote "Doctor"... I mean .... What's my mother going to do?

Ike's Post Script

The above pictures were taken at Houston , Clear Lake , and Galveston .

Rosebud called me just a little whole ago . She is my daughter that lives in Houston . She posted on her blog her experience of Hurricane Ike . Thought you might want to read her " eye wittiness " account of what happened to her and her husband .

Some 14 oil refiners were shut down due to Hurricane Ike and 1 in Louisianan was still closed because of a slow recovery from Hurricane Gustav that hit that state recently , reports Reuters news service . The price of oil is already on the steep rise even though President Bush had asked everyone to report any price gouging of petrol .

Ike is currently wearing his self out heading up the state of Texas toward the state of Arkansas CNN reports . The National Geographic News service tells us just HOW lucky Galveston and Houston got the very last minute as Ike had a change of heart and made a sharp turn to the right of the island as it made it's way inland , saving many lives in the process.