substitutions Archives - Mamma's Cooking

Sheet Pan Shrimp

All over the internet you see sheet pan dinners. They are the new one pot meal. I have three sheet pans and they are well loved. I use them to cook wings, meatballs, shrimp, salmon, roast vegetables and not to mention all the cookies we make on them.

I usually make sure I have a bag of frozen shrimp in the freezer so that I can throw together a quick and easy meal. This is one of the simplest and tastiest recipes you can make.

Sheet Pan Shrimp

Ingredients

1 pound cooked frozen shrimp, defrosted

Juice of 1 lime

½ teaspoon of salt

Pinch of ground black pepper

1 teaspoon of agave

½ cup of diced red onion

1 to 2 diced sweet peppers (or broccoli)

2 teaspoons vegetable oil

½ teaspoon of salt

1/8 teaspoon of ground black pepper

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a medium bowl mix lime, salt, pepper and agave. Toss shrimp in the lime mixture and let sit while you prepare the remaining ingredients. Combine onion and vegetables on sheet pan with vegetable oil, salt and pepper and cook for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and add the cooked shrimp. Roast for another 10 minutes and serve over rice or polenta or inside a tortilla.

You can easily make this recipe solely with vegetables so it is easy to make this vegetarian, vegan and its already gluten free! It is such a versatile recipe! Let me know what you like to make on your sheet pans.

Quinoa Risotto

Risotto is a decadent, delicious and extremely versatile side or main dish. You can make a quick version in your rice cooker or put the kids in front of a movie and make this slow version. The slow version is much, much better. Forty minutes of cooking in peace is also much better 🙂 You can choose to make it vegetarian, vegan or full of meat. It is naturally gluten free. Here is my basic recipe:

Quinoa Risotto

Ingredients

32 ounces of chicken or vegetable stock

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 teaspoon of chopped fresh rosemary

1 teaspoon of chopped fresh sage

½ cup of sweet onion, diced finely

1 Tablespoon olive oil

1 cup quinoa

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

In a large measuring cup, like this Pyrex one, mix stock, garlic, rosemary and sage. In a medium soup pot brown the onions in olive oil. Add the quinoa and stir for a couple of minutes. Add about 1 cup of the flavored stock and stir until it soaks in. Then repeat, until the quinoa is cooked and creamy. Taste and add more salt or pepper if needed. Then you can either serve as is or add in some cooked chicken and acorn squash or just the squash or roasted mushrooms, cooked peas, whatever you like.

You can make it more decadent by adding 1/2 cup of your favorite cheese. For example, cheddar and some broccoli or mozzarella and tomatoes, or just Parmesan.

To make risotto in your rice cooker, start the same way, heat the oil and onions in the rice cooker, then add the risotto. Add as much of the seasoned stock as your rice cooker will allow. Stir, cover and let cook. Then about 15 minutes later open the lid and stir again, adding more of the stock. Repeat until the risotto is the consistency you like and then add the meat, vegetables or cheese.

This could be a great side dish or main meal for a romantic dinner or for an elegant holiday meal. You can even wow your co-workers with this and bring it to a potluck. Keep it warm in a rice cooker or crock pot. I made it with cheddar and broccoli the other night and served it along side one of my cooking bucket list items: poached salmon. It was delicious! You’ll have to wait for that recipe 🙂

Subsitutions: Using what you have on hand for recipes

Even though I am doing better at buying groceries only for the recipes I’m making for the week, I still don’t always have all the ingredients on hand because I forgot to put it on my list or used it for something else or it is an ingredient that is too expensive or hard to find.

Here are some of the substitutions I’ve used in recipes recently:

Sherry (and other alcohol) = I recently made French onion soup from Rachel Ray’s, Comfort Foods cookbook and one of the ingredients was sherry, which I never have on hand. I used balsamic vinegar instead and it tasted great. Here is a website I’ve found that has great information on substitutes for alcohol in recipes: http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/alcoholsubstitutes.htm

Most of the time you can substitute a vinegar or citrus juice and/or chicken broth.

Evaporated milk or heavy cream = Another thing I often don’t have is evaporated milk or heavy cream, so I just use whole milk because that is what I have on hand for my daughter.

Cake Flour = I don’t do much baking but some recipes call for cake flour, which I don’t always have so for each cup of cake flour you use 7/8 cup of all purpose flour + 2 Tablespoons of cornstarch.

Shallots = Don’t always have shallots on hand, so I use less onion to get the same flavor. For each cup of shallots I use 1/2 cup of onions (minced or diced) or add some onion powder to taste. You could also use one large leek instead of a shallot or vice versa.

The web site I linked to above for alcohol substitutions also has a substitution dictionary/search engine which is very helpful: http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/equivalents_substitutions.asp

Bread = Karina likes bread on its own but as a sandwich won’t eat it, so I use whole wheat pita bread, whole wheat tortillas or whole wheat crackers instead. The pita and tortillas have been most successful. I make a wide variety of quesadillas from traditional (cheddar/jack, tomatoes, black beans and chicken) to Florentine (mozzarella, spinach and ham).