Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Mesquite Shrimp Salad


I have been blessed for almost the entire month of August to have Scott come home every day for lunch. It's been so great to have an extra 45 minutes every day just to hang out with him. But it also means I need to figure out an additional meal every day! This is a salad that would be wonderful for lunch (though, we did actually have it for dinner last week).

The inspiration for this salad is a salad that my best friend, Megan, used to eat every time we went to Logan's Roadhouse in Huntsville. It is no longer on the menu there, so I really just thought about what a Texas rancher would eat on his shrimp salad if he ever were to eat a salad. Therefore, this may be the most manly salad ever. Scott agrees. But, it's healthy, too! :) Enjoy!

Mesquite Shrimp Salad
makes 2 salads
  • 1/2 lbs shrimp (deheaded, deveined, deshelled, de-everythinged)
  • 2 tsp McCormick's mesquite seasoning (you could probably find an off brand, but this is the best grocery store brand of mesquite! )
  • 2 bowls full of Lettuce chopped, probably about 2-3 cups (I used a combination of Boston, red leaf, and something really curly I got at the Farmer's Market)
  • 10 grape tomatoes
  • 1/2 red onion chopped
  • two large pinches of julienned carrots
  • 4 Tbsps shredded colby jack cheese
  • 4 slices bacon (turkey, if you want to REALLY sneak it past your cowboy!) crispy and chopped
  • 1 avocado, sliced
  • 2-3 bread & butter pickles (if you're not on the diet! they're too sugary otherwise)
  • 2 Tbsp chipotle ranch dressing (recipe follows)
1. Pre-heat a medium sized skillet to medium high heat (6/10) with a good spritz of cooking spray.
2. Add shrimp to pan, and immediately add mesquite seasoning. Go ahead and add more than the recipe says if the shrimp don't look covered enough. You want them well seasoned.
3. Cook shrimp 3-5 minutes, until shrimp are curled and pink and completely opaque.

Assembly:
1. Layer half of lettuce, onions, carrots, cheese, tomatoes, bacon, avocado and pickles in a bowl. Do the same with the other bowl.
2. drizzle with chipotle ranch (or any other dressing of your choice) dressing.
3. Top each bowl with half of sauteed shrimp.

** You could also skewer and grill the shrimp, which is most likely the way Logan's Roadhouse cooked their shrimp. However, sauteeing in my bacon grease was much more appealing to me... plus, I don't have an outdoor grill.

Chipotle Ranch Dressing-- home-mixed... not home made
  • 4 Tbsp ranch dressing, depending on how much dressing you want on each salad (my favorite is the Bolthouse yogurt ranch... amazing ranch taste, lower in calories, fat and sugar... for the times you just need something creamy!)
  • about 1/4 of a tsp of the adobe sauce that comes in the can with chipotle peppers.
1. Mix the two ingredients in a separate bowl.

Voila.

Carb options
I served this with some toaster cakes (the flat corn cakes that Thomas, the english muffin company, makes) for Scott. It would be wonderful with corn muffins, regular corn bread, or johnny cake.

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