Good Ol’ Shrimp Boil Potato Salad

Good Ol’ Shrimp Boil Potato Salad ~ We decimated more than half this meal before I remembered to take a photo!!!

This is a tasty, quick and easy meal to prepare, especially when you are about to head out of town for 5 days for another fishing trip to the coast. This time, Halibut Fishing! Many of you might remember my shark adventure from couple of years ago when we tried to catch halibut, and on the same trip my hubby caught a manta ray! Hopefully we’ll get the right species this time around.

Kathryn the Shark Woman

I saw this recipe in my most recent issue of Southern Living magazine, and with lots of shrimp in the freezer, it called my name. This takes very little time to prepare, especially if you use my “secret” Bundt-pan corn trick, shown below from another post. (I do actually stick a corn-cob holder in the top to stabilize the corn when cutting, but I had no helper to take a photo when I shot this. The foibles of food photography!)

Cutting the Corn off the Cob

I couldn’t find Creole mustard at the store that it called for (well, I do live in Oregon) but a quick google search came up with an easy substitute with items I had on hand.

I hope you enjoy this as much as me and my husband did, eating al fresco out on our back deck in glorious sunny weather. This tastes great warm or cold, I had leftovers the next day cold and just WOW! The flavors really intensified. This would be a great potluck or picnic meal, no mayo!

Good Ol’ Shrimp Boil Potato Salad
Adapted from Southern Living

1/4 pound smoked sausage, cut into thin slices
1 1.5-ounce package boil-in-bag shrimp-and-crab boil (I used McCormick’s)
1/2 pound baby red potatoes
1 ear fresh sweet corn, husks removed
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil
1/8 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 1/2 tablespoons course-ground Dijon mustard
1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
Several dashes of Tabasco
2 green onions, sliced
1 garlic clove, minced
A few shakes of paprika
1/2 teaspoon horseradish sauce
1 pound peeled and deveined shrimp

Brown the sausage over high heat in a skillet for just a few minutes, remove and set aside. Add the crab boil packet, potatoes, and corn cob with enough water to cover an inch over the veggies over high heat.

Once boiling, cook for about 10 more minutes until potatoes are softened.

Meanwhile, whisk together the rest of the ingredients except the shrimp in a bowl.

Once potatoes are done, add the shrimp and cooked sausage, turn off heat, then cover for 5 minutes.

After 5 minutes, drain and pour the food into a large serving bowl. Remove the corn and cut the kernels off the cob and add the kernels to the bowl. (I halved the potatoes after they were done but failed to add that to the PDF version recipe.) Pour the seasoned lemon/oil mixture over it, and stir to combine well. Serve immediately, or cover and refrigerate up to 24 hours. YUMMMM!

I won’t have a post up again for about a week and a half, don’t miss me too much, lol. 😀

Download and Print this Yummy Recipe!

 

 

 

 

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A Weekend of Fishing and Camp Food Recipes

A pole in the water is a good thing!

We got back on Monday from our last camping/fishing trip on the Siletz River at the coast in Oregon. It’s that sad time of year where we have to pull in the dock out of the water, pull up the ramp, and move the RV to higher ground. (The river usually floods in late fall or winter.) We made plenty of time for recreation, with a bunch of work in between. I also got to play with my new camera! The weather was astoundingly beautiful, and the sunsets were spectacular, and the reflections in the river during evening were so colorful with the fall foliage. I could not stop snapping photos!

But with all that recreating and working, we still have to eat. I brought along a bunch of pre-made frozen bags of food to make the cooking experience a bit less time consuming, as well as planned some other quick and easy fresh meals. As much as I loved taking nature pics with my camera, I took nary a photo of the food. We were usually so worn out by the end of the day I was just glad I had enough energy to cook and sit down to eat.

However, come along for the ride through my photos and links to some of the recipes for the food we ate!

First evening of fishing off the dock

The first night there we always do something quick and easy. Actually this entire trip we did that, though. We heated up some delicious (frozen) fish chowder made from the sea bass we caught the prior fishing trip. Can’t get any easier than that! Link to recipe below:

Creamy Fish Chowder with Corn and Potatoes

Cool full moon photo through the trees

It was also a full moon, which made the fishing (and crabbing) not that good. But I will not complain, since the weather was outstanding. Last year we pulled out in a full-force Pacific Northwest storm, which was not very pleasant. We were soaked to the bone after that. Sunny weather is a good thing for these activities.

Heading out on the Siletz River to fish and crab

There were a lot of boats on the river the next day!

Fishermen on the Siletz River

For the second night’s meal, I brought some frozen spaghetti sauce my husband makes in huge batches. Boil water for noodles, microwave sauce. Put some garlic bread in the toaster oven. Done! Unfortunately I’ve never posted his sauce recipe, but it’s really good though! He uses a spicy cayenne sausage one of our markets sells along with ground beef.

All our crab pots had lots of crab, but none of them were big enough to keep. What’s up with that??? First time we’ve ever been skunked on crabbing.

Pulling in crab pot of (too small to keep) Dungeness crabs

OK I just have to share you a picture of our dog, Hannah Banana. She just loves to roam around the property for squirrels and birdies!

Hannah Banana

Oh, I guess another recipe or two would be in order by now. For lunch one day I made my tuna melts with the very last of my fresh tomatoes from our garden. Another lunch we had Carne Asada tacos with some of the canned homemade fire-roasted salsa I made earlier last month. YUMM! Links to recipes below:

Tuna Melts

Carne Asada Tacos

Homemade Canned Fire-Roasted Tomato Salsa

The next morning I made some killer Migas Tacos with same salsa, but alas no recipe yet for that dish.

Next thing we knew, it was work, work, work, with fishing off the dock instead of river trips. But let me share a couple of sunset/river reflection photos. The colors were spectacular and the river was like glass. Amazing!

Trees reflecting off Siletz River

Trees Reflecting on Siletz River

The next night we did the standard grilled steak and baked potatoes. Oooh but we loaded our baked potatoes with lots of goodies and fresh veggies. Can’t go wrong with that either!

And check out this huge mushroom I found on our property! It had to be at least six inches across in diameter. Since I’m no mushroom expert, I just took a photo. For some reason mushroom poisoning scares the crap out of me.

Large Mushroom at Camp

Awww, here is our last night of fishing off the dock before pulling it in the next morning. Not sure why I always caught empty chairs. Well of course mine was empty, but hubby was probably off doing some kind of chore. But our poles were in!

Last evening of fishing off our dock

On our last night, we grilled up some frozen pre-marinated chicken fajitas. Of course we had our salsa with that too along with some fresh veggie fillings. Link to recipe below:

Chicken Fajitas

And last, here is our dock and ramp all pulled in for the winter. We took the opportunity to add two more barrels under the dock, as it listed pretty badly to one side because two of the barrels got crushed by logs last year.

Adding new barrels under the dock

Ramp pulled in and ready to tied down

Neither of us caught a salmon this year. That happens, those darn fish can be elusive and the full moon didn’t help. Well I hope you enjoyed my journey and some of the links to the recipes!

Fresh Ling Cod from Depoe Bay and Dungeness Crab ~ Life is Good

Depoe Bay ~ World’s Smallest Harbor

Oh my, where do I start with this? I left over a week ago after a couple of grueling weeks at work which included a night up until 3:30 am. This was my “release.” No internet, no cell service, and I had the BEST time ever. Really. Good relaxation, good food, great scenery, great fishing, lots of book-reading, Yahtzee-playing, (my husband beats me almost every game) but really, I needed all that

The trip started out not-so-good. We were all packed, heading out of town, and got a mile from the house. “OH! I didn’t pack my favorite shoes!” exclaims the husband. I rolled my eyes but let him turn around anyways. He did a nice  safe turnaround in a parking lot, then we headed back home. Suddenly, he exclaimed, “WAIT, I DID PACK THEM!” Then yanked the steering wheel to the left very abruptly to change lanes to turn around again and WHAM! We are being dragged up the road by a big mongo pickup truck by the front bumper, spewing car parts all over the place. I then said words I cannot repeat here. My most recent issue of Southern Living has a full-page ad on the back that states the new 2013 RAV4s have a “blind spot monitor system” on it. Apparently they are aware of this defect. Sigh….

Lemony Ling Cod with Mushrooms

But we eventually got on our way, and had a fabulous week of fishing, crabbing, and good food. Since we don’t have cell service on our property, it took pretty much all week of phone tag with the insurance company of getting it all lined up, but it looks like I’ll be back in my car in about another week.

Our first boat trip on the Siletz river not only produced no fish, but we got heavily rained on. Well that’s coastal river life, We wore rain gear, of course. But we did catch one crab of regulation size, and had it as an appetizer prior to our dinner of grilled chicken and pasta.

Dungeness Crab Freshly Cooked

Then our nice neighbor friend up there, Stan, invited us to go bottom-fishing with him the next day out of Depoe Bay. Depoe Bay is the “World’s Smallest Harbor.”  I have been out of it before on chartered fishing trips in seas up to 15 to 20 feet, and it’s extremely scary. I get sea sick on “high seas.” I am glad to say that the ocean was really calm as we left, and I had  my first bottom-fishing trip without heaving over the side of the boat!

Out to Sea from Depoe Bay

I caught two sea  bass, my hubby caught one, and the star of the show was our friend and  captain, Stan. He caught not only one but TWO Ling Cods, which is my all-time favorite fish. He also  caught about six or seven sea bass. We could not figure out why he was so lucky with his catches except he had his pole between our two.  Either way, he split all the fish 50-50 and for that we are grateful. Thank you STAN!

Stan and his Ling Cod

I made my Lemony Ling Cod at the Coast recipe (<— click for recipe) from his generous donation, except this time I added a bunch of fresh mushrooms to the pan. We froze the rest of the fish and brought it home for future delicious meals. My husband plans on making fish chowder, yumm!

Me and My Two Sea Bass!

We also checked out a new fishing/crabbing spot on the Salmon River. This is a shallow river that leads directly to the ocean from Three Rocks park, that leads to, well, Three Rocks in the ocean. Absolutely beautiful! We caught three regulation size Dungeness on that trip, but unfortunately two of them were females, which can’t be kept. So once again, only one to take home. That one we cooked and cleaned and also bagged up for the freezer to make it into the fish chowder.

Salmon River

The elusive Chinook salmon evaded us once again this trip, but we plan on heading out there at least three or four more times this fall to try and hook that “big one” for the dinner table. I hope you are having a safe and enjoyable Labor Day!

UPDATE! How did I forget to mention this? While we were heading back into Depoe Bay, we saw two gray whales, a mother and her calf. It was so awesome. I had already packed away my camera but we couldn’t have gotten close enough for a good shot anyways since there were about five whale-watching boats surrounding them. What a great experience that was! Here is a link to one of the charter companies you can pay to go whale-watching with, but we did it all on our own! http://www.tradewindscharters.com/whale.html

Vacation!

Fishing Off Dock on Siletz

I’ve been busy this week planning for a week off work and a nice long trip to the Oregon Coast to our RV property on the Siletz River. Between that and work itself I’ve had no time to cook anything new or blog for that matter. However, while we are there we are planning on plank grilling a big chunk of steelhead that one of our avid fisher-friends provided to us this week, so look for that write-up when I return. The picture above is my husband fishing off our dock last year. Our dock is back in the water, but that beautiful ramp down to it has seen better days. That will be one of our big projects we’ll be working on in addition to installing a new hot water heater in our RV. Ohhh, hot showers again out there! Be still my heart.

Wrecked Ramp

I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable Fourth of July and please look out for the fur-kids too and help keep them calm during all the fireworks. See you soon!