Day: September 21, 2012

Bloggiesta

Bloggiesta!

Tara


*Clicking on button will take you to the sign-up page

Well, finally! I’m actually going to get to participate in Bloggiesta! The last few times it’s been going on I haven’t been able to participate for one reason or another. But this time I will get to. Although probably not as much as I would like to – since I have Garrett and that’s my dad’s birthday weekend and we will have to go up to my parents house for his party one day. Either way, I will get to participate and I have a lot of things I want (READ: NEED!) to accomplish!

So here’s my list of things that I want to accomplish:

  • New layout – yeah, I’ve about gotten sick of the design that I have right now. It’s time to get something new in here.
  • Work on my review index – I went crazy a long time ago and deleted the entire thing – without making a back up. (STUPID, STUPID, STUPID!) I wanted to change the format of it. But now I have managed to put the list back together, however I still have to link all my reviews back on it now.
  • Schedule some posts – Things like Top Ten Tuesdays already have the topics listed for future dates. I want to browse through those and see if there’s anything I can schedule. Plus I have some review books that I need to go ahead and get the post formatted so I can be ready to just start typing the review portion rather than the whole thing.
  • I need to clean out my Google Reader – I know this technically is not part of my actual blog itself, but I haven’t done this in ages, and I know I have a lot of subscriptions that are no longer active – need to get those out of there and get some new subscriptions in there instead 🙂
  • I want to work on a calendar of sorts to keep around the house so that I can see what I have coming up on the blog as well as what I need to get to – just something to help me become a little more organized and hopefully help me post some stuff.
  • Whip up a few more recipe posts – I have quite a few recipes that I have recently tried and I want to be able to post one new recipe a week … so if I could get some of those posts scheduled it would be a help.
  • I desperately need to figure out how to get some buttons – you know, like the “Find Me On” type of stuff – Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Paperbackswap, ETC. I know that WordPress has a particular theme that has that already built in but I have stumbled across another book blogger who has the same exact theme and I really don’t want to “copy” her theme just so I can have those particular buttons, lol.
  • And anything else I can think of – I’m not good at making lists. I tend to forget things that need to make the list. So whatever else comes up, I hope to accomplish 🙂

This is probably a bit much for me to tackle, considering I have a 3.5 month old baby (who will be celebrating turning 4 months on Sept. 30th!) and a birthday party that weekend. But that’s okay – whatever I get done will be fine for me 🙂

Definitely looking forward to participating!!

Recipes

RECIPE: Creole Shrimp Pasta

Tara

Time for me to share another recipe with you guys. It’s been a while since I had really made a new recipe, and this one technically isn’t “new” to us – I’ve made it a few times now. But it’s one I definitely enjoy.

Creole Shrimp Pasta (Makes 6 servings)

  • 1 package (16 ounces) penne pasta
  • 1 large red onion, finely chopped
  • 3 tablespoons butter
  • 3 tablespoons olive oil
  • 3 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 pound uncooked large shrimp, peeled and deveined
  • 2 tablespoons seafood seasoning
  • 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 tablespoon Cajun seasoning
  • 1 tablespoon Louisiana-style hot sauce
  • 1/4 teaspoon pepper

Directions:

  1. Cook pasta according to package directions. Meanwhile, in a Dutch oven, saute onion in butter and oil until tender. Add garlic; cook 1 minute longer. Sprinkle shrimp with seafood seasoning; add to pan.
  2.    Stir in the cream, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, Cajun seasoning, hot sauce and pepper. Drain pasta, reserving 3/4 cup cooking liquid. Stir reserved cooking liquid into pan. Cook and stir for 6-8 minutes or until shrimp turn pink. Add pasta and toss to coat.

Recipe Source: Taste of Home Simple & Delicious Magazine

Personal Review: Okay, so by the picture this probably doesn’t look like much. But for some reason I thoroughly enjoy it. It’s easy to cook – but you definitely need to watch the timing of everything for this to go as smoothly as possible. Since shrimp doesn’t take that long to cook, I recommend putting the water on to boil before you chop up the onions just so that you aren’t standing around waiting for the pasta to finish cooking (like I was the first time I made this!). Also another thing that I found out the hard way – if you do not like a lot of spice do not under any circumstances use Habanero hot sauce! Yes, I did this the first time I made this (on accident – Nathan has a huge selection of hot sauces and I picked up the wrong one by mistake), and yes, I completely 100% regretted it – I think my mouth was on fire for two days. The next time I made this I used regular hot sauce and it came out much milder 🙂 I think our only complaint about this meal is that it doesn’t seem very filling. Of course I wasn’t all that prepared and didn’t have a salad or a side dish to go with this, so I think that if you served it with a salad and garlic bread it would make a much better meal.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this recipe. If you are afraid of the spice level, for sure play around with the amount of spice/hot sauce you use. It’s also very easy to make and comes together quickly for a weeknight meal.