Lemon Curd in the KitchenAid Precise Heat Bowl

You might have read my coffee ice cream recipe where I used the KitchenAid Precise Heat Bowl to cook the custard. That bowl is the latest KitchenAid attachment I bought, and of course I'm going crazy trying different recipes.

This curd is the first thing I tried, and I've made it several times since. It's really good.

The reason I chose curd as my first experiment with the bowl is that temperature is really important - it thickens at about 170 degrees ... but if you let the temperature get too high, you end up with lemony scrambled eggs. When I make lemon curd on the stove, I just stir and watch. It works most of the time.

But since the Precise Heat Bowl heats precisely, I figured that I could just let it do its thing, and the curd wouldn't overcook.

It all went swimmingly until I had the bright idea that I wanted to use the stand mixer to stir the curd while it heated, just like I'd stir curd by hand on the stove. First, I decided to use the paddle attachment. Oops. With liquid, it was quite splashy, even a the lowest speed. So I got smarter and used the whisk attachment. That worked much better.

I tried a couple different heating/stirring schemes before I figured out the fastest, easiest thing to do. One problem I ran into was that stirring lowered the temperature - or at least it thwarted the speed that the mixture heated, so it took a looooong time to get up to 170 degrees. For one thing, you can't have the lid on the bowl when stirring, so heat isn't retained. And I think the stirring itself was cooling the mixture.

Then I ran into another weird thing. According to the "back of the spoon" test, the curd was cooked. But when I tested with a thermometer, it wasn't at 170 degrees. I knew it wasn't the thermometer - I use a Thermapen and that sucker is always right.

I had to think about that for a while. I wondered if my bowl was defective. I thought about it some more.

And then I realized that the bowl doesn't measure the temperature in the center of the mix - it measures the temperature at the edges of the bowl. But that's not a bad thing, really, particularly when making curd. Just like when you're making ice cream and the paddle is scraping the frozen mix from the edges of the bowl to the center, when you use the precise heat bowl and stir, you're pulling the warmer mixture to the center. It cools off a bit there, but that's fine.

On the other hand, if you need the entire mixture at the same temperature, you could simply put the cover on and don't stir - or just stir once in a while by hand - until it all reaches the same temperature. But for curd, it doesn't all need to be the same temperature at the same time, and I have to say that just setting it up and letting it go was danged easy.

Dagnabbit.

What? Sometimes my inner cartoon character needs to have a word.

Lemon Curd

1 stick unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 whole eggs
2 teaspoons very fine lemon zest
3/4 cup lemon juice (I used Meyer lemons)

Put the butter, sugar, and salt in the Precise Heating Bowl attached to your stand mixer. Beat with paddle attachment until light and fluffy.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating until well combined each time. Add the juice and zest and mix until combined.

Remove the paddle attachment and put the cover on the precise heating bowl (you can leave it on the mixer or not, as desired.

Set the heat to 165 degrees. Stir a few times during the heating process, making sure to scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl.

When the temperature reaches 165 degrees, remove the cover. give the mixture another stir, and attach the whip attachment to the mixer. Set the temperature to 170 degrees and then timer for 5 minutes. Turn the mixer on to the lowest speed.

The temperature will initially go down a bit, but will slowly rise to 170 degrees at which point the bowl will start counting down the time.

When the time is up, transfer the curd to a container. Let it come to room temperature, then refrigerate.

Note: I usually strain curd to make sure there are no lumps, but this was silky smooth. You can strain it, if you like.

Yum

Lemon-Basil-Dill Salad Dressing

I love trying new products. I'm always scouring the grocery store for things I haven't tried yet. I'm always throwing things into my cart with no clue how I'm going to use them.

I bring them home and use them and sometimes I write about them or mention them in recipes.

It's even better when products come to my door and they don't cost me anything, because I get to play and there's no risk of wasting money. If I don't like the products, I don't write about them. If I like them, I usually end up buying them again and again. There are quite a few products that I got as samples that I now use all the time.

When Litehouse offered me some of their spices, I was intrigued. They call them "Instantly Fresh" and say that they refresh in liquid to become like fresh herbs.

Well, that's interesting.

I love fresh herbs, but I hate buying a bunch of herbs when I only need a tablespoon or two. In the summer, I grow a few herbs outside, and in winter, I have some potted herbs. But I also use a lot of dried herbs as a substitute. In some cases, I prefer dried herbs. In other cases, it would be nice to have fresh herbs, but dried are more convenient - and less expensive.

So the idea of convenient dried herbs that tasted like fresh - that sounded like something I could really use.

Out of all the herbs I was sent, I used the basil the most, simply because that's what I needed for recipes. I noticed that when I added it to tomato sauce it brightened and was very fragrant. But then, of course. I cooked it.

Then the lightbulb lit. I was using them like I'd use dried herbs when I should have been using them like fresh herbs. So I started thinking about how I use fresh herbs. First, I used the dill on cooked potatoes and on buttered noodles. Then I decided to make a salad dressing that would feature the herbs.

And here's the deal - the herbs really did taste fresh. I don't think anyone would mistake the chopped basil for a recently-picked basil leaf, but the flavor was more like fresh than dried..

This is going to be good for salad dressings, uncooked preparations like dips, and for a finishing herb like on the potatoes, or a final flourish of basil on pasta.

I didn't receive the cilantro to try, but I bought some, because that's one herb that always thwarts me.

I often buy cilantro to use in guacamole or salsa, but there's only two of us, so I often don't need the whole bunch. If I try to store the leftovers, it usually goes bad by the time I need more. Having a dried alternative would make sense for those times when I need just enough cilantro for one avocado's worth of guacamole.

So ... I bought it and I tried it, and it did rehydrate and taste like cilantro should. I have to say that I was pleased.

Lemon-Basil-Dill Salad Dressing

2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon Litehouse basil
1/2 teaspoon Litehouse Dill
Pinch of Litehouse mint
1/2 teaspoon salt
Several grinds black pepper
Pinch of garlic powder
1 teaspoon sugar
6 tablespoons (1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons) olive oil

Combine all of the ingredients in a small jar and shake until emulsified. Serve on salad or vegetables.

Thanks to Litehouse Foods for sending me samples of their Instantly Fresh Herbs.

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A Real Whisky Sour

I've made drinks that were adaptations of the whisky sour, but after I read the description of the drink in How to Drink, I decided I needed to make the full, real, version. The one thing I've always left of out my versions was the egg white.

Not that I have issues with eggs, but separating an egg just to get a tablespoon of white seemed like more trouble that it was worth.

But this time, I decided to go ahead with all of it. The recipe description talked about how great the drink was with Scotch, so I decided to use that. And I pulled out a brand new shaker that I won from a blog event.

The shaker is a sweet thing made by WMF. A really nice shaker that someone who knows what they're doing would use. Using it for the first time for a classic drink made sense.

So ... that egg white. It didn't add any flavor at all to the drink, but it made a nice froth on top of the drink and gave the drink some body - instead of it being a thin, water-like drink, it felt thicker.

I don't know if I'll always add egg whites to my drinks - because it leaves me with a partial egg that needs to be used for something where the egg doesn't need to be all there.

On the other hand, I liked the body that it added to the drink. I'm thinking that the smart thing to do would be to buy one of those cartons of egg whites and use that. I could portion it and freeze it for drinks and have it ready when I need it. We'll see.

Meanwhile, I was pretty happy with this whisky sour. It was nicely tart but not too puckery, and the Scotch was lovely. Give it a try!

Whisky Sour
Adapted from How to Drink by Victoria Moore

Boston Shaker by WMF

1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons simple syrup*
1 1/2 ounces Johnny Walker Black Scotch Whisky
1 tablespoon egg white

Put everything into a strainer and shake vigorously until the outside of the shaker is frosty cold on the outside. This isn't a timid shake. Shake like you're serious.

Add fresh ice to a glass and strain the cocktail into the glass.

Note that straining doesn't mean you're using a fine-mesh strainer to eliminate bits of stuff - you just want to leave the ice cubes behind and get all the liquid and all of the froth into the glass.

Serve immediately.

*If you're going to be making your own cocktails a lot, I suggest making simple syrup and keeping it handy. All you need to do is combine equal volumes of water and sugar - I usually do a cup of each - in a small saucepan. Heat and stir until all the sugar melts. Let it cool and store it in a bottle or jar.

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Super-Easy Lemon Bars

A while back I reviewed Christina Tosi's book, Milk Bar Life on my book blog. Shortly after that, I wrote about the ranch dip mix in the book.

But that ranch dip is something served at the Milk Bar restaurant, rather than one of Tosi's at-home recipes ... so I felt that the dip might not be the best example of the sorts of recipes in Milk Bar Life.

This recipe for lemon bars might give you a better feel for the book.

I liked these bars, but I think that bars with lemon curd have a slight edge over these, just because lemon curd is so danged good.

On the other hand, I'm thinking of toying with the recipe a bit. I don't normally start my recipes with cake mixes, but sometimes a shortcut is a good thing, and this could be the perfect thing to make if you've got an office potluck and no time for anything more complicated.

For more reading, check out my review of Milk Bar Life and the recipe for Ranch Dip Mix.

Lemon Bars
Adapted from Milk Bar Life by Christina Tosi

For the crust:
1 (15-ounce) box lemon cake mix
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted
1 large egg

For the filling:
1/3 cup crust mix
8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Zest and juice from 2 lemons

Heat the oven to 350 degrees and spray a 9x13 pan with baking spray.

To make the crust:
Mix the cake mix, butter and egg in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment until it is well mixed. It will be dense.

Scoop out and reserve 1/3 cup of this mixture and dump the rest of it into the 9x13 pan. Press it firmly and evenly onto the bottom of the pan. You can use your fingers, or the bottom of a measuring cup, or a pastry roller, which is what I used.

To make the filling:
Return the 1/3 cup of crust mix to the stand mixer bowl and add the cream cheese. Mix with the paddle attachment until it is well combined. Add the powdered sugar, salt, lemon zest and lemon juice. Mix until well combined and smooth.

Transfer the filling to the pan and use a spatula (an offset pastry spatula works well) to make a smooth, even layer.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until the top has puffed slightly and is golden brown and beginning to crack. (Mine took a bit longer to get any brown at all, and it never cracked. Use your judgement.)

Let the pan cool completely on a rack. You can cut the bars in the pan, or remove the whole thing and cut on a board - your choice.

Dust with powdered sugar, if desired.

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Meyer Lemon Cookies

When I found out that The Daily Meal was having a recipe contest featuring Country Crock spread, I figured I'd throw my hat into the ring. And of course I went with a baked item.

Here's the deal. I live at high altitude and baking can sometimes be finicky. Cookies sometimes spread too much, particularly those with a lot of butter. To thwart that, I sometimes add vegetable shortening to cookies, but that stuff doesn't add any flavor to the party. I figured that County Crock would be fun to work with.

I decided to use Meyer lemon in these cookies, but they'd be great with any citrus you like, or skip the citrus and add vanilla instead.

For Easter, you could add a drop of food coloring to tint the cookies or shape them into egg shapes. Drizzle with a little icing or chocolate, if you like. The basic cookie is a blank slate, so adapt it any way you like.

These cookies are crisp with a little chew. Don't overbake them, or they can get hard ... but then they're pretty good dipped into coffee or tea.

Meyer Lemon Cookies

2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup Country Crock spread
1 1/4 cups sugar
Zest and juice from 1 Meyer lemon

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl and set aside.

Beat the Country Crock spread, sugar, Meyer lemon zest, and Meyer lemon juice at medium speed in a medium bowl with an electric mixer or a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat for a few minutes, until the mixture is fluffy.

Add the flour mixture in several additions (this helps keep it from flying around the kitchen when you start the mixer), beating just enough to blend it well.

Use a small scoop to form balls of dough, and place them on the baking sheets, leaving room between them to spread. I put 12 cookies on each of two sheet and had enough dough left for another 6 cookies, but it depends on how big you make your cookies. Flatten the cookies with the palm of your hand.

Bake at 350 degrees until the cookies are very slightly browned, about 16 minutes - don't overcook them. If you're baking 2 sheets of cookies at a time, you'll probably want to swap them around after about 10 minutes of baking.

Remove the cookies from the sheets and let them cool completely on a rack. Continue forming and baking cookies until all the dough is used.

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Artichokes with Lemon Rice - a meatless meal for Vegetarian Vednesday

I love artichokes. I love the little hearts. They're great cooked and warm, or pickled and cold. And I love giant artichokes for a leisurely meal, picking off one leaf at a time.

I like the really big artichokes cut in half, stuffed or not. Half of a huge artichoke is enough for a hearty appetizer, but if you stuff it, it can be a light meal.

While it's pretty common to stuff artichokes with a bread crumb mixture, I decided to make a rice stuffing this time since I also like rice an awful lot.

I added lemon to the rice because it pairs well with artichokes and added red bell peppers for the color and sweetness.

If you're not a fan of rice, you could use barley or quinoa or whatever you do like.

The beauty of this is that you can, if you like, cook the artichokes ahead of time and reheat them and stuff them right before serving. I got two ginormous purple artichokes from Frieda's Specialty Produce, so that was four servings for me - obviously I needed some reheating.

I cooked mine in my pressure cooker - just 10 minutes of cooking time - but you can also cook them in a large pot. Add some lemon juice to keep them from browning and cook until they're fork-tender.

I cooked the rice in my rice cooker, but you can also cook it on the stovetop using whatever method you prefer.

If you need it, check my post on how to clean and cook an artichoke.

Rice-Stuffed Lemony Artichokes

2 large artichoke, halved, cleaned, and cooked
2 rice-cooker cups jasmine rice (usually 3/4 cup each, for 1 1/2 cups rice, total)
Water, to cooking line (or a little less to compensate for moisture in the vegetables)
1 fire roasted red bell pepper, cored, peeled, and roughly chopped
4 ounces mushrooms, sliced
2 springs fresh thyme (leaves only)
Juice and zest from 1 Meyer lemon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
Meyer lemon wedges, for garnish

Combine the rice, water, pepper, mushrooms, thyme, lemon juice and zest, salt, and olive oil in your rice cooker. Cook on the regular rice setting.

Serve the artichokes stuffed with rice and garnish with lemon wedges to squeeze on as desired. If you like, you can drizzle with a bit of olive oil, as well.

If you're not a rice fiend like I am, you're likely to end up with leftover rice. So, make more artichokes, or serve the rice as a side dish. It's pretty good on its own.

I received the artichokes and Meyer lemons from Frieda's Specialty Produce.

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Buttermilk Chess Pie

Let's be honest. I don't buy a lot of cookbooks these days. I get a lot of books for review, and there are only so many hours in a day and only so many burners on the stove and only so many feet of floor space where I can pile unread books.

So I don't need to buy a whole lot of books.

However, I did buy The Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook by Cheryl Day and Griffith Day. Well, technically I guess I didn't buy it since I used a gift card and not money that I earned, but the book didn't come from the publisher or PR people. And I could have used that gift card to buy a vat of lard or something.

Anyway, I like the idea of classic, old-time recipes, and this book certainly seemed to fit that category. In no time at all, I had bookmarked cinnamon-sugar-doughnut muffins, baked eggs, cinnamon - sour cream coffee cake, buttermilk chess pie, butter mints, and rustic cheddar pecan rounds ... just for starters.

I picked Buttermilk Chess Pie for my first try. For one thing, I had buttermilk on hand that I bought for a different recipe. For another, I'd heard of chess pie, but I'd never made one. It sounded like it was about time to make one.

I used my own pie crust rather than one in the book, but otherwise I followed the directions.

Except ... oops! I overcooked the pie. Not the fault of the recipe, but the fault of my inattention. Although it was obviously overcooked, it was still pretty darned tasty, which is a credit to the recipe. It was sweet, tart, creamy, and lemony. It wasn't as sort of smooth as it should have been, but I caught it before it was curdled and ruined.

Buttermilk Chess Pie
Adapted from The Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook bu Cheryl Day and Griffith Day

Oops. A little over-baked. but still good.

1 pie crust, unbaked
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 tablespoons room temperature butter
4 large eggs
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons cornmeal
Pin of salt
3/4 cup buttermilk
Zest of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Have the pie crust (home made or store bought) ready in a pie plate. Let it rest in the refrigerator while you prepare the filling.

Have a rack in the lower third of your oven. Heat the oven to 350 degrees.

In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or you can use a hand mixer) cream the sugar and butter until light in color. I never got it to "cream" at all - the sugar remained fluffy and sandy. But I continued, anyway.

Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add the flour, cornmeal and salt and beat until well combined.

Add the buttermilk, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Mix until combined.

Prick the bottom of the crust with a fork, then pour the filling into the crust. Place the pie into the oven on that bottom rack and bake for 10 minutes, then turn the heat down to 325 degrees and bake for and additional 45 to 55 minutes, until the custard is golden brown and set around the edges but the center is still jiggly. It will firm up as it cools.

Let the pie cool at least 2 hours before slicing. Store in the refrigerator.

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Lemon Vinaigrette and a review of The Kitchn Cookbook

I've been a big fan of the website The Kitchn for quite some time, so I was pretty excited to see that they had a cookbook.

Once it was in my hands, I was a little surprised to see that the first part of the book - I'd say roughly a third of the book - is all sorts of tips about what tools you need in your kitchen, how to organize, how to clean, how to stock your pantry, and a whole bunch of tips for basic food prep.

It's all good information for someone who's just starting out, but I've been cooking so long, I'm pretty unlikely to change what I do.

So I wandered straight to the recipe section. There were a lot of recipes I wanted to try, from brined pork chops to pasta recipes to cocktails to desserts. But after a lot of gawking and paging through the book, the two that I zoned in on were a lemon vinaigrette and braised green beans with tomatoes.

The photo of the beans was compelling. It looked like the kind of dish that I could eat for lunch all by itself.

But I'm a sucker for lemon and I have this crazy theory about cookbooks. I like to try a few simple, inexpensive recipes before I go out and buy expensive stuff and spend my time on complicated recipes.

I liked this dressing - which I expected - but I have to note that this isn't just for salads. I drizzled it on some artichokes and it would be amazing on asparagus. Or a dressing for a pasta salad. Or... wherever you want lemon. Which, for me, is pretty much everywhere.

Lemon Vinaigrette
Adapted from The Kitchn Cookbook
By Sara Kate Gillingham and Faith Durand

1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon peel
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tablespoon finely minced shallot
1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
Freshly ground pepper, to taste

Combine all the ingredients in a 1 cup or larger jar. Shake vigorously until everything is well mixed.

Taste and adjust seasoning.

Refrigerate until needed.

I actually liked this better after a day, since the shallots had a chance to mellow a bit, but it was good right away, as well.

If this sits for a day, you'll probably need to shake again, but I made this a few hours ahead and it hadn't separated at all. And it really didn't take a lot of shaking to get it to emulsify.

I received this book from the publisher in order to do a review.

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Middle Eastern Lemon Potato Salad from Silk Road Vegetarian #VirtualPotluck

I don't think I've ever met a potato salad I didn't love. I like it hot, like German potato salad ... or cold, like the typical mayonnaise-based salad.

But I don't think I've ever had a potato salad that featured lemon. Oh, maybe a little accent. But not lemon as the featured flavor. So, when I saw a recipe in Silk Road Vegetarian by Dahlia Abraham-Klein, I knew that I had to give it a try.

The recipe isn't very complicated - nothing that would flummox a beginning cook. But because of the unexpected flavor profile, more experienced cooks won't think it's too simple.

The only thing I changed was that I used a sweet yellow onion instead of a red one. It wasn't a planned change - when I started the recipe, I thought I had a red onion on hand. But no, there weren't any. Since I had everything else I needed, I decided to proceed, anyway. The red onion would have added a little extra color, so I'll give that I try next time.

I also cut the recipe in half, because there are only two of us, and it made enough for two meals. (I've got the half-recipe below.) Although this recipe is intended to be served chilled or at room temperature, it was pretty good when it was just mixed and still warm.

Middle Eastern Lemon Potato Salad
Adapted from Silk Road Vegetarian by Dahlia Abraham-Klein

1 1/2 pounds potatoes
1/6 cup (40 ml) lemon juice (8 teaspoons, or 2 tablespoons plus two teaspoons)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
1/2 teaspoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup (82 ml) olive oil
1/4 of a red onion, diced

Cook the potatoes (skins on) in salted water until cooked through. Drain. When they're cool enough to hand, peel and cut into large chunks and place in a medium bowl.

While the potatoes are cooking prepare the dressing. Combine the lemon juice, dill, sugar, salt, and black pepper. Whisk the olive oil in slowly>

Drizzle the dressing over the warm potatoes. Add the diced onion. Stir. Let rest at room temperature for 30 minutes, then refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.

Served chilled or at room temperature.

I received this book from the publisher, Tuttle Books, for the purpose of this post for Virtual Potluck.

You can follow the author on Twitter at @SpicyVegetarian and you can find the publisher on Twitter at @TuttleBooks.

Check out the other posts from the Virtual Potluck team:

Fennel and Orange Salad over at Foodhunter's Guide
Indian Spinach Curry over at Diabetic Foodie

Want to win your very own copy of Silk Road Vegetarian? Get started with the Rafflecopter below, then go visit the other blogs. If you don't see the rafflecopter there right away, give it a few seconds to load. It's worth it!

Giveaway is now over.

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Shrimp with Egg Yolk Sauce #ShrimpShowdown

Have you ever been to a Teppanyaki restaurant? One of the signature dishes is shrimp with a secret egg yolk sauce. It almost seems like cheese - but it's not. instead, it's a relative of mayonnaise. Or, technically, I guess it's a type of mayonnaise, since it's essentially emulsified egg yolks and oil.

Here, I decided to veer away from the Teppanyaki serving style and served the shrimp on a bed of spinach. Then I drizzled the whole thing with some extra lemon juice - lemon goes perfectly with both shrimp and spinach - and it was a very simple meal.

The secret sauce can be made in advance and refrigerated until needed, and you can peel and clean and butterfly the shrimp ahead of time, too. So when you're ready to cook, it's really fast.

To make the portioning of the sauce a little easier, I used a pastry bag, but you can dollop it on with a spoon, if you like. The sauce is really rich, so don't get carried away. Or, just eat more spinach to compensate.

Annato seeds can be found at specialty spice shops and at some ethnic markets or in the ethnic section of your grocery store. You might find the labeled at achiote seeds. Make sure you get the actual seeds and not the powder or paste. They look like little brick-red rocks and turn the oil a bright yellow-orange color.

Be careful - the oil will stain.

As far as the spinach, as much as I'm a fan of using fresh vegetables as much as possible, sometimes frozen spinach makes more sense. A bunch of spinach at the grocery store or farmer's market cooks down to nothing. A pound of frozen spinach is relatively substantial. And, it's already clean, so you don't need to deal with washing the grit off the spinach leaves. One of my least favorite kitchen tasks.

This post is sponsored by OXO and the NFI Shrimp Council. For my participation, I received a selection of OXO tools and enough shrimp for several different recipes. There's a list of participating bloggers after the recipe, and a chance to win some amazing goodies for yourself, including the same tools I received, and a $100 gift card.

Shrimp with Egg yolk Sauce

For the sauce:

1 cup mild-flavored vegetable oil
2 tablespoons annato seeds
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
Pinch of salt
2 egg yolks

For the shrimp:
12 extra-large shrimp, peeled, deveined, and butterflied
1 tablespoon olive oil

For serving:
1 pound frozen chopped spinach, cooked
Lemon juice, as needed
Lemon wedges, for serving

To make the annatto oil:
The first step of this process is to make the annatto oil. You probably won't use the full cup of oil, but once you have it, you can use it for other purposes, so there's no problem with having extra on hand. If you don't want any extra, you can halve it - use 1/2 cup of oil and 1 tablespoon of seeds, and if you need more oil, use plain vegetable oil.

Put the oil and seeds in a small saucepan and heat gently. You don't need to boil the oil, and above all, you don't want those seeds to blacken. Just get the oil hot, stir once in a while, then turn off the heat and let the seeds steep until the oil has cooled. Strain the seeds out and keep the oil.

To make the egg yolk sauce:
Whisk the egg yolks in a medium bowl until they lighten in color. This step might seem frivolous, since you're not adding anything to the eggs. But trust me, if you don't beat the oil well, the oil will never emulsify. You can do this with an electric mixer or stick blender if you like.

Add the oil, a little bit at a time, whisking like crazy as you go. The oil should incorporate into the yolks and you should see it thicken.

If you add the oil too fast and the mixture separates, you can beat one more yolk separately and then add the broken mixture to the new yolk, slowly.

When you've got about 1/2 cup of oil beaten into the yolks, add the lemon juice and salt and continue whisking (at this point, I think the whisk is a better tool, so even if you started with an electric mixer, I suggest you finish by hand.

Keep whisking, and the mixture will thicken until it's almost the consistency of Velveeta. You can continue adding oil, if you like, but I preferred the higher yolk-to-egg ratio. Taste and add more salt or lemon juice, as desired.

If you're not cooking the shrimp right away, refrigerate this until needed.

The great thing about shrimp is that even if it's frozen, you're not too far away from cooking. If you didn't think about putting some in the refrigerator to thaw, just let it thaw in cold water. The bowl and strainer OXO provided was perfect for this. For a smaller amount of shrimp, the silicone steamer in any handy bowl or container works just as well. Since it's flexible, you can make it fit into whatever containers you have handy.

To finish the dish:
For a quick video on how to clean shrimp using the OXO shrimp cleaning tool, click here. Once the shrimp is deveined and peeled, butterfly them by cutting through the top side of the shrimp (the top of the curve, opposite the legs) almost all the way through, then flatten them out.

Heat the olive oil on medium heat in a saute pan that has a cover. (Meanwhile, cook the spinach, as desired. I microwaved mine until just cooked through and still bright green.)

Have the egg yolk sauce ready, along with your lemon juice (OXO provided a wooden reamer to make this task easy). Have a cup or small container on hand, with about 1/4 cup of water. You could also mix half water and half white wine, for a little extra flavor.

When the oil is hot, place the shrimp, cut-side up, in the pan, then top each with a small dollop of the egg yolk sauce (or pipe a line down the center using a pastry bag). Pour 1/4 of water into the pan and cover. Cook until the shrimp are cooked through - check after about 30 seconds - and cook just as long as you need to.

Some (or all) of the shrimp might curl a bit as they cook.

Place the shrimp on top of the spinach and drizzle with lemon juice. Serve warm with extra slices of lemon.

Want more shrimp in your life?

The following bloggers all have shrimp recipes, sponsored by OXO:

A Kitchen Addiction
A Zesty Bite
Betsy Life
Bonbon Break
Cherished Bliss
Chocolate Moosey
Coconut and Lime
Cookistry
Created by Diane
Everyday Maven
Foxes Love Lemons
Garnish with Lemon
girlichef
Growing up Gabel
Healthy Delicious
Home Cooking Memories
Jeanette's Healthy Living
Julie's Eats and Treats
Kirbie's Cravings
Lemons for Lulu
My Man's Belly
Natasha's Kitchen
Noble Pig
Peanut Butter and Peppers
Peas and Crayons
Sarah's Cucina Bella
So How's It Taste?
Taste Love and Nourish
That Skinny Chick Can Bake
Wonky Wonderful

Still not enough shrimp?

All of the  #ShrimpShowdown posts will be featured on a shared Pinterest board on both the OXO and Eat Shrimp Pinterest pages - be sure to check them out! Also, each post will be added to a photo album on the OXO Facebook Page and the Eat Shrimp Facebook Page.

Go check them out and share your favorites with your friends and fans!

Want to enter to win?

The photo shows the tools I received, which are the same ones YOU CAN WIN. The bowl and colander set at the back comes with a lid for the bowl that's not shown in the picture.

AND - there's also a gift card, for a total value of $180. Here's the list:

Shrimp Cleaner
Flexible Kitchen & Herb Snips
Silicone Steamer
Wooden Lemon Reamer
3 Piece Bowl and Colander Set
12" Tongs with Silicone Heads
$100 Visa Gift Card from the NFI Shrimp Council

Enter with the widget below.

If it doesn't load immediately, give it it a few seconds.

Yum

Have you ever had a cactus pear?

When I was a kid, my mother would buy a cactus pear about once a year. I'm guessing that's because they weren't available any other time. But now that I think of it, I'm kind of surprised they were available at all.

I mean, back then mom shopped at a little neighborhood grocery store where the produce cooler was probably no more than six or eight feet long. Lettuce was iceberg. Potatoes were white or red. Beets were purple and peppers were green.

I remember just a few things about those cactus pears. First, they had nasty sticky spines that were waiting to snag you. And second, the color inside was a deep magenta.

So when my buddies at Frieda's Specialty Produce offered me some cactus pears, I was pretty excited to see them again. Because although they're not quite as rare as they were when I was kid, they're still not an everyday item.

And it's been a long time since I've had them.

Preparing a cactus pear isn't difficult. But you still have to watch out for those spines. They're tiny little things that are more annoying than painful. But having a little forest of them stuck in your thumb isn't a great thing.

Check out this video - it's a great description of how to prepare the fruit.

And, if you do manage to get the little spines in your skin, there's a simple, painless way to remove them. Just drizzle a thin layer of Elmer's glue on the affected area, and wait for it to dry completely. Then peel off the glue. The teeny little spines will come right out.

But what about the fruit?

Well, I didn't remember what it tasted like, so I was kind of excited to try it. The flavor resembles watermelon, and it had a similar texture. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it, And then I looked over at my juicer. Aha!

I ran the fruit through the juicer and got a juice with a nice body and a bright color. As a bonus, juicing got rid of the plentiful black seeds.

And then what?

To the juice of three cactus pears, I added a tiny pinch of salt, a generous three-fingered pinch of sugar, and the juice of 1/2 of a lemon. All by itself, it was a refreshing juice, but it was also a great cocktail mixer with vodka or with tequila.

As a garnish, I used a wedge of lemon.

But look a little closer at that lemon - it's PINK. Along with the cactus pears, there were some variegated pink lemons. The outsides were pink, green, yellow, and they has some stripes. When cut, the lemons smelled a little like grapefruit, but the flavor was very lemony.

Thanks to Frieda's, where every box is the Chopped version of a CSA.

Yum

Strawberry-Balsamic Salad Dressing

I love salads, and I always make my own salad dressing. Making a simple vinegar and oil salad dressing was one of my very first kitchen tasks when I was a little kid, and I've been making salad dressings ever since.

My first dressings were pretty simple - vinegar, oil, salt, pepper, maybe a sprinkle of sugar. Maybe some herbs.

When I was a little kid, the only vinegars my mother had were plain white vinegar, cider vinegar, and red wine vinegar. And the oil choices were pretty slim, too. I think it might have been generic vegetable oil.

Now, my oil and vinegar choices are vast, and I've got a whole array of other interesting things I can add. This time, I took advantage of strawberries. I used them in the dressing, and then I also added sliced strawberries to the salad, as well.

As I started pawing through the refrigerator looking for salad makings, I realized that I had a lot of ingredients, in the red-pink range. I used radicchio, baby red peppers, radishes, and strawberries.

If I had red onions, I might have added those, too.

Strawberry-Balsamic Salad Dressing

6 medium strawberries
2 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar*
2 tablespoons lemon olive oil
2 tablespoons mild-flavored oil
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon agave syrup (or to taste)

Put the strawberries, white balsamic vinegar, oils, and salt in your blender, and blend until smooth. Taste for seasoning and add more salt, if needed.

If the dressing is too tart for your taste, add agave syrup (or honey or sugar) to taste.

*Red wine vinegar would also be lovely. Regular balsamic vinegar would taste fine, but would muddy the color of the dressing. Champagne vinegar, white wine vinegar, or any other light-colored vinegar that you like would also work.

Yum