Roasted Shrimp Awesomeness!

I'm a sucker for shrimp cocktail. Especially when there are other things to slather in cocktail sauce like cheese, crackers and bread. Since this has been one of the longest and most hellacious weeks ever I decided we needed a little treat. Plus I had leftover horseradish and another shrimp recipe I wanted to try. Normally I just buy the precooked shrimp and adjust my recipes for that but this roasted shrimp recipe seemed like fun and uncooked shrimp is a whole two dollars cheaper at WF.

Behold the heavenly platter of awesomeness!

I liked this recipe, it was fun to roast the shrimp. I felt that there was a little bit of a texture difference if you knew to pay attention....they weren't as soft as precooked frozen shrimp. I loved the fact that they were seasoned and you could see that. The sauce was pretty good, had some depth to it but I'm just more of a straight up horseradish and ketchup girl. If it doesn't make you tear up then it's not hot enough!

Roasted Shrimp Cocktail

(adapted from Ina Garten)

Ingredients
For the shrimp:
2 pounds (12 to 15-count) shrimp
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
For the sauce:
1/2 cup chili sauce
1/2 cup ketchup
3 tablespoons prepared horseradish
2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon hot sauce
Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Peel and devein the shrimp, leaving the tails on. Place them on a sheet pan with the olive oil, salt, and pepper and spread them in 1 layer. Roast for 8 to10 minutes, just until pink and firm and cooked through. Set aside to cool.
3. For the sauce, combine the chili sauce, ketchup, horseradish, lemon juice, worcestershire sauce, and hot sauce. Serve as a dip with the shrimp.

A Yearning for Home

Our favorite place to end up in Syracuse was Clark's. We spent a large portion of our grad school career there. It was the best bar ever and perfectly mirrored both of our personalities: twenty-two rotating craft beers on tap, one glorious roast beef sandwich, cheese platters from heaven, a real dartboard, never packed, no tvs, no loud music, and most importantly no drunken undergrads. Before I moved down to Philly Kevin just happened to be in town on Clark's final weekend (they were closing down due to their lease being bought out but great news, looks they might reopen in a new location!) and ever since we have been reminiscing and yearning for a Clark's sandwich. Tonight we revisited our grad school years and recreated our Clark's experience!
First up a cheese platter! They had several different types of cheese available but we always went with smoked gouda. It was served up with an entire sleeve of saltines that was hacked in half and a pile of red onions. Weird I know but give it a try!

You need to start with a good base: onion rolls! Smeared with fresh horseradish. Please note the the orange and blue theme. Go 'Cuse!

You need to serve it up with good beer. We used two of our NY brewery pint glasses: Saranac and Wagner. More orange plates!

Next up: create your Clark's sandwich. Onion roll, slice of cheddar cheese, roast beef, onions, and horseradish. So simple, so delicious. Especially after a night out.

We're getting to the recipe part. The beef! A couple of months ago we received a bag of meat from Mr. Lawyers mom (he likes to insert a "that's what she said" joke here). It contained a beef eye of round roast, I had no idea what to do with it. I found this recipe that had rave reviews but also seemed completely outrageous. You turn the oven off after 21 minutes and just leave the roast in there?! Food poisoning abound! But let me tell you it was delicious. Perfectly pink, flavorful and pretty tender. 

High Temperature Eye-of-Round Roast

(adapted from allrecipes.com)

Ingredients:

1(3 lb) beef eye of round roast

Salt, pepper, garlic powder

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Season the roast with salt, pepper, and garlic and place in a roasting pan or baking dish (one review suggested making sure the fat was on top so as it melted it was self-bast the roast). Do not cover or add water.
2. Place the roast in the preheated oven. Reduce the temperature to 475 degrees. Roast for 21 minutes (seven minutes per pound) then turn off the oven and let the roast sit in the hot oven for 2 1/2 hours. Do not open the door at all during this time!
3. Remove the roast from the oven, the internal temperature should have reached at least 145 degrees.

4. Carve into thin slices to serve.

Yum!

Onion-Horseradish-Beer breath reminds me of a whole bunch of great nights.