Bacon-Wrapped Shrimp

I saw a recipe for bacon-wrapped shrimp on the same day I spotted a Schnucks promotion for  seafood. I love shrimp, and I love bacon, so this was a good reason for me to put on my pants and venture out into the 106-degree heat index.

The picture shows the result. You can click on it to make it larger and to whet your appetite.

I don’t follow directions well

You can read the website’s ingredients and directions here.

Like I said, I take liberties with what people tell me to do. Where the recipe called for maple syrup, I substituted honey. I don’t particularly like maple syrup, and I thought the honey might stick better when I basted it on the shrimp and bacon.

I usually buy a thick bacon at Sam’s, and I’ve learned that it works best when I leave it in my convection toaster oven for 14 minutes at 400 degrees. I poured off the excess grease at about the half-way mark, and I increased the broiler time by two minutes to make the bacon a little crispier.

Finally, I didn’t have any off-the-shelf chili powder, so I reached for Wife Lila’s favorite, Chimayo Chile Bros Hatch Medium. It added enough heat that it was interesting, but not so much it overpowered the main ingredients.

I ate half the 20 medium-sized shrimp for supper, and polished the rest off for brunch. It was good enough that I’m going to make some more in the next couple of days.

Big Change at Wib’s BBQ

Five generations of Steinhoffs have eaten at this BBQ joint on the edge of Jackson, even though I joke that they’ve only used three hogs since the place opened in 1947.

I had let the dishes pile up in the sink for three days (four now), so I had to make the hard decision: clean up the kitchen or eat out.

Wib’s won. When I pulled into a corner parking space, I saw something that caused a quiver in the universe. They had changed their sign.

Grammarians would lose their appetite

Wib’s got away with their skimpy helpings of meat because serious grammarians would lose their appetite as soon as they saw a sign in front of the eatery that proclaimed:

CLOSED

SUNDAY’S

&

MONDAY’S

I could have sworn I had a picture of it, but we’ll have to make do with this one peeking around the corner. Click on it to make it larger.

The front has new blocks because a high school kid drove his car through the front of the building. I suspect that’ll be mentioned in his obit.

Now that the apostrophes have been put to rest and the place is safe for English teachers, I wonder if business will increase as much as the smoking ban helped the Pilot House?

Earlier Wib’s stories

 

I Love Mangoes and Avocados

We’ve got two mango trees in our yard in West Palm Beach. Some years we have had so many that I had to dig holes to bury over-ripe ones that fall.

That makes it very painful to pay a buck or more for small ones in the Cape grocery stores. Fortunately, when I went on my Fourth of July strawberry soda quest, I found mangoes and avocados on sale for close to a reasonable price.

I didn’t realize I was going photograph this for a blog post, so I made the mistake of cutting the prettiest mango first.

How do I peel a mango?

Unfortunately, it has been do long since I’ve peeled a mango that I couldn’t quite remember the most efficient way of doing it.

Fortunately, Wife Lila is an expert, and she explained exactly how to get to the good part of the mango without cutting yourself or taking a bath in the juice.

Click on the photo to be taken to her blog where she’ll explain everything in simple enough terms that even I did a passable job on my first try.

Holiday Crisis Averted

I walked up to the young man stocking the soda shelves and said, “Kid, the fate of the Fourth of July is on your shoulders.”

I don’t know if Walmart employees are issued a panic button to push if confronted with “odd” customers, but the look in his eye made me believe he wished he had such a device.

“Here’s the deal. It’s not the Fourth of July unless I can pour strawberry soda over vanilla ice cream. I’d hate to have to tell all those folks who are waiting for fireworks to go off that you’re responsible for it not happening.”

He and a second stocker scoured the aisles and came back with the sad news: the Jackson Walmart had no strawberry soda in any brand.

(By the way, you can click on the images if you want to make them big enough to see the bubbles.)

Schnucks Saved the Day

Hoping to salvage the holiday, I went to Schnucks.

They, fortunately, had at least four brands of red soda on the shelves.

Cue up the firework displays. (For the record, this was taken in Middleport, Ohio, in 2015, while escorted by Curator Jessica, who is still young enough to get excited about things like this.)

After it was over, she asked how I liked it.

My answer was to play Peggy Lee singing Is That All There Is? 

More Fourth of July posts