Seafood and noodles is something that I just love together. The combination is simple, tasty, filling and has more than enough flavor to satisfy any seafood lover. Add in some lime, a bit of cilantro and a touch of heat and you have what I consider to be one of the best summertime lunch dishes I can think up, especially when the thermometer reads over 100 degrees.

I usually make shrimp when my wife is going to have to stay at the office during lunch, since it’s not her idea of a mid afternoon meal on most occasions.  The plus side is that I can have the shrimp working in the marinade while I’m feeding our son and getting him down for his nap.  That way Dad gets to eat as soon as clean up is completed and we’ve finished the ritual of “I just want a cookie!”.  A little peace, a little Bourdain and a great bowl of flavor makes for a much nicer afternoon.  Don’t you think?
(Note: When mom is home for lunch, we all eat together.)

If you’re not a huge fan of ramen noodles (though I don’t know why you wouldn’t be!), somen or soba noodles work just fine for this as well.  If you’re not fond of cilantro, use parsley, mint or Thai basil.  You won’t break my heart.  Not a fan of chili paste?  A good roasted pepper puree with a bit of garlic added would work just as well.  Have fun with it!

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I’m a day late to my own party!  This recipe was created for the Frugal Fridays Blog Event, hosted and created by yours truly and was supposed to be posted last night, but several things conspired against me.  First there was sleep deprivation.  Our son has hit one of those stages where sleep doesn’t seem to be something he requires much of.  since Mrs. Seat of her Pants holds down a job outside the house, I’m the one who stays up with the little hellion sweet child until I can get him to nod off.  three days of that was enough to have me nodding on the couch by 7:00 pm.

Top that off with the fact that my probe thermometer is either damaged or was inserted into the wrong portion of chicken ans I can add “Kitchen Disaster” to the list of things that held me up. For once it looked like everything was going to be ready at the same time.  that’s actually a rarity, especially when you’re making things up as you go along.  Last night it all looked perfect.  Right up until the time I cut the bird…

Now I love to see a big bunch of deep red juices come pouring out of a steak or a roast, but when it happens to be coming from a chicken…  Let’s just say it doesn’t thrill me.  Especially when I’ve already poured some of the pan juices into my side dish as well!  This little revelation set me back a full 30 minutes, since everything had to be heated past 200 degrees and held there for at least five minutes…  Fun!

In the end it all turned out well, just a little dryer than I would have liked.  It’s still a dish that I would recommend to anyone, and hey.  If you’re a vegetarian, leave the chrizo and chicken stock out of the rice.  It’s a gread veggie-friendly side.  Or add another good dose of black beans and it could be a main course.  Good stuff!

But how much did all of this set me back?  let’s see.

Chicken: $3.42
Herbs – Free, I grow them myself
Rice – approximately $0.25
Black Beans: $0.85 per can
Corn: less than 1/3 of a bag of frozen corn, so $1.09 / 3 = $0.36
Chorizo: 1/2 of a $2.99 package, so roughly $1.50
Chicken stock: 16 oz. out of a 32 oz. container @ 2.09 = 1.08

Everything else was pantry staples and the garlic was leftover from my last FF, so

Grand Total: $7.46 for a meal that would easily serve four.  In fact there is still a ton of rice left over!

Not too shabby if I do say so myself!

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Oh the feeling of visiting another food blog, only to discover you’ve begun to salivate uncontrollably over the recipe you’ve found there. You’ve discovered the perfect meal idea sitting right there in front of you, with photos and all. You just have to make this as soon as possible.

That’s what happened to me the other day when I popped in to Simply Recipes, culinary home of the lovely and talented Elise Bauer. If you haven’t checked out her site, please do. She’s not only one of the nicest food bloggers out there, she’s also very likely one of the most influential, and with good reason.

The inspiration for this dish came from her recipe for Spicy Grilled Turkey Burger with Coleslaw which had me on the edge of my seat the moment I saw it, and well, I just had to make something like it!

(Note Elise’s Photos are much prettier than mine, and I apologize for that, but there aren’t too many flat surfaces in our new house yet, and I’m forced to use the counters in the kitchen, where not only is the lighting not that great, but there really isn’t any contrast to anything… That will get better as we get settled in.)

Of course, I couldn’t follow exactly in her footsteps. My wife makes ground turkey patties fairly often, and I love them so much that I decided to mix the two concepts for a variation of my own, which would have been perfect, I think, except that a few of the ingredients I was just sure I had already moved to the new house either:

1. Weren’t here…
2. Were no longer viable sources of nourishment. (i.e., they’d gone bad on me while I wasn’t looking. Traitors!)

In the end, however, what I ended up with was not only wonderful, but wonderfully simple, and took less than an hour total for all prep, including a prerequisite rest in the chill-chest for the patties themselves and heating the grill, which of course is not gas, because I think if I’m going to grill, beer and fire are required in the process. (Besides, you can’t Barbecue on a GAS GRILL… If you’ve tried, you know what I mean… blech!) Read more…

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