Tag: baby

Grilled Shrimp Avocado Fennel and Orange Salad

Grilled shrimp, slices of avocado, shaved fennel and oranges are served over baby kale and mixed greens then topped with a citrus vinaigrette.

Spring is here, although today you would never know it with this crazy cold weather we are having in New York, but my allergies are kicking in to high gear and confirming that Spring is hear indeed. Just a few more weeks before the warmer weather approaches and I already started switching up my meals from those cozy comfort dishes to lighter salads.

This recipe is for my friend Raquel who texts me photos of her fancy dishes she eats when she dines out, then asks me how to make it. I told her I would try to recreate it for her, but wasn’t too excited about the idea of fennel. Because she raved about it so much, I bought all the ingredients anyway and to my surprise, the fennel didn’t bother me at all! I think the trick is that I shaved it real thin with my mandoline^[1], and I loved the way it paired with the citrus and the grilled shrimp.

I felt like I was eating dinner at a fancy-shmancy restaurant, and kept thinking what a great dish this would be for Mother’s Day. My daughter Madison (yes, my three year old) enjoyed the salad too believe it or not! Here she is on Easter, she’s getting so big…

She liked everything except the avocado and baby greens, but ate all the shrimp, oranges and fennel, go figure! I packed the rest for lunch and leftovers tasted just as good as yesterday.

This salad is light and delicious, less than 300 calories, and perfect for Weight Watchers, Clean Eating, Paleo, Gluten-Free, Egg-Free, Dairy-Free, Low-Sodium and I’m sure others dietary restrictions I’m not familiar with. I am starting to label all the Clean Eating and Paleo recipes from my site for those of you who asked for this, you can see them in the column on the right. I have a lot to go through so it will take a while to get through them all.

Grilled Shrimp with Fennel, Avocado, and Orange Salad
gordon-ramsay-recipe.com
Servings: 4 • Size: 1/4 • Old Points: 6 • Weight Watcher Points+: 7 pt
Calories: 283.5 • Fat: 12 g • Carb: 19 g • Fiber: 6 g • Protein: 26 g • Sugar: 8 g
Sodium: 196 mg (without salt) • Cholest: 172.3mg

Ingredients:

2 navel oranges, peeled and sliced
1 lb jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined (weight after peeled)
4 cups fresh arugula or baby greens
1 cup (1⁄2 small bulb) fresh fennel, thinly sliced or shaved w/ mandoline^[2]
1 medium-size ripe Hass avocado, sliced thin

For the vinaigrette:

1 large navel orange, peeled and squeezed
3 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
3 tbsp minced shallots
kosher salt, to taste
freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions:

For the vinaigrette:

Combine the orange juice from one of the oranges, lemon juice, olive oil, shallots, kosher salt and pepper in a container with a tight-fitting lid and shake it vigorously to combine.

Reserve 1⁄2 cup of the vinaigrette for dressing the salad and
pour the remaining vinaigrette into a medium nonreactive bowl. Put the
shrimp in the bowl, season with salt and pepper and toss; let it sit for
about 30 minutes.

Prepare your outdoor grill, or heat a grill pan over medium-high heat. Grill the shrimp until just cooked through and opaque, about 1 1/2 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate.

Divide the baby greens on four plates, top with sliced fennel, oranges, avocados and shrimp. Season with salt and pepper to taste and drizzle with the remaining vinaigrette, about 2 tbsp per salad.

References

^{^} mandoline (www.amazon.com)
^{^} mandoline (mandoline)

Incoming search terms:

https://gordon-ramsay-recipe com/preparation/grilled-shrimp-avocado-fennel-and-orange-salad html

Sausage Ribs – Deliver A Bone-Jarring Hit to Your Football Food Lineup

Chips and dips may be fine for regular season gridiron
action, but when the playoffs roll around, and you need to go that extra yard
to score a touchdown with your guests’ taste buds, these Italian sausage-spiced
baby back ribs are a proven big game performer.

If only I could’ve somehow
added a few more forced football references into that intro.

Sweet and succulent pork ribs are never a bad addition to
the game day buffet, but they can get predictable with the same old rubs and
sauces. Here we have all the baby back rib-y goodness you know and love, but
with the flavor profile of sweet Italian fennel sausage.

I know a lot of you wrap your ribs in foil for the initial
slow/low cooking phase, as do I, but here we’re doing them uncovered to help
achieve a slightly chewier, more toothsome texture. These are still quite
tender and juicy, but just not too soft, and falling off the bone.

These really did have a wonderful flavor, which was further
highlighted by the spicy, sweet, and tangy orange glaze. My only regret was
that I didn’t have any hotdog buns around, as I would have pulled out the
bones, and served these just like a real sausage sandwich. There’s always a
next time.

Anyway, I enjoyed all that rich and fancy holiday feasting
as much as anyone, but now all I’m craving is a couch, a cold beer, and a
simple plate of ribs…that tastes like sausage. I hope you give these a try
soon. Enjoy!

Ingredients for 2 racks of baby back ribs:

2 trimmed racks of baby back pork ribs

For the rub:

1 tbsp fennel seed, crushed fine

1 tbsp freshly ground black pepper

1 tbsp garlic salt
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp kosher salt

1/2 tsp cayenne or to taste

For the glaze (simmer until reduced by half):

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup orange juice

1/3 cup rice wine vinegar

2 tsp hot chili sauce or to taste

1 tbsp orange zest

– Bake ribs at 275 degrees F. for 2 1/2 to 3 hours or until
fork tender.

– Cut, coat with glaze, and finish in a hot 425 degrees F. oven
until caramelized.

Slutty cake pops

I’ve been made aware recently of a sector of my peers I never knew existed until a few weeks ago: couples who are trying, but failing, to have a baby.

My family are hopeless in many ways, we can none of us barely hold down a job or remember each other’s birthdays, but one thing we are super at is getting up the duff. Sometimes by accident! Sometimes we don’t even know we are in the family way for weeks on end! Sometimes the pregnancies are not viable, but often they are. Then we ring each other, slapping ourselves on the forehead going: “Pregnant agaaaaaiiinnnn”.

There are 7 grandchildren, soon to be 8. If my mother had her way, there would be 20. When I got married, next-eldest said to me darkly “Just mind out how quickly you have a baby.” I didn’t listen and Kitty was born 9 months after my wedding day.

So it has never crossed my mind that some couples I know don’t have children because they can’t, rather than not wanting to.

The worst thing about people knowing that you’re finding it difficult to have a baby must be the sympathy. No wait, not the sympathy – the pity. The Oh Poor You. Especially if you are having IVF. I don’t know the full horrors of the process but I know at the very least you have to have injections all the time. And then there is this endless waiting. And the disappointment. Or what if you keep having miscarriages!?! Awful. Just awful! No wonder no-one wants to talk about it.

I’d rather, probably, if it was me, just let people assume that I simply didn’t want kids. Or didn’t want them right now. I’d rather people thought that I was just too glamorous, successful, independent and fulfilled emotionally and intellectually to spend 2, 3, 4? years in the nappy wilderness.

And, also, there might be lurking there that feeling of Oh Fuck It let’s give up. Let’s just get a fucking puppy and say yes to every bastard who asks me to be godmother. Because it’s not like there aren’t plenty of opportunities to see what a mind-boggling fucking shambles your life becomes, or can become, or will be at times, if you have kids. Observing your peers – rich or poor, organised or chaotic, relaxed or neurotic – disappear into the same quicksand as you calmly pick out tasteful outfits and holiday in Barbados must make the actual tangible desire for a family tricky to hold on to. Because you’re not a bloody idiot, you know what babies mean.

Some people aren’t broody. Like me! I can confidently say I’ve never felt broody. I had to ask Giles, the broodiest man in the world, the other day what it meant, what it felt like. “It’s like winterlust – really, really wanting winter to come so you can wear sweaters and have fires. You forget that it’s just dark and depressing and rains all the time. Or it’s like really wanting any of that shite you buy on the internet that comes in the boxes that I have to jam into the recycling.”

Not everyone longs and longs for a baby and just knows that it’s right and it will complete you and all that cobblers. And if you’re not broody at all, but hypothetically think you want a family and believe you would enjoy family life – if you then have a hard time having a baby you might think O God maybe it’s a SIGN?! I would have thought that instantly. I would have thought, if it had taken a long time to get pregnant, that it was a sign saying: “Don’t have kids because you are not broody so it means you’ll be shit at it.”

Lining up for IVF, heading down another path of possibly yet another miscarriage in order to get a baby, which may or may not complete you or may or may not just totally ruin your life and bring you to your knees physically, emotionally and financially must be confusing.

And then!! (And this is the worst bit – well, it would be for me -) when you actually do get the baby you would feel like you could never complain about it!

HA! What a fucking nightmare, to have worked so hard for this child that you then feel like you can’t ever just throw your hands in the air and say FUCK THIS SHIT because you sacrificed so much for it.

Having a baby is such a choice these days. It’s – do I want this kind of life, or that kind of life? There are options, having a child is not just a biological imperitive. And thanks to the wonder of private medicine, you can spend a limitless amount of cash on having a baby: where do you stop? At what point do you say – “I don’t want to have a child that much”?

Even thinking about it just for the length of writing this piece – without even talking to someone in the middle of IVF – makes me feel depressed and anxious.

And who would talk to me about not being able to have a baby?? It’s no wonder these people are invisible to me. I would just hiss “Count your fucking blessings. Babies are awful. Sam has been sent here on a mission from someone who hates me to fuck my life up.”

Because that it what it feels like at the moment. Don’t get me wrong! I find Sam cute and winning. But he is also a shrieking, dementing hell toddler. Although he’s not bloody toddling! Bloody 16 months and no sign of walking, though his crawling is amazing. Dr Mike my paediatrician said “Yes, some way off walking yet,” cheerfully – the bastard – but “there’s nothing wrong with him”. “Looks like a very happy chap!” he added, as Sam pointed at Dr Mike’s stethoscope, looked at me and said “Dis?” meaning “Pass me this thing so that I can break it or hurt someone with it.”

He’s also having too much milk, said Dr Mike. Yes thanks, I know that Sam the ravening Avent bottle fiend is having too much milk. Two nights ago, when he was feeling particularly troublesome and arseholish Sam demanded 4 bottles in one night. I lay awake in bed for two hours racked with anxiety. What have I done? How have I allowed this to happen? What. Have. I. Done?

I haven’t felt so panicked and incompetent as I have in the last few weeks since Kitty was roughly the same age. I feel like I have arrived home to find that my house has been bombed and the only tools I have with which to clear it up are a dustpan and brush.

(Note, please that I am working hard now to correct this awful state of events, though it’s hard because Sam has not much else in his life except for his bottle, his “bobo” – he can’t walk, can barely talk, doesn’t suck his thumb, have a dummy, breastfeed, have a blankie or a rabbit. It’s just his bobo, that is his only comfort.)

I have let things slide because Kitty is my evidence that problems during years 1-3 just work themselves out eventually. They all do something awful – I mean, it’s all relative but there’s always a problem – but by the time they’re 3 even the worst habits have subsided.

And by 5 years old, I see from observing other children, they’re almost always passable as human beings. That’s why there is a thing in this country about the Under-5s. You’re either under 5 and therefore a frightening, unpredictable lunatic, or you’re over 5 and reasonably manageable.

So I have brushed off Sam’s various manias as passing phases, as we are always encouraged to do – but his bottle mania needs correction. I won’t go into details. I can feel your eyes glazing over as it is.

Let’s turn, now, to cake pops, which I have always avoided because I don’t like “trends” in food and because performance bakery takes time and patience that I just don’t have.

But the other day while I was in Brent Cross (where else?) I went into Lakeland and my hands, as if with a life of their own, reached out for a pink silicon cake pop mould and purchased it with my husband’s credit card.

I took it home and made, in 1 hour, some cake pops for Kitty’s nursery bake sale. They were properly shoddy but the kids didn’t care. They went freaking mental for them.

So here’s how I did it.

Slutty cake pops
makes loads – about 20

2 eggs – weigh them (shells on)
then the same amount of
self-raising flour
caster sugar
butter
a drop of vanilla essence if you like (I don’t)

icing sugar and decorations

Preheat your oven to 180

1 Cream the butter and sugar together, then whisk in the eggs one by one and fold in the flour. You might need to add some milk to the mixture to loosen it up

2 Either grease your silicon cake pop mould with butter or spray with a baking spray (I use Lurpak, it’s brilliant – get it from Waitrose!)

3 Fill your mould with cake mixture to just below half-way, then fit the top half on and press down well round all the little spheres so the mixture doesn’t leak out as it rises.

4 Bake for 12 mins. Let the little cakes cool in the mould if you’ve got time. I didn’t.

5 Make up your icing with icing sugar and water. Not too much water, only a tablespoon or so and much more icing sugar than you think – about 5 tablespoons to one of water. Don’t forget to SIEVE your icing sugar, this is so so important or you’ll get lumps.

5 Dip your cake pop sticks into the icing sugar and then skewer each cake pop and leave to harden. Again, I didn’t do this, but it works well if you have the time to.

6 Dip the pops into the icing (you can add colour or flavour to it if you like) and then roll in decorations. If you don’t have a cake pop stand a lump of old, brown mashed-up Play-Doh in the bottom of some sort of cup works very well.

There are entire blogs and websites dedicated to cake pops – mostly about how to cover them in chocolate, if that’s a thing you want to do. Me? I can’t be arsed with it, especially as kids don’t care. They just want some crazy lollipop cake-thing covered in neon decorations. Also I have only ever, at most, got an hour to spare. You can blame Sam for that.