Primal seafood medley with garlic-butter sauce

I don't know about you guys, but sometimes, I have stockpiles of stuff in my freezer, and no real ideas for it.  We had a couple of bags of seafood that were buy-1-get-1-free at our grocery store... I think they were originally bought for Christmas Eve, but we didn't end up making them that day and they just remained.  This recipe is a really simple way of bringing out the natural flavours of the seafood without being either too bland, or being drenched in sauces.  It does feature a garlic-butter sauce, which was perfect for dipping - we also drizzled it over the green beans served on the side for some extra flavour.  It was perfect for a gorgeous Florida afternoon, and we ate it outside on the back porch in the sun!

For seafood:

Ingredients: 

3 tbsp butter
1 1/2 tsp minced garlic
bag of mixed seafood
1/4 cup white wine
1/2 a lemon
oregano and parsley to taste
(salt if desired)

Method:

1. Melt butter in pan.  Add minced garlic and sautee over medium heat.

2. Once you can start to smell the garlic & butter melting together nicely, it's time to add your seafood.  If it's frozen, it's best to defrost it first (at least partially), so that you don't get a lot of water in the pan as it cooks down.

3. Continue to sautee over medium heat, and slowly add in your white wine, juice of half a lemon, and spices.

4.  Remove from heat when cooked - should be about 15-20 min.

(Serve with garlic-butter sauce, and a veggie on the side - we liked green beans!)





For sauce:

Ingredients:

1/3 cup butter
2 tsp minced garlic
salt to taste

Method:

1. In a small saucepot, melt 1/3 cup butter.
2. Once melted, add 2 tsp minced garlic, and salt to taste.  Allow the butter to cook down and clarify.
3. Remove from heat right before serving.

(This should be more than enough butter for the seafood, plus some left over)


Serves 2-3.

Do you have a favourite way to prepare seafood?  Did you try this recipe?  Leave a note in the comments and let me know!

Handmade Cards - The June-July Edition

I had a few events in June & July that required some handmade cards.  (And a few more, that haven't been made yet!)

For my friend Christina's birthday in June (you may recall her guest blog with a recipe for Key Lime Cupcakes), I made this little number.  I started with a pink card base.  The Owl and "It's Your Day" are stamped in black ink and cut out.  The owl is affixed with pop dots to give the card more depth.  I used buttons for balloons (attached with a glue runner), and drew a line with a marker to the owl's hand.  The grass at the bottom was cut with zigzag scissors, and then cut vertically and bent forward for some additional texture.





For my friends Katy and Anthony's wine shower, I came up with one of my favourite card designs ever.  I wanted to do something wine themed, but I wanted a monochrome effect for elegance.  I freehanded a stencil of a wine glass, and cut out all the different shapes separately for some texture.  The "love" and bubbles are from a Cricut cartridge (I can't remember offhand which one).  The ribbons are attached with a pop dot.
I totally love this card, and I hope they did too!



For my niece Nicole's 5th birthday, she insisted on a Hello Kitty themed party - so I thought I'd make her a card that went along with the theme.  The week before, she had also come swimming at my apartment, so when I found this postcard of Hello Kitty in a pool, I thought it was perfect!  The postcard came from this set (Hello Kitty Haiku postcards! How cute is that!) which I happened to have stashed away.  I used some white with blue/green swirled scrapbook paper as a background... then added the pieces of the swimming pool that were "scraps", with a ribbon in a coordinating colour.  I then used the actual Hello Kitty image, and affixed it with pop dots for dimension.
At the top, I used a piece of colourful scrapbook paper and dimensional stickers spelling her name.

Hope everyone here can use these cards as inspiration - leave a comment and let me know what you think, and especially link up if you've created something of your own!