Sweet and Spicy Carmelized Shrimp

My very cold drive into work turned out to be better than I thought. I got to witness a gorgeous pink and purple sky with an orange sunrise. It reflected off of the icy snow and made for a b-e-a-utiful picture!

Last night, after my third episode of Say Yes to the Dress, I got hungry. Big surprise.

I had prepared my recipes for the week and was going to hold out until Sunday to make them, but of course, I was impatient and couldn’t wait.

I am really excited about this recipe which I found on the Pillsbury website for Carmelized Chili Shrimp. My diet has been lagging in the seafood department for a while now so the shrimp sounded PERFECT. I like sweet, I like spicy and I like shrimp. I’m really loving this recipe. Make it tonight, please. It’s really easy and healthy!!

Easy, peasy ingredients.

The recipe calls for a Tablespoon of flour, but I forgot to add it. Oops.

This dish was so so so yummy. Paired with broccoli and a whole wheat, Low carb tortilla!

Carmelized Chili Shrimp

1/2 c sugar

1 T whole wheat flour

1 t sea salt

1 t chili powder

1/8 t cayenne

1 clove garlic, chopped

1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined

fresh lime juice

Combine all except shrimp. Toss shrimp and coat in mixture.

Spread on a baking sheet.

Bake at 500 for 7-9 minutes.

Off to hang out with my friend Lisa who is in town from Milledgeville!

Buffalo Chicken Pizza

At Publix, I grabbed some of their ready made pizza dough from the bakery and set out to make a comforting meal tonight. I really wanted to use up my leftover pulled chicken, so I found this recipe on Tina’s recipe page for Buffalo Chicken Pizza…sign me up!

Ingredients:

1 ball of pizza dough (i used publix, but you could use ready made crust)

1 chicken breast cooked and shredded

1/2 buffalo sauce

1 T butter

fresh scallions

1/2 cup ranch dressing**

1.5 cups or so of cheese

** To lighten up the recipe a bit, I made my own ranch dressing using Penzy’s Buttermilk Ranch base. I mixed 1 T of the base with about 1/4 c of low fat buttermilk and added 2 heaping scoops of greek yogurt for thickness. If you haven’t made your own ranch before, I highly suggest it. I suppose you could also use those Hidden Valley packets in place of Penzy’s**

To assemble the pizza, stretch your dough into a crust and place on a greased sheet pan.

In a saucepan, combine butter, buffalo sauce and chicken. Heat through.

Spread a bit of the ranch on the crust and cover with some of the cheese and scallions.

Pour the chicken and sauce over the cheese.

Top with more cheese and scallions.

Bake at 425 for 25 minutes until desired crispness.

This pizza was DELISH hot out of the oven.

Happy Friday Yall. It’s the weekend 🙂

Sweet Potato Biscuits

A chill has finally swept through Georgia. Time to say hello to one of the most celebrated months of the year, November! To me, November is all about using fall colors while cooking. The vibrant orange of sweet potatoes, the golden yellow of acorn and butternut squash and the lovely purple of figs are all gorgeous. To me, wintery vegetables like pumpkin, squash and root vegetables are especially festive this time of year, not to mention the fact that they are all in season!

My aunt in Canton always makes these deliciously fluffy and slightly sweet biscuits that have a surprise ingredient, sweet potatoes! Served with honey butter, these make the perfect addition to any Southern thanksgiving table.

I served mine alongside eggs and country ham with red eye gravy. You can’t get any better than that!

• Sweet Potato Biscuits
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 heaping tablespoons sugar
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup mashed cooked sweet potatoes
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) softened butter
• 2 to 4 tablespoons milk (depending on the moisture of the potatoes)

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.

In a separate bowl, mix the sweet potatoes and butter.

Add the flour mixture to the potato mixture and mix to make a soft dough.

Then add milk a tablespoon at a time to mixture and continue to cut in.

Turn the dough out onto a floured board and toss lightly until the outside of the dough looks smooth.

Roll the dough out to 1/2-inch thick and cut with a biscuit cutter (I used the bottom of a glass)

Place the biscuits on a greased pan and coat tops with melted butter.

Bake for about 15 minutes.