A Give Away! with Shrimp Ceviche and a fresh salad dressing

 One of the best parts of being a home cook is not having to buy foods that have lots of additives and artificial ingredients in them. I know that when I cook I am only using fresh vegetables and herbs with high quality ingredients. But even I will admit that sometimes its easy to fall into using convenience foods when you are in a rush or just not in the mood to make everything from scratch. One place where I try to always go fresh but sometimes fail is salad dressing. Its so easy to make and you can work with so many different fresh ingredients to make the perfect mix but grabbing a bottle is just so temptingly easy at times.

This is especially true when it comes to bringing dressing to work for lunch. If you put dressing on the salad in advance it can get soggy and no one wants to eat a limp salad but if you keep it on the side it tends to leak and get all over the place. I was really excited when OXO asked me to try these new mini lock top containers. They make some of my favorite tools and I just knew that these containers would be the perfect solution for storing messy liquids and dips. I even was able to use the medium size one to make a few quick servings of dressing - shaking it up right in the container. What could be easier?

 
I love it when kitchen tools make dinner run smoother. The larger container was the perfect size for marinading my ceviche. Last time, I tried ceviche it was with a salmon filet and I was scared that it wouldn't be done and everyone would get sick! Shrimp turn a tell tale pink when they are done as an easy signal that the citrus fruit has done its job. Just give it a shake every 30 minutes or so to keep all the citrus mixed with the shrimp. Its fast and is perfect for a warm spring day or as a contrast to a barbeque filled with hearty meats.You can also serve it on a bed of greens for a lunchtime treat - just don't leave the shrimp in the citrus too long! After a few hours the fish can start to get overdone so try not to let it sit around more than six hours.

Check out my recipes for Tres Citrus Shrimp Ceviche and Garlic Cilantro dressing below and enter the giveaway to get your own set of OXO Good Grips Lock Top containers!

Souper Soup Swap & First Annual Soup Awards

Food swaps are the newest craze in the foodie world....they aren't exactly new as cookie walks have been around as a holiday staple basically forever. But now you can mass produce and swap baked goods, soups, baby food, garden harvests, frozen dinners or any thing homemade! The benefits of food swapping are simple instead of having leftovers for a week of the same old boring meal,  you switch with friends (or strangers in some cases) for their versions of the food in question. If you have ever tried to cook soup for one you know how hard it can be - it seems like no matter how carefully you measure you end up with a giant pot simmering away on the stove and lunch leftovers by the dozen.

 (pictured clockwise from top left - split pea, minestrone, indian style seafood stew, 

and tom yum goong) 

We had 9 different soups entered into the swap and everyone who participated brought home 4 different containers for a variety of leftovers. We ended up with three main categories for our soups - vegetarian, meat/seafood and chicken broth based.  It was a lot of fun and we had a great time sharing our recipes and picking our favorites. Then again when you have good friends any reason to get together is always a great time!


Here are the entries & winners in each category:
Vegetarian:
1st Place - Split Pea Soup
2nd Place - Cold Watermelon Soup
3rd Place - Wild Mushroom and Leek Soup

Meat/ Seafood:
1st Place - Indian Style Seafood Stew (pictured above)
2nd Place - Chili
3rd Place - Tom Yum Goong

Chicken Broth-Based
1st Place - Pasta Fagoili (pictured above)
2nd Place - Vermont Cheddar Ale
3rd Place - Minestrone

Some of the participants:

                       

Winner, Winner Chicken Dinner! ummm I mean Mrs. Peacock's Peanut Brittle!

I am a winner! One of the sites I belong to http://www.foodieblogroll.com/ runs contests each week (you can see them on the bottom left side of my blog).... I signed myself up and just got an email that I won some of Mrs. Peacock's Brittle this week! Yum I can't wait to try it out

Thanks to Mrs. Peacock's and Foodie Blogroll