Mrs. Williams' Shrimp Dip

Mrs. Williams loved to make what we now call appetizers at Christmas time. She probably didn't call them that, but they were always stored away in her Frigidaire side by side refrigerator with pies and cookies and fruit cake in tin boxes ready for company. I swear that fridge stretched. I have never been able to get as much in a refrigerator as she did.

The thing I liked best, I think, is her shrimp dip. She served it with crackers, but a spoon would have been fine with me, and she really could have left out the shrimp. While I like shrimp, I LOVE cocktail sauce.

Recipe:

6 oz. cream cheese - lower fat is fine
1 pt. sour cream - lower fat is fine
1 1/2 bottles Cross-Blackwell's cocktail sauce
3-5 drops hot pepper sauce
1 lb.cooked tiny shrimp

Mix together the cream cheese, sour cream, cocktail sauce and red pepper sauce. It is okay if there a few small lumps of cream cheese. Stir in shrimp. Refrigerate until time to serve. Serve with your favorite crackers.

Note: Try to use only Cross-Blackwell cocktail sauce. It really is better. I usually buy the 1 lb. package of precooked and shelled tiny little shrimp, but if you can only find larger shrimp, cut them into 2 or 3 pieces.

Tuna Casserole - Easy Enough for Children of All Ages

I don't know if the part of the brain that understands math also is in charge of the sense of direction, but I am sadly lacking in both areas, so
when I was in high school, I took just enough math to be accepted into Westhampton and immediately stopped taking it so my grade point average would be high enough for me to be accepted. Two years of Algebra and one year of Plane Geometry. Plane Geometry made sense to me for reasons I don’t understand, but only the extra tutoring Mr. Cashwell gave struggling students on Tuesday afternoons got me through Algebra 2. Because I did well in most of my other classes, my plan worked.

When I quit taking math, I had time in my schedule to take something else, so I took Home Ec from Mrs. Polly Slate. Three recipes from that class are still in my recipe box – tuna casserole, pork chop casserole and kolachky. The tuna casserole definitely belongs in the easy enough for children to make category, but I’ll post the others down the road.

Tuna casseroles of various kinds were standard fare for the inexperienced and short of cash cook back in our early years, but because of the mercury and other bad stuff in the water, we are now advised to limit use of it and some other big fish, so you might want to Google for health recommendations.

I was amused when looking at this recipe to see that it called for a nickel bag of potato chips. That was back in the days when a nickel was still a nickel and occasionally had a buffalo on it.

Recipe

1 large can water packed light tuna
1 can cream of mushroom soup
¼ cup sour cream
Small can baby peas, drained (or frozen baby peas, thawed)
Pepper
Single serving regular potato chips

Mix everything except chips and pour into sprayed casserole dish. Open the bag of chips enough so it won’t pop and squeeze it to make crumbs. Sprinkle chips evenly over casserole. Bake at 350 degrees until bubbly and brown around the edges, about 20 minutes. The low fat versions of everything work just fine. You could substitute buttery cracker crumbs for the chips, but I think the potato chips are better.

Note

If you like, you could add ¼ cup milk and a cup of leftover rice or noodles and substitute leftover corn for peas.

My Take on Buying Shrimp

There are certainly people who know a lot more about shrimp than I do, but over the years of living where shrimp don't I've tried to figure out ways to make the frozen taste as much like fresh as possible.

Buying shrimp:

Because we don’t live at the ocean, I usually buy frozen easy peel raw shrimp, thaw them according to package instructions and peel them, saving the shells. It may be foolish, but I just don’t like to buy the previously frozen ones in the fish case, and it’s not as easy to find the fresh ones except in a specialty market.

After peeling, sprinkle the shrimp heavily with kosher or other salt and let sit for about 10 minutes so they will taste more like fresh. Rinse the shrimp and proceed with recipe.

Making shrimp stock:

2 T. oil
Shells from 1 pound of shrimp
½ T. seafood seasoning
6 or more black peppercorns
2 garlic cloves, minced
¼ cup onion, chopped
½ cup white wine
1 quart water.

Heat oil in sauce pan. Add shells, seafood seasoning, garlic and onion. Cook, stirring until the shells turn pink. It happens quickly so don't walk away. Add wine and allow to boil gently until the sauce reduces and becomes syrupy. Add the water and simmer for 30 minutes or so.

Strain the stock and use or freeze for another meal.