All day today, we have had only a trickle of electricity available to us.
I say it was 1/4 of the normal output, though I have no real idea how much we were receiving. The light on the exhaust fan was so dim as to be of little, or no use whatsoever.
The lights in the kitchen ceiling, of which there are 2, only one came on. Again, of no use, as it wasn’t even at full output. WTH?
Our air circulators, which you know really keeps the air moving in here, especially now that it getting really hot, put out the same amount of air on high as it does on low, normally. Ugh!
An odd day, for sure.
This afternoon, however, we made shrimp cocktails for the 4 of us adults, and it was delicious. The electricity went off completely only twice. However, even with the power back on, I am unable to start a flame on the stove by turning the handle to initiate the click, click, click of the electric starting mechanism. Bummer.
It makes cooking in the dark a bit more difficult, when one has to strike the tiny little match on the tiny little emery piece on the box, and hold it to the gas spewing out of the burner. Managed without incident I’ll have you know.
Anyway, the shrimp cocktails were excellent, even as a first endeavor. We had a huge container of Zatarains Crab Boil mix delivered, (yes, he thought it was a much smaller container when he ordered it), so we boiled the kilo of peeled, and cleaned jumbo shrimp in about a Tbs. of that for about 3 minutes, then put them into iced water to stop the cooking. Perfect.
We then took the shells, some carrots, cilantro, and celery, and boiled that for about 30 minutes to make a stock. Strained the veg, separated the shells, ground the shells with a bit of the broth, strained that, and pt a ladle full into the catsup mixture.
What catsup mixture? Ok, so I forgot to tell you about that. Simple. About a cup of catsup, 1/2 mango Boing, (a fruit drink that is hugely popular here, mostly natural), 2 tsp. Crab boil mix, a Tbs. of Salsa de Inglesa, or in the North, Worcestershire sauce. Mixed that together, added the 1 or 2 labels full of the stock, and all was done.
Not so. For the cocktail, we needed to dice cucumber, (peeled, and seeded), purple onion, diced, and cilantro, minced.
We put it in individual stemless white wine glasses, and it was thoroughly enjoyed by all. Try it. Let me know if you like it.
Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth as needed, and protect yourselves.