Shrimp and white bean salad with garlic toasts

To get our blog started, tonight I made the shrimp and white bean salad with garlic toasts from Dinner Illustrated (p.42). Made it because the seafood market in Naperville has Gulf shrimp and I'm trying to use more beans in our meals. (Go ahead, Pete, insert fart joke here.) I used white onion instead of red and skimped a little on the red pepper flakes, but should have used the whole 1/4 t. Also used all the lemon juice from one lemon rather than just 2T and it could have  used even more. The toasted bread was very crunchy. Might be better to make croutons out of the bread. As the recipe says, it did take 45 minutes from start to serving.

If I were to make this again, I would strengthen the seasoning so not so bland. Also, might use 1-1 1/2 cans of beans so the shrimp doesn't get lost in the salad.

Love you all, ME

Let's start cooking and sharing!

Hi Tromp FamilyCooks!

Welcome to our very own cooking blog! 

This is something I have thought about starting for a long time. Many of us get great pleasure out of cooking so why not share the results with other family cooks?

What motivated me at this time is the cookbook above which I recently checked out from the library.  As Joan and I browsed through it, we quickly realized that we wanted to make absolutely everything in it. So, we wondered if there wasn't a family project here.

Our thought was, why don't we all cook from the book and share our results? If you want to cook-along from Dinner Illustrated, here's how I think this might work:
1.  get the book (bought or borrowed)
2.  choose a recipe and make it
3.  post comments and perhaps a photo of your dinner to the blog. Besides telling us whether or not you liked the dish, you could include any changes you made or would make if you were to make it again. Also, did it really take "1 hour or less"?

So that you have a better sense of what is in Dinner Illustrated, here is the table of contents:

Let's also broaden the use of the blog. 

Did you just find a great recipe that you want to share? 

Post it here. 

Did you discover a kitchen hack that has changed your life? (Ok, it doesn't have to be quite that dramatic but it has made your kitchen chores easier.) 

Post it here. 

Did you find a new cookbook or kitchen tool that we should all know about?

Post it here. 

Did you try a new, yummy food product that we should all try? 

Post it here.

Let's use this space to share all things food. And, what a delicious way to stay connected.

Love, Mary Ellen