This Week in the Kitchen #2, Plus a Pin It and Do It Wrap-Up

Weekend Cooking, hosted at Beth Fish Reads, is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page.


It's been a relatively slow week in the kitchen (seems like one of us was out almost every evening), but I still managed to try a couple of new recipes.

Crab bisque is one of our favorite soups and I've use the same recipe for twenty years. My cousin's wife found it taped inside the cupboard door of a Virginia Beach cottage. It is delicious and over the years I've tweaked it a little, but never really liked the fact that condensed cream of celery soup was at its core, even if it is fat-free.

My husband loves this recipe, but I'm ready for a change. Stephanie O'Dea's Make It Fast, Cook It Slow contains a recipe for Fish Chowder that looked easy, so I decided to give it a try.

It smelled a little too fishy to me as it bubbled in the slow cooker, but it tasted pretty good. I used frozen tilapia filets (any white fish should work) and added cooked shrimp for the last twenty minutes. Next time I'll consider adding crab meat and scallops, too.

This recipe called for just 1/4 teaspoon of Old Bay seasoning, but I doubled that amount and added a little garlic salt, too. The recipe* is  available on her blog - that's where I found the photo, too.

*Note: The online recipe omits Old Bay seasoning, but it's included in the cookbook version. I think the chowder would be far too bland without it.

The other new recipe this week was Smoky Maple-Mustard Salmon (my pin) from Delish.com. It was so simple and delicious! The smoked paprika adds wonderful flavor, while the whole grain dijon mustard enhances the texture. It took literally 15 minutes to get dinner on the table. I wouldn't change a thing! The photo is from Pinterest.

photo credit

And finally, although not food-related, I've discovered a few new ways to to tie my favorite scarves.

Thanks, Trish, for hosting another round of Pin It and Do It. It has become my favorite challenge!