Dinner, Recipes

Hoisin Shrimp

National Nutrition Month® is a nutrition education and information campaign created annually in March by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. The campaign focuses attention on the importance of making informed food choices and developing sound eating and physical activity habits. I wrote a whole blog last week that you can check out here. In it, I talk about my journey of being a vegetarian. Recently I have begun to include seafood and discuss this more. The beauty of all of this is, I eat what I want when I want.

Not one for labels is actually the theme of this year’s National Nutrition Month® campaign. ‘Personalize Our Plate’. We are all unique and individual, as our nutrition and health needs are. Therefore we should be consuming what is right for us and enjoying the food choices that we make. It took me years to go vegetarian since it wasn’t as main stream years ago. For this reason I’m glad to see that’s changed. More recently I started to include seafood here and there. Just recently I contributed to an article about Pescatarianism. Read about it here. Pescatarianism is trending because of how healthy seafood is!

Texture for me is a big thing and why I’ve never really liked meat. At times shrimp can be hit or miss for that very reason. There are some weeks I eat it 3-4 times a week and then there are weeks where I don’t eat it at all. However, shrimp is an easy, quick weeknight dinner,. So, if you or your family enjoy shrimp, it’s a must include in your meal rotation. Shrimp is so easy you can defrost it in minutes too!

Hoisin Shrimp – Ready in Minutes

I’m a big believer in prepping a few items for yourself for the week to make less weeknight cooking a thing. Even with us having (for most of us) less commuting, there are other things we’d rather be doing than cooking. Therefore, aim to make your grains ahead. As I’m meal planning if I see that I’ll be having rice for a few dishes I make the brown rice ahead of time.

I eat white rice as well, but brown rice has been a grain that I’ve switched to as a whole grain that I don’t mind. Certain dishes taste better with white rice. This recipe helps you make perfect brown rice every time. If we’re being honest, sometimes we have a recipe flop. So if you haven’t been successful in making brown rice right, give my recipe a try. Perfect brown rice, every time.

I make the rice for the week plain. However, when I have a dish that goes with the flavors of scallions and ginger, I sauté the scallion whites and ginger in a little oil and as I re-heat the rice for my dish. Then I add this scallion/ginger mixture to the rice. It takes your rice to the next level. I do it with garlic as well – again it really all just depends on the dish that I’ll be eating. When I tell you no more boring rice, it really just gives a flavor to what otherwise is plain and boring rice. Obviously the rest of the dish gives flavor at times, but if you want to take it to the next level, sauté some scallions and ginger this next time and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Throughout this post today I’ve been sharing all my other shrimp dishes. I didn’t realize how many I’ve accumulated over these past few months! So even if my hoisin shrimp isn’t up-your-alley, maybe another dish here will be! Let me know if you give them a try! And as always, dinner doesn’t have to be difficult to be nutritious and delicious These meals take less than 30 minutes thanks to shrimp! You’re welcome.