It has been a minute since I last posted and I apologize. I’ve been busy with my newest Covid hobby… knitting… and it’s been a very useful hobby given we had our first grand baby arrive in November and our second is scheduled to arrive in August. Learning something new was definitely one of the things that kept me sane during all the Covid shutdowns here in Canada.

I must admit haven’t been much into playing with food and dreaming up ideas but that seems to be on the upswing now. Hopefully for good. We’re back to entertaining and having people over and now my mission is to find all the best recipes for just that…. making food that is good to make ahead and easy to serve to 10 or more people sitting around a pool without killing your own relaxation and sun time.

This first dish is incredible. It comes from a trip I took about 20 years ago to Indio California. I walked through a street festival and had a shrimp cocktail that was insanely delicious and satisfying to eat in the scorching sun and heat of the California sun. Whenever I mention Shrimp Cocktail to anyone their mind immediately goes to a cold cooked shrimp ring with a container of red sauce filled with horseradish. Now I’m not saying for a minute that I don’t like this kind of Shrimp Cocktail but it’s not the one I remember so fondly from California. I Googled several recipes to find inspiration but wasn’t able to find anything that had the flavours I was looking for so I improvised and this is what I came up with… and it is a winner!

Sauce

• 1 Cup Dry Gin
• 1/4 Cup Sugar
• 1/2 Cup Cider Vinegar

Place all ingredients in a saucepan and simmer on low until reduced by half. Then add…

• 1 Cup grapefruit juice (sugar free)
• 1/2 Cup water
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• juice of 2 limes
• 1 tablespoon avocado oil

Mix all together and allow to sit and cool while you get all the other ingredients together in a bowl.

Salad Mix Ingredients

• 30-40 medium cooked shrimp
• 1 English cucumber seeded and diced
• 1 large tomato seeded and diced
• 1 mango peeled and diced
• 1 grapefruit peeled seeded and diced
• 1/2 large purple onion diced
• 3-4 green onions diced
• 1 Cup blistered corn (pan fry corn niblets to blister them)
• 1 large avocado diced
• 1/2 Bunch cilantro roughly chopped

Mix all ingredients together and salt and pepper to taste (honestly it doesn’t really need much more flavour). Let sit to have all the flavours blend or eat whenever you’re ready. You can certainly add a little hot sauce if you like but I didn’t and allowed people to add their own based on taste.

This dish is perfect for entertaining. You can easily make up a large batch, double or triple based on number of people, you can also increase or decrease ingredients based on taste or allergies. Lastly it will sit very well in the refrigerator overnight… Just in time for a sunny pool day!

Bon Appetite!