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2024 Thanksgiving Menu and Meal Prep Timeline

* image These past few months have been busy for our family, especially since our oldest joined a local swim team. Between juggling our work schedules and balancing school with practices... we're all pretty wiped out. Although it's a lot of work, I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving. Preparing the holiday meal for our family fills my heart with joy, and I can't wait to get started. To make things easier for me, I don't deviate much from  our first Thanksgiving  as a family. The dishes I make are familiar ones, and the recipes for them live at my fingertips. Keeping the same menu year after year means I don't have to spend time researching recipes or planning a new one. Here are my tried-and-true Thanksgiving recipes, as well as my prep timeline for the big day!

Garlicky Grilled Tequila and Lime Shrimp

Serve this tequila and lime shrimp over rice for an easy weeknight meal! 

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Garlicky Grilled Tequila Lime Shrimp

You guys can't see it, but I'm wearing a silly little grin on my face right now. Why? Because I originally tested this recipe and shot the corresponding photos back in July. It has taken me seven months to finally sit down and write about it.

That's not surprising to me, though. This time frame coincides with my pregnancy (I found out I was expecting at the end of July), and life since that point has really been all over the place. Even though I'm sharing this recipe for Garlicky Grilled Tequila and Lime Shrimp several months behind schedule, I think sharing it at all can be considered one for the Win Column.

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Minced White Onion

Ironically, I'm writing about this shrimp dish just days after coming to the conclusion that eating shrimp has an averse affect on me. Up until this point, shrimp was a safe food food me, but, last week, after eating shrimp on two different occasions for dinner, I spent the rest of those evenings battling an overwhelming feeling of nausea.

I suppose I was being naive in thinking that I could survive the entirety of my pregnancy without experiencing an aversion to at least one kind of food.

*womp womp*

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Minced Garlic

For the sake of the blog, though, I'm going to suck it up and share my recipe for Garlicky Grilled Tequila Lime Shrimp so those of you who aren't consciously avoiding the consumption of shrimp can try it out in your own kitchen.

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Tequila from Los Cabos

The recipe for my shrimp dish is actually adapted from this recipe that I discovered in the June 2014 issue of Food & Wine. The original recipe called for white wine, but we didn't have any on hand at the time (we drink more red wine than white wine).

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Fresh Lime Juice

Since the recipe also called for fresh lime juice, I opted to use the tequila I already had in the house rather than run out to the store for a bottle of white. Because you really can't beat the combination of tequila and lime, right?

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Shrimp Marinating in Tequila and Lime Juice

The original recipe called for extra-large shrimp, but I found that the medium shrimp was the more economical buy at the grocery store. So I just used medium shrimp (shelled and deveined) instead. Because the acid in the lime juice has the power to cook the shrimp before even putting it on the heat, using smaller shrimp meant cutting the marinating time down considerably.

Of course, that also meant dinner was on the table faster than originally planned.

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Grilling Shrimp

To cook the shrimp, preheat your grill pan (I used a cast iron grill pan) over medium heat for two minutes. Arrange the shrimp in a single layer in the pan and allow to cook for 30 seconds before turning and allowing to cook on the other side for 30-45 minutes.

Shrimp is super easy to overcook, so keep an eye on them and don't walk away from the stove during this step. If you're concerned about potentially overcooking your shrimp, then pull them out of the grill pan a little early and let the beauty of carry-over cooking finish the job.

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Garlicky Grilled Tequila and Lime Shrimp

Doesn't that shrimp look fantastic?!?

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Garlicky Grilled Tequila and Lime Shrimp

Now that I think about it, if you stopped here, you could easily serve these shrimp with my homemade cocktail sauce as an appetizer at your next party or get-together.

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Garlic Butter Sauce

Or, you could create a killer garlic butter sauce by boiling the remaining marinade and combining it with a couple of tablespoons of unsalted butter...

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Garlicky Grilled Tequila and Lime Shrimp

... and then serve the shrimp over steamed white rice with a healthy spoonful (or two) of that luscious garlic butter sauce.

Totally up to you.


Garlicky Grilled Tequila and Lime Shrimp

INGREDIENTS
  • 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1/4 cup white onion, minced
  • 8 cloves garlic, minced
  • 3 tablespoons tequila
  • 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
  • 2 tablespoons fresh Italian parsley, chopped
  • 1 pound medium shrimp, shelled and deveined, tails left on
  • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided, at room temperature
  • Steamed rice, for serving

INSTRUCTIONS
  1. In a large bowl, mix the olive oil, onion, garlic, tequila, lime juice, and parsley.
  2. Season the shrimp with salt and pepper and add to the bowl. Toss to completely coat the shrimp with the marinade. Place the bowl in the refrigerator to chill the shrimp while you preheat your grill pan.
  3. Preheat a grill pan -- I used a cast iron grill pan -- over medium heat for 2 minutes.
  4. Remove the shrimp from the refrigerator and rub 2 tablespoons of the unsalted butter all over the shrimp.
  5. Arrange the shrimp in a single layer in the grill pan. Grill for 30-45 seconds per side, working in batches if necessary to prevent overcrowding.
  6. Once you've grilled all of the shrimp, pour the remaining marinade into a small sauce pan and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and add the remaining 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter. Continue cooking for 2-3 minutes and then remove from the heat.
  7. Serve the shrimp over steamed rice with the garlic butter sauce on the side.
Recipe by Michelle Rittler, Taste As You Go \\ Adapted from Food & Wine

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Four years ago: Food Memories of Orlando

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