Birthday Boy

As promised, in celebration of the hub's 48th (a day late), we made a shrimp boil. You can leave the beach, but the beach doesn't leave you..... And, yes, the hub's birthday is April Fool's Day. Who can forget that? Poor guy. giggle.

This is so easy. Shrimp, red potatoes, corn and shrimp boil spice. I've never made it like this before. I've always just boiled the shrimp by themselves--no potatoes or corn. Coming from the Chesapeake Bay area, I always have to use Old Bay seasoning. I used to find a good "boil" spice in a jar up in Virginia at the grocery store. Now, everything comes in bags, which I rip open and pour in the boiling water. If I'm making just shrimp, I use cheap beer instead of water and then pour the spice in there right before the shrimp. The beer really brings out the taste of the spices.

• 4 lbs. raw shrimp in shell (we had some left over, even with the teenager)
  
• couple of pounds of small red potatoes
• 6-8 ears of fresh corn, cut in halves or thirds
• 2 packets of shrimp/crab boil
  

Bring large pot of water to boil.
Add spice (either in bag or poured out of bag).
Add potatoes. Cook for 20 minutes.
Add corn. Cook for 15 minutes.
Add shrimp. Cook for 5 minutes or until pink.
Drain and serve hot with melted butter, cocktail sauce and bread.



Cocktail Sauce:

• ketchup
• prepared horseradish from jar
  
• Worcheshire sauce
• fresh lemon juice
• Tabasco

Pour amount of ketchup you want in bowl. Add several tablespoons of horseradish to taste (I like mine chunky and with a kick, so I add a lot). A teaspoon or so of Worcheshire sauce, a squeeze of lemon and a couple of drops of Tabasco, taste and mix well. Serve with shrimp. (I never had shrimp with melted butter until I met the hub--Yankee.)

The cake is from Bread & Company. It's was a chocolate on chocolate with chocolate--the hub's favorite--chocolate, duh. It was good. Of course.

Cheers to the hub. Wishing you many, many more shrimp boils and much more chocolate. xxoo