One of my favorite holiday foods -- while unorthodox to most of the country, but a substitute for turkey, roast beef or ham in San Francisco -- is the Dungeness crab. When winter roles around and I can't wait to get my hands on a few of these beauties. During the winter, I find many different applications for these sweet meaty crustaceans, but this dish is one of my favorites. This pasta is an homage to a classic New Orleans style dish - Shrimp Creole. The rich tomato sauce is flavored with Cajun-style spices and andouille sausage, adding heat to the dish and complementing the sweetness of the seafood. This dish can be made with or without the crab, depending on the season and the availability of crab. If you are substituting the crab, double the amount of shrimp in order to serve four people.

The versatility lies in the fact that you can successfully mousse up a fairly wide variety of seafood. I used shrimp (21-25s), but you can also use scallops (bay or sea), salmon, cod. Each blends a bit differently with the luscious steaming vegetables, but the result is always good. The soft, cool consistency of the final mousse carries the range of flavors wonderfully: hints of sweet from the seafoods and the leeks and the fennel, bright tartness from the lemon, and surprise from the chile peppers.

Growing up, Grits and Cream of Wheat were the cold mornings staple cereal in our home. It was inexpensive and easy to prepare. Now, as an adult, I still enjoy the cereal, but recognize that too many Carbs aren't so good at maintaining my weight. So, Shrimp & Grits have become a "treat" which I serve occassionally for breakfast or for special Brunches.

Once the evenings remain even vaguely warm, I love to fire up the grill and cook dinner outside. Last night I was in the mood for shrimp and barbecue so I decided to make a marinade that’d be equally good on chicken or beef (future BBQ plans) and, because what’s a good barbecue without beans, grill some beans too. Garbanzos have the perfect degree of firmness to hold up atop a fire so I chose those rather than white beans (too fragile), red beans (too “beefy”) or black beans (more Mex than my marinade was). These turned out deliciously well. You’ll need 1-2 grill baskets lined with foil, and start this recipe an hour or so before you'll grill as the shrimp need to marinate.

This being a one dish meal, we started with a couple of eggs, some Napa cabbage, some peas and the shrimp for a more well rounded meal. It was delicious. There seem to be a lot of ingredients, but the prep and cooking are easy and it is a one pot, one dish meal. It would go well with almost any Chinese dish and quite a few other Asian dishes for a larger meal. I highly recommend using a wok if you have one; but if you don't a 12 inch fairly deep stainless steel or cast iron frying pan will work. Using half peanut oil and half toasted sesame oil has a stronger flavor than all light sesame oil. If you don't like the sesame taste at all all peanut oil is milder yet. in any event, here it is.

Jambalaya utilizes the holy trinity of Cajun cooking; celery, onions and Bell peppers as many of their dishes do. But we add a new twist to the dish by using garlic shrimp, sauteed chicken and adding Jalapeno pepper to enhance the flavor. We also cook the rice in the sauteed vegetables as in risotto, and add back the sauteed chicken and garlic shrimp about ten minutes from the end so that the flavors mingle but the chicken and shrimp don't overcook. This way we get a very tasty, fresh and clean tasting jambalaya that is a fusion of different cooking styles, seafood and meat.

Is a stir-fried rice noodle dish commonly served as a street food and at casual local eateries in Thailand. This dish comes from testing hundreds of different variations from food carts all over the city.

Pickapeppa sauce is a Caribbean condiment referred to as “Jamaican ketchup” that is basically a sweeter A1 sauce, made with tomatoes, onions, mangoes, peppers, and other spices.

This Cajun chowder is lost somewhere between gumbo and soup, built from several generic New England clam chowder recipes, spiced up (literally) with cayenne pepper, jalapenos, and Cajun spice, and thickened by a generous helping of dark brown sugar, brown rice, and corn.

Tom Yum seafood soup with attributes that I could not find in any of the myriad recipes I read. I wanted a meal- in-a-bowl, thick with fresh vegetables and seafood, and a complex broth with many layers of flavor. Not a soup as Appetizer, but soup as a filling and refreshing Entree.

I completely changed and omitted the Jalapeno, garlic, grapeseed oil, and black pepper to include the ingredients below. I recently made it for a potluck lunch at work and got some decent reviews for it and a request for the recipe which definitely put a smile on my face!!

So, I must have been on a tequila kick a few summers back...But the flavors of the watermelon & mango beautifully complement the tequila while the shrimp nicely accents the sweetness of the salad. The portion size is small for a nice light entree or as a appetizer salad. Any of the tequila lime simple syrup you are willing to retain is great in a margarita.

Sweet apricot and dried currant chutney spooned over smoky bacon-wrapped shrimp.

This quick and delicious recipe is adapted from a recipe by Fuchsia Dunlop (in the terrific "Every Grain of Rice" cookbook which I can't recommend enough). Her recipe uses dried shrimp, but I find it even better with fresh plump ones. I always keep a bag of frozen peeled shrimp in my freezer which means I can get this dish on the table in about 15 minutes or less. The scallions are the star here. Don't skimp on the oil, it makes the "sauce" for this dish. One of my favorites during any busy week.

We finally had a warm day here in the mountains, and for me springtime means seafood and grilling. So, I got a pound of some beautiful shrimp to throw on the grill to be eaten on a chopped Mexican salad, and then got to work on cooking the shells. Yes! You should be cooking with your shellfish shells! Crab, shrimp, and lobster shells are all extremely flavorful, and are excellent when used to make a luxurious bisque. This bisque tastes even creamier than it looks, but it doesn’t use any dairy, gluten, oil, or sugar, and it’s very easy to make.

Ouzo may seem an unusual choice for a risotto recipe, but I promise it makes the tomato, olive, shrimp, and feta flavors stand up and shout!