Shoeless Joe's Hometown Eats Y'all

BAM! Field of Dreams reference! And I bought my Chicago cubs tee (and only paid 4 dollars for it, holla!) for next year's sports vacay! 

Two weekends ago I packed my things and headed south to the mysterious and wild land known as Greenville, South Carolina. Why would one leave the far superior state of North Carolina to venture into our savage sister state to the south? Friends. Yes it is that time of the year when flights are booked, monogrammed bags are packed and the quatro amigos reunite for a yearly get together that rivals that of the g8 summits.  This year we all trekked down to the quaint town of Greenville for a hostel takeover lasting 2 nights. I drove back to Raleigh that Sunday and behind me I left my big toenail, my dignity, Saturday night's dinner and a lot of sleep hours. It was in a word: epic. Luckily for us, our hostess greeted us with a delicious shrimp quinoa dish that I have tried to recreate here. This is more of a loose interpretation, because I am 99% sure hers had mushrooms in it and no peppers, but c'est la vie, what can you do?

I started with by sautéing onions and tri-colored pepper in EVOO until the onions were translucent and the peppers soft.

Next I added about 5 asparagus cut into inch pieces and a half a zucchini. These were also sautéed until the zucchini was soft, about 3 minutes. Once done, this went into another bowl to cool while the shrimp cook.

In the same pan I threw in shrimp which were heavily seasoned with a Cajun spice mixture. You can adjust this to your own tastes and heat tolerance. Me? I'm a such a hot tamale myself, I can take the heat.

Say hello to my little friend. As you can see from the photo above, I am NOT referencing Sir Rupert. Folks, meet Seeds of Change. I find this in my organic section of my grocery store, and ever since Mama Shute introduced me to these, I have fallen IN LOVE. 90 sections to perfectly cooked quinoa and whole grains? Yes please. Beats the frozen brown rice, that's for sure.

After your quinoa has been nuked add it into the shrimp and mix lightly.

Add the veggie mix BACK into the shrimp and quinoa.

And serve!

You can very much adapt this to be some type of shrimp stir fry. Add some hoisen and/or soy sauce into the veggie mix and season your shrimp with red pepper flakes and ginger. Easy as pie!