Well, I've done it again!

Last night,  I made myself a wonderfully flavourful meal that I literally threw together by chance. It is simple, very tasty and of course, includes quinoa as a base. I won't call it a salad; it is more of a hot meal, but I did have the cold leftovers today for lunch and let me say, it is equally as good cold. So, let's begin.

I think I will call it "Rosie's Sweet and Spicy Prawns". Here is how I made it.

Rosie's Sweet and Spicy Prawns (serves 3-4 people)

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I bag jumbo prawns, cooked, defrosted and rinsed

1-2 large cloves garlic, minced

2-3 Tablespoons butter (or olive oil, although butter IS BETTER!)

2-3 Tablespoons Hot Red Pepper jelly

1/2  jalapeño pepper, diced (use more if you can take the heat)

 Few handfuls of Salted peanuts

Salt and pepper

Olive oil (optional)

I box cooked quinoa (cook according to box directions)(can use couscous, rice etc.)

Cook the quinoa according to directions on the box. Keep warm until the prawn mixture is finished.

In a large skillet, add the butter and the minced garlic. Sauté until the garlic is softened a little, not until golden. The idea is to not burn the garlic, just soften to release the aromas.

Rinse the defrosted cooked prawns and add them to the butter and garlic in the skillet. Sauté until all the prawns are coated with the butter. Add the diced jalapeño.(You can see that I diced it into fairly large pieces, to really get a bight. I only used 1/2 a pepper, but use more if you like more heat).

Add 2-3 tablespoons of Red pepper jelly to the prawn mixture and stir in to incorporate the flavours. It will melt into the butter and create a smooth reduced sauce.This jelly is both sweet and hot as it has hot pepper flakes. I love the combination of the sweet and hot and this will turn up the spicy-ness of the dish, so beware!

Add salt and pepper and a drizzle of olive oil (or more butter) to help emulsify the sauce. You won't make a lot of sauce, but it will be very flavourful. Spoon out some warm quinoa onto a plate and then add some prawns and a few spoonfuls of sauce. Top the dish with salted peanuts. I didn't have straight peanuts, but rather my go-to seed, nut and fruit mix that I threw on top. It had a few peanuts in with the mix and I found the peanuts combined with the sweet and hot pepper jelly, was fabulous. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Please let me know what you thought of the dish when you have tried it.

You can see that the package of prawns is not huge. Enough for 4 people I think.

You may want to use more butter here than I did.   2-3 Tablespoons should be right.

Heart to my followers! (If I have any??!!)

Mmm,  I can almost smell this cooking.

These pictures are making me hungry again and I just ate!!

I use a teaspoon to scrape out the jalapeño seeds. It works well.

I just noticed this red pepper jelly has jalapeño and habanero peppers. No wonder it had such a kick.

This seed, nut and fruit mix is good but peanuts alone, would have been better. This would also be great on plain jasmine or basmati rice instead of the quinoa.

Enjoy!

Rosie