Shrimp and Couscous in Parchment Paper

It's been awhile since I've posted a yummy, cozy meal. Actually, with everything Miss Chocoholic has going on and since I have been working later, it's been awhile since I experimented with anything lately and it's about time! I decided to try a complete meal of couscous and shrimp cooked together in parchment paper. So I headed off to the store for a roll of parchment paper, hoping that it wouldn't burn in the oven!
The meal starts out by heating up 2/3 cup broth and adding a package of couscous to it, along with a chopped up bell pepper and shallot, 2 tablespoons of olive oil and salt and pepper. I stirred that and let it sit while thawed and peeled the shrimp. I combined some basil leaves and lemon juice in my mortar and ground them up. You could also use a basil or tomato pesto for this.I pulled off a foot long piece of parchment paper and folded it in half and then cut a half-circle in it, kind of like a crude heart shape. The couscous mixture went on there, then a handful of shrimp, then a couple of spoons of the basil mixture. It was smelling very fragrant before I even cooked it, I couldn't wait to smell it when it was cooked!The sides got folded up and flipped over into a preheated oven for fifteen minutes.The end result was the best home-cooked meal I have had in a long time. The bell peppers and the lemon juice gave the couscous a citrus taste that went well with the shrimp. This made five little packages and they all mysteriously disappeared that night! And the smell lingered in the kitchen long after the last I scraped the last bit of leftover's off Miss Chocoholic's plate into my own mouth!

My Top Ten Craveable Foods

I started a list with the top ten foods I-don't-know-if-I-could-live-if-I-could-never-have-them-again. I'm not done yet, I am still thinking. Come on, people! I want to hear your top ten or top five. Use the comments sections and let me hear what yours are! Make some noise!

Vertins, Ely, MN

Almost any weekend we can get away after the driveway starts to be driveable again, we start making our summer pilgramages to our happy spot in the wilderness. Kevin's family owns a cabin on Burntside Lake in Ely. Both his parents grew up in Ely and his grandfather who was a stubborn old Finn who worked in the iron mines in Ely, managed to get this lakeshore for a steal a long time ago. In the picture above, the little brown cabin is a sauna. It used to be a shoe shop in Ely and was drug out over the ice to sit where it sits today. Kevin's parents actually spent their honeymoon there. It is now a sauna and a dressing room and the cabin above it is the main cabin.What a view! There was still ice on the lake and patches of snow and it was the fourth of May!One of my all time favorite place to eat breakfast in Ely is Vertins Cafe. This would be considered your average hole-in-the-wall greasy spoon where the locals eat. Don't let that stop you from eating here. Although the menu is for the most part mediocore, there is one showstopper on there that is worth a trip. The Stuffed Hashbrowns. Greasy and flavorful with strings of gooey cheese. A heart attack on a plate. Everytime they set that plate in front of me I hear the halellujah chorus in the background. It's a beautiful thing. And it doesn't hurt that Vertins has their own local ghost. Kevin's uncle Mike (in the red and black plaid shirt above) told me that there have been employees that have quit because of Old Man Vertins ghost lurking around. He knows I looooove a good ghost story. I've never seen Old Man Vertin but I have consumed many plates of stuffed hashbrowns over the years.The end of the weekend always comes too fast. Last summer I painted a sign at the end of the drive that says "Brainerd 189 miles." Here are Miss Chocoholic and I pointing to the sign with our best pouty faces. But guess what? You will be hearing a lot more about Ely! It has a plethora of food stories!