Hi! I'm Julie, a feisty, redhead from Grand Island, NY, who's passionate about decorating our home with my own unique style. I don't follow the crowd, but trust my gut instead. I hope to inspire you to try some of my ideas. I also love to cook and share my secret recipes. My family begs me to make my homemade meatballs and pizza. I hope you will try them and hang out with me for a while. Click here to contact me.
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“Hot Salad Marinade”
I think I have a pattern going…
Decorate, cook, decorate, cook, decorate… COOK! One of the most relaxing things for me to do is to read magazines and clip recipes I would like to try. Once I find one, I tear it out, (sometimes in the Dr.’s office! Shhh!!) Then I put it by my shopping list, and I pick one or two to try over the weekend when I cook the most. This one is a keeper guys! (trust me, it must be good-my back has been acting up so sitting here typing is not really what I should be doing, but I had to share this before Summer is gone!) So easy, healthy, and versatile. I found the recipe & inspiration in People Magazine. It happens to be Paula Deen’s recipe! Hold it! Before you go writing down the recipe… I need to tell you what I did to snazzy it up my way! 
You notice the title says “Marinated Vegetable Salad”…
Well, I have learned that marinades go well with cold or hot! This time I was in the mood for HOT! I decided to follow the ingredients almost to the “T”, but added mushrooms, and fresh peppers, and didn’t have the cauliflower because I used it the night before (use what ya got!). Then I decided to… 
I mixed it all together with my clean hands in a bowl and Rick walked by and tried it…
His exact words, “That’s frigin awesome!” So I knew I was on the right track! The problem was…the only shrimp I had were frozen. I would have much rather used raw… So, I removed all of the veggies and put them on a broiler pan, but left the shrimp (it was fully thawed and rinsed) to marinate a bit more. (If you do use fresh shrimp, cook them with veggies.) I popped the veggies in a 400* oven uncovered for 20 minutes with some garlic bread on the side (*low cal. recipe below). I added the shrimp 15 minutes later for about 5 minutes left just to warm the shrimpy up. This is how it looked when I took it out… YUM! 
We enjoyed this with the garlic bread,
but I also think garlic mashed potatoes would go perfectly. Just something about it being warm sounded so much better than cold! 
*Low Cal Garlic Bread:
I buy Italian baguettes or fresh Vienna loaves every week and slice them in 1 inch slices when I get home and freeze them. I take them out as we need them. For garlic bread I spray each slice front and back with “I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter Spray”, then sprinkle California style garlic salt (picture found here) on one side. Add a splash of basil and wrap in tin foil and bake for 10-15 minutes in what ever oven temp. you got going @ the time. Daphne & Valerie love this!! Love, Julie PS: You could always grill this instead!!! Woot woot! I am more of a baker…but Rick loves to grill  PSS: Use what you got…this marinade goes with chicken, pork, or no meat at all! I am going to try it with cauliflower next time
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