Recipes - Crab Stuffed Shrimp and Persian Cucumber Salad

Apr 07, 2014

Some people who have weight loss surgery, especially those people who are newly post-op, mourn the loss of tasty foods. I was certainly one of them! For a long time I felt like I would never eat anything delicious again. This was, needless to say, completely wrong! There is plenty of great tasting food out there, and all my surgery has done at this point is created a new found appreciation for well-prepared, delicious tasting food. Sure, there are plenty of foods that I will probably choose to never eat again due to the calories or carb content. But there is other food that I CAN eat, and that will be great tasting and fit into my new nutrition goals that I've set for myself.

WLS is not synonymous with deprived!

So today I was doing my regular grocery shopping today and saw these absolutely huge black tiger prawns in the seafood section. I couldn't remember the last time I had stuffed shrimp, so I decided to grab four of those bad boys and whip up some WLS-friendly yumminess! I found a recipe online that was a good starting point, but I modified it a bit to drop the carbs, fat and calories. Please note that I do not eat low fat, so I didn't substitute for the butter called for. Also note that these are not cheap to make, so consider them something to make for a special treat if you like. Above all, keep in mind that you can and will have great tasting food once again!

I put this recipe into MyFitnessPal (does anyone know if recipes you enter can be seen by others?) and the nutrition came out as follows: Per serving (one shrimp), 220 calories, 5 carbs, 9 fat, 24 protein(!), 340 sodium, 0 sugar. And believe me, one shrimp is plenty! So, here you go:

Cunning Pam's Crab Stuffed Shrimp

Ingredients

      2 tablespoons butter
      3 tablespoons celery, finely chopped
      3 tablespoons red bell pepper, finely chopped
      3 tablespoons minced shallot
      1 garlic clove, minced
      1/2 teaspoon fresh parsley, minced
      1/4 teaspoon salt
      1/4 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
      1/4 cup white wine
      1 (6 ounce) lump crabmeat, drained, squeezed dry and checked for shell bits
      1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
      1 egg
      1/4 cup Ritz-type cracker crumbs (about five crackers, I pulsed them in a mini food processor until fine crumbs)
      4 jumbo shrimp (about 2 ounces each) peeled and deveined, with tails on

Method

1. Preheat oven to 400°F.
2. In nonstick skillet, melt 2 tbsp butter over medium heat.
3. Add celery, red bell pepper, shallots, garlic, parsley, and pepper.
4. Cook, stirring occasionally, until just tender, 3-4 minutes.
5. Add wine (or broth), cook until liquid is absorbed, about 1 minute.
6. Remove from heat.
7. Stir in crabmeat, zest and cracker crumbs.
8. Add salt, test and adjust seasoning.
9. Place shrimp on cookie sheet or in a cake pan sprayed with cooking spray.
10. Mound one fourth of the crab mixture onto each shrimp.
11. Sprinkle with paprika.
12. Bake until shrimp are opaque and stuffing is cooked through and lightly browned, about 12 to 15 minutes. Makes four servings.

I figured that the shrimp was going to be a little rich, and could use something crisp and bright to counteract the richness. So I decided to do a quick Persian cucumber salad. Persian cucumbers are those cute little cukes you see in the supermarket packaged in bags or trays, usually about five or six per unit. They're dark green and about five inches long, and I think they have more cucumber flavor than the typical salad cuke in the supermarket. I usually just slice them up and eat them plain for a snack, but they make a nice little salad as well.

Cunning Pam's Persian Cucumber Salad

Ingredients

1 Persian cucumber, sliced thin (I used a mandoline for really thin slices)
1 teaspoon plain Greek yogurt
1/4 teaspoon dried dill
1/4 teaspoon seasoned rice wine vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Method

Combine all ingredients and toss well. Makes two servings.

The nutrition info, per MyFitnessPal, is: Per serving, 15 calories, 3 grams of carbs, 0 grams of fat, 0 protein, 45 sodium, 1 gram sugar.

And once you put the whole thing together, it looks like this:

If there's any moral to the story, it's this: Delicious food is still on the menu! I hope you enjoy.

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