Hola DFO!

Hope everybody is doing well and staying virus-free.

I’m going to be honest here, my ass is dragging to the finish line of Sunday Gravy Season 5.5.

It could also be called Season 6,

We started this season way back on February 9th of this year.

Think back to just after the Superb Owl. Jesus Fuck that feels like 15 years ago. We were all so innocent and naive.

With the exception of the fucking snake nest in the White House, everything was well and normal and we anticipated the oncoming spring and fall and baseball and Training Camp and everything was going peachy fucking keen.

Can you imagine your reaction if you were able to go back and talk to February 9th You and give a heads up on what was coming right around the goddamn corner?

You would either slap the piss out of September 2020 You, laugh your innocent ass off or possibly just go ahead and persue a heroin overdose.

I’m writing this preamble while at work where I’ve been coming to every motherfucking day since the pandemic began in March and every muscle group in my body is wound up tighter than a Swiss fucking watch, the same as every other fucking day since this shit started. I’ve suffered through 2 full-on anxiety attacks but with complete and dedicated diligence to health and safety protocols I have been able to remain physically healthy so far.

I am goddamn drained, people.

While putting an episode of Sunday Gravy together requires pretty extensive work, what with the research, the shopping, the cooking and photos and finally the writing, I want to let you know that doing these has honestly helped me keep what’s left of my sanity.

When this shit first got going and there were no sports and everything was fucking closed and no place to go to anyway, I used my kitchen as an escape. It has always been my “happy place” but this year it’s been a regular goddamn sanctuary. I spend the better part of every Saturday and Sunday in the kitchen and it allows me to be productive and creative but best of all it takes my mind off of this completely insane fucking world.

For that I am thankful.

But I’m taking a goddamn break anyway. I sure as shit need one.

Just a heads-up; next Season of Sunday Gravy will have a slightly different photographic look to it. I’m leaving Casa Right for a new location – still to be determined. I’m right in the middle of house hunting so I still don’t know where it will be, I just know it will be someplace else. So that will be interesting.

Enough of this banter! We’ve got a season finale to do!

Today we’re going to grill some shrimp tacos and some fish tacos!

We’ll go shrimp first.

Shrimp tacos with creamy cabbage slaw and cilantro lime cream.

1 1/2 pounds of cleaned jumbo shrimp

1 teaspoon of paprika

1 teaspoon of garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon of dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon of cayenne

1 teaspoon of cumin

1/2 teaspoon of chili powder

1/2 teaspoon of red pepper flake

1/2 teaspoon of salt.

Combine all of the dried ingredients and mix well.

This one’s simple. That will be our seasoning mix that we sprinkle all over the shrimp just prior to grilling.

Now let’s make the sauce and the slaw. Sauce first since it’s used in the slaw.

Creamy cilantro/lime crema. Is that a double creamy drop?

1 cup of sour cream – you can substitute with plain yogurt if you want to go overboard on the healthy shit. I’ll allow it.

3 tablespoons of chopped fresh cilantro

Zest of 1 fresh lime

Juice of 1 fresh lime

2 cloves of garlic  – minced.

1/2 teaspoon of salt

There was a quick discussion last week where we debated the merits of juicing the lime prior to the zesting or zesting the lime first.

Our own Balls of Steel and Fury said to zest first. I’ve always juiced first.

Balls style!

I see what you did Mr. Balls!

And I will allow the ruling on the field to stand!

Both of these ways work just fine. You do what works best for you.

Now we’ve got some cilantro to chop up.

First get some fresh cilantro.

Now chop that shit up.

Gather the remaining ingredients.

And combine!

We will use half of this tasty concoction to make the slaw and the other half will be basically a condiment on our grilled tacos.

Slaw time!

Get some cabbage and cut it into wedges.

Get your processor – you do have a food processor don’t you? I mean you can certainly chop up the goddamn cabbage by hand but this…

Plus about 60 seconds of grindage equals this.

For somebody who went as long as I did before finally getting off my ass and getting a food processor, I have certainly become pretty fucking food processor dependant.

If you’ve got the tools, use the tools!

Now simply add the half batch of the crema to the slaw and mix to combine.

SLAW!

Both the crema and the slaw can be made hours in advance. Just wrap both in plastic wrap and store in your fridge.

Now we’re gonna get to the rest of our seafood festivities.

Grilled salmon for our fish tacos.

You regular readers will remember our grilled salmon from our 4th of July edition.

In fact, I’m gonna rip myself off from that very post.

“A piece of fresh salmon for each person

1/3 cup of soy sauce

1/3 cup of brown sugar

2 cloves of minced garlic.

1 fresh lime half – sliced into thin slices.

1/4 cup of olive oil.

Get yourself some nice salmon steaks and place them in yet another gallon freezer bag.

Make the marinade. Combine the brown sugar, soy, lime, garlic and oil and mix it well.

Season your salmon with some salt and pepper.

Add the marinade to the bag and bag and tag for a couple “too tree” hours.

Get those salmon steaks on a charcoal fire grill.

Your choice here. I tried cooking the salmon directly on the grill as well as cooking in foil. Fish can definitely stick to your grill surface especially with some brown sugar added to the mix. I had great results with both techniques. Just about 5 minutes per side.”

Since the shrimp cook faster than a motherfucker and cool off even faster, we will do them last.

Plus it lets me try out my newest gadget.

New toy! The grill basket!

Season up them shrimps with our pre-made seasoning blend from up there.

That would be the one, yes. Give the shrimp a fairly liberal coating of the spice blend and cozy them up in that grill basket.

Und now ve commence mit der grillage!

These only take a couple of minutes per side. As always this depends on how hot your grill is cooking at the time.

Flip the basket over.

Now we’re rocking.

By the way, it should be no big fucking surprise that the basket gets hotter than shit. It DID just cook over a fucking charcoal fire after all.

I know, I know, just felt like I should offer a disclaimer.

Of course the next burning question is, what did we cook for a side dish?

Like you don’t aleady fucking know.

Why? Beans of course!

I’m too goddamn tired to post the recipe, so I’ll blatantly copy and paste from earlier this season.

“Clean and sort the beans.

Now make a pot of beans.

Get them in the pot.

Standard rinsed beans, 6 cups of water, onion, garlic, cumin, chile powder, salt and pepper, chile de arbol application. Two and a half hour cook time on low simmer crap as we always do.

Yes, we will finish with some bacon fat as per usual.”

The assembling should be pretty fucking self evident at this point. Warm up a tortilla, place on your shrimp or fish, add some of the slaw then top with the crema.

Something like this.

Let’s go ahead and plate up the entire meal why don’t we.

You cheese averse individuals [cough Hippo cough] will be happy to know that the only time I used cheese in todays’ menu was to top the beans and you can choose not to if you like.

Who doesn’t like cheese though? I mean what the fuck?

Now let’s grab a bite. Shrimp taco first.

Oh hell yeah. You get that nice snap from the perfectly grilled shrimp and the creaminess of the slaw and sauce. The lime is there with a garlic kick and the cilantro only plays a small background note for those of you who have the genetic thing where you taste soap when eating cilantro. Yeah that’s kind of weird too.

A delicious taco with clean simple flavors where everything is in balance.

Nice. Exactly what we were looking for.

Now let’s get a bite of that fish taco.

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HOLY SHIT! That’s fucking incredible! Not sure if it’s the marinade or what but jumping Jesus that is fucking insanely good. Goddamn! The fish is a little more seafood forward than the shrimp so that could be a contributor but, fucking hell people. This is goddamn glorious! The same lime and cilantro notes and the creamy slaw for some reason don’t just play in harmony like with the shrimp. They fucking explode in a symphony on the fish taco.

/shreds air guitar

Wow! I was just emptying out my freezer prior to moving and had the extra salmon filet from the 4th in there to use up. I had no idea.

Well kids? It’s about that time of year again. Time to sign off until next year. IF everything goes swimmingly {it will probably not} we’ve got 5 plus months of football coming right at us.

Scotchy takes over Sundays with the always fun and well-attended gameday open threads while I grab a brew, cook something easy and watch right along with y’all.

We fucking did it. We did a complete season of Sunday Gravy in the middle of a GLOBAL FUCKING PANDEMIC and never missed an episode.

So. Many. Beans.

Plus my bread game got leveled way the fuck up.

Maybe, just maybe things will be greatly improved when next we reconvene. Just think! A full season of football just happened. Maybe we get a vaccine and can get a semblance of normalcy and hopefully there’s a full month of fumigation on the White House to remove the goddamn stench before handing the keys over to someone who’s actually human.

We can always hope.

Thanks for being there you wonderful folks.

Couldn’t have done it without you. You’re the best.

FOOTBALL IS HERE!

Much love.

PEACE and UNITY!