Tequila Lime Shrimp

...or Sammy Hagar's Cabo Wabo Shrimp.

I know what you must be thinking.  Wait, she's trying to live on a budget.  How can she afford shrimp?

Good question!
Here's the deal: first, shrimp is a splurge for us.  Yes, we have eaten it about 4 times in the last 3 months, but generally I try to keep our servings to 1/4 pound a person.  That means if shrimp is on sale for $7.00 a pound, one serving would be $1.75, which for a splurge, isn't so bad.

Secondly, in the last six weeks, my bosses (they are married to each other) have given us their CSA shares twice because they wouldn't be there to accept the delivery on it.  And I never, ever turn down free food.  So basically that frees up about $50 of my food budget for the last month and a half.   Part of that has gone toward back to school supplies, but I've been able to spend part of that on extras like shrimp.

Thirdly when we do have more expensive foods like shrimp, I serve it with less expensive foods like rice or make a salad with it to keep the total cost per serving down.  With this recipe, I actually served it with corn from my free CSA share, so I ended up making this meal for about $8.00 (not including the tequila) or $2.00 a serving.

I'm not including the cost of the tequila in my figures because I used a bottle of Cabo Wabo that my husband bought about 12 years ago - long before we had money troubles.  He is very stingy with it, so he still has about a quarter of a bottle left.

I've had this recipe for about as long as my husband has had his bottle of Cabo Wabo.  In fact, I would suspect I cut the recipe from a magazine because of my husband's bottle of tequila.  It's a very simple recipe, but written so oddly - I suppose to keep up Sammy Hagar's rocker image - that I kept referring to it to make sure I had it right.  In the instructions, he the recipe says of the shrimp "Zap them fast! Flip them around!" which just cracks me up.

I made this with smaller precooked shrimp because that's what was on sale.  I don't know if the grocery store cooked them too long or if I didn't "zap them fast" enough, but they were a little tough.  Toughness in shrimp is a sure sign of overcooking.  If I had it to do over again, I would have gotten uncooked shrimp and cleaned them myself.  I also made a few minor alterations to the original recipe and I'm going to write out the instructions to be a bit more technical.

Tequila Lime Shrimp

2 tablespoons oil
1 pound medium to large shrimp, peeled and deviened
1/2 cup lime juice
1/2 cup of tequila
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 jalapeno, finely diced
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
salt

Mix all ingredients except oil together in large bowl and let marinate 30 to 60 minutes.

Heat oil in a skillet over medium high heat.  With a slotted spoon, remove shrimp from marinade and add to pan.  Cook until no longer pink, stirring frequently.

Add marinade to the pan and cook until 50% of the liquid evaporates.

Serve over rice or in tortillas.

Serves 4.