Getting back the Mojo

I've been pretty lazy lately -- haven't had much of an appetite either for some reason. Bike Week is upon us yet again so I've been trying to stay inside to avoid the chaos and the noise. Today I managed to get out to get some groceries and make something nice for dinner for the first (second?) time all week.


1.5 cups of orange juice, 1/2 cup of blood orange juice, and 1 cup of giant lemons (I call them 'giant' because they are in fact bigger than a grapefruit. I'm not sure the official name, but they taste much sweeter and less acidic.) made up my mojo sauce. Throw in some garlic and red pepper flake too. I reduced all that down to about half. In a sauce pan I sauteed roughly chopped shallots in butter then cooked the shrimp. I spooned in the mojo and let all the flavors come together. Very tasty. To accompany the shrimp, some pan fried, cumin-laden yuca went alongside. The flavors really worked nicely together.











When I'm in a food funk, I pretty much go all out to make up for it. This means several hours in the kitchen to regroup and get back in the habit again. Or beating egg whites until my arm falls off? I have been wanting to make this souffle from the cover of Gourmet since I got the issue last month. The Meyer lemon souffle was just too pretty to pass up. Instead of Meyer's, I again used that giant lemon and the zest of regular lemons to make a smooth, fluffy lemon cloud. Meyer's are in fact readily available around here (Diana has a tree!) but I wanted to try the giant lemons because they are so...gigantic. I burnt it a bit on the top because I didn't anticipate just how much it would expand. Otherwise it tasted lovely, like a fluffy lemon pound cake.