Christmas Eve Seafood Made Easy

Here are 2 recipes that will knock your Christmas stockings off. These are easy as pie (literally) and they taste better than your mother's anything. That is, unless she gets to these recipes first.

Shrimp and Proscuitto Carbonara Pie

4 eggs
1/4 c. butter
1/4 c. whipped cream
1/2 lb. Proscuitto - Precooked is easy, baked is better, bacon is an ok sub)
1 pie crust - (Don't worry about making it yourself. It doesn't add that much to the flavor)
1 c. grated Parmesan or Romano cheese
Bread crumbs
10 mid-sized shrimp (Don't skimp with popcorn, don't overdo it with prawn & for goodness sake, No Cans)
Garlic Powder (Not Garlic Salt! Proscuitto has enough. Any more and you will float!)

Here we go.
Let eggs, butter and cream stand at room temperature for 2 to 3 hours. In a skillet, heat the proscuitto. Remember that this is probably already cooked. If not, brown it. Remove and drain on paper toweling. After this, cook the shrimp until they are pink (only takes a few minutes but keep your heat down a bit).

Take the pie crust and give it a very light cover of olive oil. Put the proscuitto in an ovenproof serving dish and heat in a 300 degree oven. Meanwhile, beat together eggs and cream just until combined. Add about half of the Parmesean to the mix. Pour it into the crust and fluff it a bit to get the proscuitto mixed. Add the shrimp to the top. Take the bread crumbs and the rest of the cheese and put it on top. Douse with a fairly liberal amount of garlic powder (or to taste if you don't love it like my family). Throw that bad boy in the oven and bake at 350 for about 8-10 minutes. Check it at about 5 minutes because some ovens cook a little differently.

Grandma's Salmon Steaks (Grandma doesn't like home cooking!)

3 salmon steaks (about 12 ounces each)
12 oz. cream cheese
2 tsp. worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. liquid smoke
2 green onions chopped
garlic to taste
Lemon juice

Here is a super easy, and super tasty Grandma special. My grandmother hates fried food, home cooking, and just about anything else that looks or tastes like Southern style. Oh, she lives in Arkansas. Go figure.

Now, on to the grub. Take your salmon steaks. Slap them to make sure they do not move. Put the three steaks in a glass dish. Add the worcestershire and the liquid smoke. Roll them around a bit, but don't break them. It is against some kind of rule. Add a tiny bit of lemon juice. This is not really for flavor. It is done to make sure that the little buggies are gone and to get it ready for the contrast in flavor.

Next, these will be cooked in one of those small broiler ovens that sits on the counter but they can be done in any oven set to broil. Cook them for 5 minutes on the first side. Take them out, flip them and layer the cream cheese on top. Try to put the cream cheese under the fish a bit to keep it from burning. Next, put them back in the broiler oven for about 8 minutes. Extract them from the heat. Stack the steaks if you can with the cream cheese in the middle. Slice and serve!