I snuck lots of fun kitchen ideas in last week’s blog post, including my streamlined recipe for Homemade Yogurt, all of the homemade ingredients I use when making the bean dip featured in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon, and my favorite homemade dippers. If you found the lineup intimidating rather than inspiring, you’ll like the shrimp dish that’s in my column this week. If you’re a gardener, you’ll likely reach for homegrown onion and garlic; if you’re near coastal waters, you may be hauling up shrimp pots or buying directly from local fisherfolk. Otherwise, I use it to feature a single homemade ingredient: fresh yogurt.

As I mention in the column, plain yogurt is the most versatile, whether you’re making your own or buying it at the store. From one batch of plain yogurt, I can blend a serving into a smoothie, mix another with jam and top it with granola, and stir some into a savory bean dip or the sauce I use on shrimp, fish, or potatoes.

Learn more about cooking with yogurt and get the complete recipe for Indian-Inspired Shrimp in Yogurt in my column.

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Twice as Tasty

My main bonus move whenever I cook shrimp is to save the shells for stock. Buying unpeeled raw shrimp not only lets you pull bonus flavor from the shells but also lets you cook shrimp to the perfect juiciness. Precooked shrimp may seem easier to use, but I actually find them harder to cook with because they can so quickly turn rubbery and unappealing.

Stocks made with shrimp, vegetables, and scraps are so easy to make and capture tons of flavor. Some stocks and broths can be pressure canned, but I tend to freeze mine. Large containers are good for numerous cups that can then be used in risotto or soup. I’ve moved to silicone ice-cube trays that make oversized cubes for freezing smaller volumes of stock to drop into sauces or replace the water when cooking rice.

To make stock, simply collect the shrimp shells or vegetable scraps in a bag in the freezer until it’s full and then dump the contents in a large pot with some water and let it simmer. Return the finished stock to the freezer so that it’s ready to grab and use.

These are just a few of the stock variations I keep on hand:

• Shrimp Stock
• Vegetable Scrap Stock
• Corncob Stock

You can learn more about my favorite freezing tools and techniques on this page.

Want more Twice as Tasty recipes? Get my books! Click here to order a personally signed, packaged, and shipped copy of The Complete Guide to Pickling directly from me. I also share tasty ways to use pickles in The Pickled Picnic, a digital collection in an easy-to-read PDF format; it’s only available here.