Camarones Fritoes with Mexican Cocktail Sauce

After spending the past couple of weeks of 2011 cooking, eating, celebrating, eating, relaxing, eating and of course, eating, I feel like I'm ready to get back on track. A smart person once said to me that we can chose to live life consciously or unconsciously. So no, I'm not going to stop eating, but I'd like to be living my life a little more consciously with more assurance about outcomes. Actually, I think that smart person was Psychgrad.

One of my new efforts this year is being the newest member of the Cooking Light Virtual Supper Club. I join a formidable group of fellow bloggers; Jerry of Jerry's Thoughts, Musings and Rants , Val from More Than Burnt Toast , Sandi of Whistlestop Cafe Cooking and Roz of La Bella Vista . Based on the philosophy of Healthy Foods - Cooking Light , each month one of the members selects a theme and each of us participates by selecting a recipe based on the theme. Each blogger selects a course to prepare and submits their choice to the group. If I choose an appetizer, the next blogger must choose a different course until we fill the entire meal. Posting is generally the first Wednesday of each month.

This month's theme is "Dreaming of a Summer Mexican Fiesta". The dreaming part and preparing Mexican dishes is about as close as I'm getting to Mexico especially when it looks more like this here.

The fun is both in the challenge of the theme and also in the blog hop to see what everyone else has done. Happy blog hopping.

My choice for the Fiesta is a shrimp appetizer - Camarones Fritoes with Mexican Cocktail Sauce

Ingredients

Shrimp:

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup low-fat buttermilk

1 large egg white

1 (5.5-ounce) bag baked potato chips (such as Lay's)

1 1/2 pounds medium shrimp, peeled and deveined

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Cooking spray

Use the coating and crisping technique for different fillets of fish, such as halibut or catfish. It will also work in making chicken fingers. Garnish with lime wedges, if desired.

Sauce:

6 tablespoons ketchup

1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

1 tablespoon hot sauce

1 teaspoon prepared horseradish

1/2 teaspoon grated orange rind

Preparation

Preheat oven to 400°.

To prepare shrimp, lightly spoon the flour into a dry measuring cup; level with a knife. Place flour in a shallow dish. Combine the buttermilk and egg white in a medium bowl, stirring with a whisk. Place potato chips in a food processor; process until finely ground. Place chip crumbs in a shallow dish.

Sprinkle shrimp evenly with salt and pepper. Working with 1 shrimp at a time, dredge shrimp in flour; dip into buttermilk mixture. Dredge shrimp in crumbs, shaking off excess. Place shrimp on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Lightly spray top of shrimp with cooking spray. Repeat the procedure with remaining shrimp, flour, buttermilk mixture, and crumbs. Bake at 400° for 10 minutes or until done.

To prepare sauce, combine ketchup and remaining ingredients, stirring well. Serve sauce with shrimp.