Quick Cocktail Sauce

It’s been another intense winter here in North Dakota. Lots of snow. Lots of cold temps. Lots of icy roads.

Ok, so it's been an intense winter everywhere right now, but this is the time of year where I'm completely over it. I love the four seasons, but around February I start to feel locked in, locked down, covered up, all while knowing we still have a couple months to go before the first sprigs of green pop up. *sigh*

Hubby risked life and limb to shovel snow off the house this week so our ceiling doesn’t cave in. We’ve already lost a window awning this winter, snapping off in the middle of the night from the weight of snow. I’m not crying about it, though. The house actually looks better without the awning, like a fresh face after scrubbing off a heavy layer of make-up.

Thank goodness for this man. Seriously, I'm all about equal rights, women wielding power tools and men wielding spatulas, all that, but I just can't get excited about climbing on the roof on a frigid day to shovel snow. I'm so lucky to have married this guy. He is caring, honest, patient, kind, a great husband, a fantastic dad, my best friend…and he happens to have parents who winter in Arizona. Bonus.

We recently returned from our annual trip to visit the in-laws in AZ. Although culturally Arizona just feels like a massive grid of mini-malls, golf courses, and dusty plots of undeveloped desert, I can’t tell you how invigorating it is to simply walk outside without layers of thick clothing, hunched down against the cold. To go outdoors, standing up straight in just a t-shirt – I wait for that feeling all winter. To go swimming and feel every muscle and ligament thawing, stretching, relaxing. To just sit in the sun and let the warmth radiate to the core of my body, the core of my soul. To eat oranges and grapefruit right off the tree, every cell of my being happy to receive an injection of fresh juicy sunshine in citrus form.


Yes, being able to escape from Old Man Winter, if only for a few days, is a definite bonus. The grandparents were very excited to see their newest grandchild, too. Check out that new tooth! (And ignore my ugly pasty foot.)


Baby Ben traveled well. It’s a little cramped sitting in coach with a baby on your lap, and a few pages of SkyMall may have suffered for his amusement, but we managed. Everyone warned me about fussy babies with popping ears, but he didn’t seem to even notice when we were taking off or landing. Any fears of being the person on the plane with an inconsolable screaming baby didn’t materialize, although I must give thanks to my husband, the island of calm whenever I was starting to get a little flustered. I feel like our little family unit can go anywhere now.

While we were in Arizona, I did zero cooking thanks to a wonderful mother-in-law whose primary purpose in life is to ensure no one in her family every goes hungry. This sauce is the only thing I contributed. We were having shrimp for dinner, but alas, no cocktail sauce. No one was really excited about running to the grocery store, so I looked up a couple recipes online, threw this together with what we had on hand, and surprisingly, it worked. It’s not gourmet, but it gets the job done in a pinch. Which leaves more time for walking, swimming, sitting, sunning, thawing…

Quick Cocktail Sauce
If you have more time, more ingredients, and access to a blender, check out Alton Brown’s cocktail sauce recipe. Otherwise, try this! You'll never need to buy a separate bottle of cocktail sauce again.

1/2 cup ketchup
1 Tbls. horseradish (or more to taste)
A squirt of taco sauce (or more to taste)
Splash of Worcestshire sauce

Mix and serve with shrimp and lemon wedges.