Friday, November 7, 2008

Apologies go well with shrimp....

Well to start, I apologize. It's been over a MONTH since my last post. tsk tsk

We've been in the process of buying our first home, and well... there hasn't been much time for good food. I've been mostly cooking standards.

But, it seems that all is settled (for now) and we will close on our home by the end of the month. So, I will be getting back into the kitchen. I'm hungry!

Last night, I wasn't really prepared for dinner. Usually, I'm one of those people that plans out a week's worth of dinners on Sunday. That way there's no thinking involved after work. I just come home, kick off my heels, don the apron and cook.

Since I've been out of the kitchen for awhile, I didn't want one of the usuals for dinner. I started deveining and peeling the 10 oz of shrimp I had in the fridge while contemplating what I could do with them. Then my mind drifted to work and the house...and well, I went on autopilot.

Have you ever cooked a meal without being sure of what you were doing? As in, you don't know what you want your outcome to be? That was me last night. Once I was done peeling my shrimp, I randomly put some water to boil. Then I added penne to cook. At this point I had raw shrimp and penne. Not much of a dinner...

I chopped up a green pepper and sauteed it with 1/2 tsp. olive oil. I tossed in the shrimp and added garlic and a pinch each of onion powder, oregano, and basil. I removed the shrimp once they were cooked. At this point I realized that I had pasta and no sauce of any kind. So, I melted 1 Tbsp. butter into the pan. I added the pene and shrimp and coated them well. Once in the serving bowls, I topped the pasta with a bit of grated Parmesan cheese.

It was only then that I realized that I hadn't really given this meal any thought. I just threw it all together. Which meant that there was a good chance that we were going to be ordering pizza for dinner. I called my husband into the kitchen and made him taste the pasta, not warning him that it might taste awful (poor guy).

He loved it! Said it was very different from my usual dishes. I must admit, it was pretty good. So, although this is not a difficult or impressive dish, I thought I would share it.

I'll be back soon, I promise. Besides, I'll have a big kitchen to cook in.

Happy Friday!


No comments: