Food Thursday: Shrimp Florentine over noodles

It’s Lent which means many different things in our house, just one of which is finding a few new meatless dishes to cook each week. We eat meatless or fish at least once a week already so it’s not a big change in eating habits. It’s still fun to find something new to make. I dug this one out of my binder and made it for dinner last night – it was a hit around the table. When that happens I make a mental note that this recipe needs to go on the blog. (Too bad I didn’t think of that before dinner disappeared or I could have included a picture for you.)

Shrimp Florentine over noodles
1 box of whole wheat linguine
1 TB olive oil
3 tsp minced garlic
1 lb shrimp
1 TB butter
1 TB corn starch
1 cup half & half
3/4 cup vegetable broth
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup shredded mozzerella or Italian cheese mix
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp hot shot (red & black pepper mixed together)
2 handfuls of fresh spinach

1. Cook pasta according to directions.

2. In a deep skillet, heat olive oil over medium high heat and add garlic. Cook for 30 seconds and then add shrimp. Cook for 3 minutes or until opaque. Remove from pan.

3. In same pan, melt butter and add corn starch to make a roux. Cook for a minute or so until blonde in color. Add half & half and chicken broth, salt & pepper and bring to a light boil. Stir in cheese until melted. Stir in spinach until wilted. Stir in shrimp.

4. Combine shrimp and sauce with the noodles, toss well to coat.

Food Thursday: Shrimp & Broccoli Pasta

I really need to come up with more original names for my recipes.

Anyway – as I was cleaning up the kitchen last week, I noticed the ridiculous ever-growing pile of recipes stacked on my cookbooks. These are recipes from magazines & newspapers, rough ideas from articles, pictures from advertisements. Sometimes I follow them exactly, more often I combine a few or take some ideas of my own and add to them. I decided that this pile of recipes deserves some attention. And thus, my goal is to cook one completely new recipe each week. And I will share that recipe with you here.

This week – it was a shrimp, broccoli & pasta sort of dish that came out of a Women’s Day magazine. Though honestly the caramelized onions made the meal in my opinion so perhaps I should call it Caramelized Onion Pasta?? At any rate, it received thumbs up from all but the picky child (because, onions?!?).

Caramelized Onion Pasta
2 TB butter
1 large onion sliced thinly into 1/4 inch pieces
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1 box of your favorite short pasta (thin penne, gemelli, capanelle etc)
1 lb of shelled shrimp
1 lb of broccoli, cut into small florets
salt & pepper

1. Melt butter in a saucepan with a lid, add onions and a dash of salt. Stir to coat in butter. Turn heat to medium and cover. Cook for 15 minutes until very browned, stirring occasionally. For the last 3 minutes sprinkle breadcrumbs on the onions so they get toasted.

2. Heat water and cook pasta according to directions – use a large pot for this. With 5 minutes left in cooking time, add the broccoli and shrimp to the boiling water and let cook the remaining time. Reserve 1 cup of the pot water and then strain it all.

3. In a large bowl mix the pasta, shrimp & broccoli with the onion/breadcrumb mixture. Add some ground black pepper and the pot water to keep things moist. Then serve!

food thursday: shrimp with peppers over pasta

This is another one of those recipes that sounds a little fancier and more complicated than it is. Go ahead, pretend someone just asked: What are you having for dinner tonight?
Your answer: shrimp with serrano peppers served over fettucini.

See? Fancy sounding! And yet, it takes less than 20 minutes to make! That’s what I’m here for, to give you some variety in your kitchen that doesn’t take up too much of your time!

looks fancy too with its nicely contrasting colors

Shrimp with Serrano Peppers and Pasta
1 lb shrimp
2 TB olive oil
1 red pepper, seeded & diced
3 serrano peppers, seeded & diced
2 shallots, diced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp basil
1/2 tsp oregano
cooked noodles of your choice – spaghetti or fettucini work well

1. Cook pasta according to package directions.
2. Thaw shrimp, if frozen.
3. In large skillet heat the oil over medium-high heat. Cook peppers, shallots and garlic for 2-3 minutes until soft. Add shrimp and cook 2-3 minutes more – until shrimp turn opaque.
4. Add parmesan cheese, basil & oregano to shrimp and toss to coat.
5. Serve over pasta and sprinkle a little more parmesan on top.

Cook’s note for those who don’t like spicy foods: serrano peppers are spicy, not terribly spicy, but spicy. My girls do not like spicy foods so I make a smaller skillet with everything but the serrano peppers for their servings.

Grocery note on the serranos: Where do you find serrano peppers? You’ve probably seen them before and just not known it. You’ll find them in the produce section near the jalapenos. They are the same dark green color as jalapenos but a skinnier pepper – approx finger length and size. They’re not hard to find but if you don’t have them at your grocery store go to Meijers, they always have them.

Bourbon BBQ Shrimp

My husband went to the doctor last week and was told that he needs to eat healthier and lose some weight. I already do a decent job of cooking light meals so a lot of what we’re working on now is portion control. However, it’s a bit of a bummer when we get to the weekend and have football to watch. When we’re watching a big game we like to snack on some yummy – and not so diet friendly – foods. What’s a Colts fan to do?? Pull out these and you won’t even realize you’re eating something that is low in calories.

Bourbon BBQ Shrimp
1/4 cup steak sauce
3 TB cider vinegar
3 TB ketchup
3 TB light brown sugar, packed
2 TB bourbon
1 tsp (or more) hot pepper sauce
1 pound medium shrimp, shelled

1. Mix all ingredients, except the shrimp, in a bowl. Add shrimp and toss to coat. Let sit for about 5 minutes in the fridge so the shrimp soak up the yumminess.
2. Heat a nonstick, ridged grill pan over medium high heat. Grill the shrimp until pink and lightly browned – 2-3 minutes per side.

3. Take ’em out of the pan and eat ’em.

We made these as appetizers this weekend and ate them with toothpicks. They were so good! As you might guess from the picture, this recipe makes enough sauce that you could serve this over rice for dinner – which is what the original recipe in one of my favorite light cookbooks: Weight Watchers’ Make it in Minutes suggests. You could also skewer these and grill them – but it’s January and that would require me shoveling a path thru the snow to our grill.

Note on the calorie count, the original recipe uses rice and some chopped pecans as garnish. With those included it comes to 4 servings at 391 calories per serving. Dropping those ingredients and using a calorie counter I’m estimating 8 shrimp per serving, 4 servings total and 150 calories per serving. I’m no dietician but I think that’s a pretty good approximation.

Final note before you run off to check your pantry for the ingredients: this spicy/sweet barbecue sauce would be great on just about anything to which you want to add barbecue sauce. If you like your sauce really spicy you could also add chopped jalapenos or crushed red pepper.