Linguine with Spicy Shrimp (or Chicken)

'Twas a dark and stormy night...and we had a potluck! Diane's cheddar bay biscuits were amazing, Seaniella brought a beety-bacony-tasty salad, and the Carters came bearing bars. For the main course, I made Linguine with Spicy [Chicken]. While the recipe originally called for shrimp, I tweaked it a bit for our non-seafood-loving-friends.


Ingredients
Yield: 4 servings (serving size: 1 1/4 cups). I doubled it for our get-together.

* 8 ounces uncooked linguine
* 2 tablespoons butter
* 1/2 cup finely chopped onion
* 3 garlic cloves, minced
* 2 plum tomatoes, chopped
* 1 pound peeled and deveined medium shrimp (I used cubed boneless/skinless chicken breasts)
* 1 1/2 teaspoons Cajun seasoning
* 1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper (I cut this amount in half, and it was pleasantly spicy. I think any more would've been too fiery for my taste)
* 1/8 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 cup half-and-half
* 1/3 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Preparation

1. Cook pasta according to package directions, omitting salt and fat. Drain. Place pasta in a large bowl; keep warm.

2. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion; sauté 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.

3. Add garlic and tomatoes; sauté 2 minutes, stirring constantly. (Since I was using chicken, which takes longer to cook, I added it at this step)

4. Sprinkle shrimp with Cajun seasoning, red pepper, and salt. Add shrimp mixture to pan; sauté 3 minutes or until shrimp are almost done; remove from heat. Stir in half-and-half.

5. Pour shrimp mixture over pasta; toss. Sprinkle with parsley.

I did all of the prep work (i.e. chopping and measuring) in advance, so it was pretty easy to pull together. Personally, I found it quite tasty! Not knock-your-socks-off amazing, but good. Give it a whirl if you're in the mood for some pleasantly spicy dinner fare. And thanks to everyone else that contributed to the potluck - 'twas delicious!

Aglio e Olio (with shrimp)

Tucci Benucch at the Mall of America used to have this delicious spaghetti garlic shrimp dish. Crazy good. It was one of those dishes where I didn't need to look at the menu (and let me tell you, I like looking at menus. I like to read about every dish) because I knew what I was ordering. That dish is no longer on the menu and I haven't been to Tucci Benucch since. Screw you Tucci.

Anyways, I love shrimp, I love garlic, I love pasta. I've been cooking these things together for a while. I've been trying to recreate that spaghetti garlic shrimp and this recipe is one of the attempts. The search continues (a promising lead for next time, two words: Parmesan broth. Ooh, broth!) but it was tasty nonetheless. I took the Algio e Olio recipe from my America's Test Kitchen cookbook (supposedly a classic Italian dish, simply garlic and olive oil) and sauteed some shrimp to go with it.

Even though I doubled checked the amount of red pepper flakes, this dish was waaaay spicy. I would suggest cutting it down. Also, be sure not to burn the garlic. The book was very specific about this. If you follow their "low and slow" method, you'll be fine.

My notes:
1. Less red pepper flakes.
2. I used a whole bulb of garlic.
3. Saute 1 pound shrimp and add to cooked garlic mixture.
4. I forgot to reserve 1 tablespoon raw garlic to add at the end, so all of mine was cooked.
5. I used dried parsley as I didn't have fresh stuff.


Aglio e Olio

6 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil
12 garlic cloves, minced (4 tablespoons)
Salt
1 pound spaghetti
3 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
3/4 teaspoons red pepper flakes
grated Parmesan cheese (for serving)

1. Bring 4 quarts water to a boil in a large pot for the spaghetti.

2. Meanwhile, cook 3 tablespoons of the oil, 3 tablespoons of the garlic, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a 10-inch nonstick skillet over low heat, stirring often, until the garlic foams and is sticky and straw-colored, about 10 minutes.

3. When the water is boiling, stir in 1 tablespoon salt and the spaghetti. Cook, stirring often, until the pasta is almost tender but still a little firm to the bite.

4. Reserve 1/2 cup of the pasta cooking water, then drain the spaghetti and return it to the pot.

5. Stir the parsley, lemon juice, red pepper flakes, the remaining 3 tablespoons oil, remaining 1 tablespoon garlic, and 2 tablespoons of the reserved pasta cooking water into the cooked garlic.

6. Stir the garlic mixture into the spaghetti and toss to coat. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add the remaining pasta cooking water as needed to loosen the sauce before serving. Serve, passing the Parmesan separately.

To dress up this recipe at bit, sprinkle the pasta with toasted fresh breadcrumbs before serving.

Coconut Chicken Nuggets

Technically, this recipe was for coconut shrimp. But the shrimp I had were too tiny to handle the coconut, so I chopped up some chicken breasts and made coconut chicken nuggets instead. 'Twas a delightful escape to the tropics...for my mouth.


Ingredients

• 28 Jumbo shrimp (about 1.5 pounds), or 4 chicken breasts cut into 1 inch or 2 inch cubes
• 1/2 cup flaked sweetened coconut
• 1/2 cup panko
• 1/3 cup cornstarch
• 3 large egg whites, lightly beaten
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 8 teaspoons canola oil, divided
• Cooking Spray

Recipe
1. Peel and devein shrimp, leaving tails intact. Discard shells.
2. Place coconut in a food processor, pulse 6 times or until finely chopped. Add panko, pulse to combine. Place coconut mixture in a shallow dish. Place cornstarch in a shallow dish. Place egg whites in a shallow dish. Sprinkle shrimp evenly with 1/2 teaspoon salt. Working with 1 shrimp at a time, dredge shrimp in cornstarch, shaking off excess. Dip in egg whites, dredge in coconut mixture.
3. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add 2 teaspoons canola oil to pan, swirl to coat. Add 7 shrimp (about 5 nuggets) to pan, coat tops with cooking spray. Cook 2.5 minutes on each side or until done. Repeat procedure with remaining oil and shrimp.

Personally, when I make this again, I will change the coconut/panko ratio to 1/3 cup panko and 2/3 cup coconut. Just because I'm a coconut-nut. I love the stuff! I'm never a big fan of "dredging" things because it makes my fingers dirty...and I don't like that. It was kind of tedious, but since I enjoy the process of cooking it didn't bother me much. I ate the nuggets with rice, and the leftovers proved to be quite versatile. I chopped them up for a salad, stuck them in a sandwich for lunch at school, and even made a panini out of them this evening. It's not quite a gold-star recipe (not something I would fix for company), but it's not destined for the trash can either. I'll keep it around for whenever I need my coconut fix. Cowabunga!

Ha ha, cowabunga.

Surimi Rolls

So, this was my "Recipe of the Week" for my first week of law school. My general plan is to make something around Monday-ish and then eat it for the rest of the week. I made "Surimi Rolls" from a recipe I clipped out of Family Circle Magazine. Surimi is a fancy work for fake crab. Some find that concept gross, but I don't mind it at'll. I don't have the physical recipe anymore, since the product was just mediocre so I chucked the little clipping into the garbage. But here's the general idea.

Ingredients:

• Surimi
• Light Mayo
• Tarragon (I didn't have any, but the internet told me I could substitute basil or thyme, so I used a combination of both)
• Olive Oil
• Dijon Mustard
• Chopped Celery

This is basically a tuna salad sandwich, but with crab instead of tuna. So just mix all of the crap together in a bowl......Then make a sandwhich and eat it!This was fast, kept nicely for the week, and was tasty. At first, I only let it sit for an hour in the fridge and the basil was overwhelming. But after resting overnight, the flavor mellowed out and it was fine. But I couldn't imagine myself sitting around and suddenly thinking, "OMG, you know what I'm totally craving right now? A fake-crab-salad sandwich!" Hence the recipe met the garbage.