Shrimp Scampi

I'm not sure how I feel about the Print This Page button at the bottom of this post. When I tried it at work, it only printed half of the page. I'm not sure what purpose that serves. So I'm going to leave it on there for the time being, but I want to find one that works better. 


I said I would be back with recipes this week and here I am. A few weeks ago Tom told me that he and C were tired of pork chops. Of course this was after I just bought another family pack of them, but that's another story. He said that they'd much rather have a pork tenderloin or to have some type of fish or seafood. I have no problems with seafood, I just don't have very many recipes to cook it. 


I guess its a Maryland thing. We steam crabs and shrimp. That's pretty much it. I honestly can say that aside from raw or steamed, I don't think I've had seafood any other way. Well...that's not true, I've had baked and broiled fish, but not very often. 


I found this recipe on Annie's Eats and thought it was simple enough that I would probably like it. Actually, the directions were so easy to follow that Tom made everything while I stood there and supervised. If I would have thought about it, it would have been this week's Cooking for Beginners Recipe.


Shrimp Scampi
Servings: 4
Adapted from: Annie's Eats

Ingredients:
1 lb. shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/2 box fettuccine (or linguine)
4 tbs. butter
2 tbs. olive oil
3 tsp. minced garlic
3 tsp. parsley
1/4 tsp. lemon zest
1 tbs. lemon juice
salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper to taste

Directions:
1. Bring a medium to large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook according to the directions. (In our case it was 11-13 minutes)
2. Add butter and olive oil to a skillet and heat over medium-high heat.   
3. Add the garlic to the butter and olive oil and cook for about a minute. 
4. Put the shrimp in the skillet, in an even layer and season with salt, pepper and crushed red pepper flakes. Cook the shrimp until lightly pink on one side. 
5. Toss the shrimp to cook the other side. They will take about 2 minutes per side depending on how hot you have the heat. 
6. Remove the shrimp from the heat and add in the parsley, lemon juice and lemon zest. We added more salt, pepper and red pepper flakes at this point too.
7. When the pasta is done cooking, drain the water and add the noodles to the shrimp mixture. Toss/stir until well combined. 
8. Serve immediately and enjoy!


I ended up liking this more than I thought I would but next time I'm going to up the amount of lemon juice and red pepper flakes. I didn't taste very much seasoning or acidity and I think it would really make a difference in the dish. I tend to go light on anything that says lemon because I had a horrible Rachael Ray recipe experience where everything tasted like an lemon slice that sat in liquid too long. It was disgusting!! Next time I want to serve this with a green salad (that only I will eat) and some crusty bread broiled with a bit of olive oil and Italian seasonings.