Grilled Shrimp Skewers with Peanut Sauce & Veggies

Yet another reason to keep a well-stocked pantry: the ability to make peanut sauce at a moment's notice.


This sauce has a similar flavor profile to Pad Thai: salty, sweet, sour, and spicy. All its components are long-keeping, so once you buy them, you'll have them until you run out, and can make this easy peanut sauce again and again. I pour it over soba noodles, tofu, use it as a base for stir-frying veggies - it's really versatile.


It tastes just right on shrimp, and it's rich enough that a light meal of just shrimp and an Asian-inspired veggie mix is completely satisfying - especially on a sweltering summer night.


INGREDIENTS

about 1 lb. raw peeled and deveined shrimp
1 red onion, in large chunks
1/2 pint grape tomatoes
1 bunch fresh bok choy, cut into pieces
1 yellow bell pepper, in chunks
big handful sugar snap peas
handful fresh cilantro, chopped
sesame oil
salt and pepper

FOR PEANUT SAUCE:
big scoop natural peanut butter
about 1/3 cup tamari or regular soy sauce
squeeze of Sriracha
a few tablespoons brown sugar
several dashes rice wine vinegar
3 cloves garlic, minced
juice of one lime
1-2 T. sesame oil


DIRECTIONS

STEP 1:

Whisk together all the peanut sauce ingredients and set aside. Create the skewers: if you're cooking them on an outdoor gas or charcoal grill, soak the skewers first for about 30 minutes. If you're cooking them on a grill pan, no need to pre-soak. Place shrimp, some onion, and grape tomatoes on the skewers, alternating each ingredient.

STEP 2:

Preheat a grill pan over medium high heat. Also preheat a pan for the veggie saute. When the pan for the veggies saute is hot, add some sesame oil, then add the veggies, seasoning with salt and pepper. Cook over medium-high heat until veggies are crisp-tender.

STEP 3:

Cook the skewers on the grill pan, spooning or brushing the peanut sauce onto them. Flip each skewer and cook on the other side until the shrimp are cooked through. Serve and enjoy!


Hope you're having a delicious, relaxing summer! More soon...

Spicy Shrimp & Peppers and Goat Cheese Mashed Potatoes

I was worried I would regret buying that potato ricer. It's now safe to say I don't.


Not only has it paved the way to delicious gnocchi, it has expanded its repertoire to mashed potatoes. I don't make mashed potatoes often, only because I have no self-control. Once I finish my very sensible portion size, I take my dish to the sink to rinse it, and before I know it, I'm standing over the pot eating the potatoes with a serving spoon.


And when goat cheese is added to the mix...well, there's basically no hope of keeping my caloric consumption in check. Consider this fair warning. The spicy, acidic shrimp and pepper topping is a pleasantly bold counterpoint to the creamy potatoes. In fact, the combination of flavors is almost good enough to take one's mind off a devastating Stanley Cup playoffs loss [see above photo].


This is one of those dishes that Ross deemed "menu-worthy" (the menu of our fictional island bistro, of course). I love when he says that :-)


If you don't have a potato ricer, you can still make this - you'll just have to mash your potatoes by hand, or you can always just use an immersion blender or hand mixer to get that creamy consistency (although many mashed potato purists advise against this because over-mixing can over-activate the starches, resulting in gluey mashed potatoes). No matter how you make them, I promise you won't have any trouble eating them.


INGREDIENTS

5-6 medium-sized Russet potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks
3 T. butter
1/2 c. milk
~1 c. vegetable or chicken broth
8 oz. goat cheese
salt and pepper

2 T. olive oil
1 T. butter
2 bell peppers (I used red and yellow), sliced
1 medium onion, sliced
1 pt. grape tomatoes
paprika
cayenne pepper
red pepper flakes
juice of one lemon
~1/2 c. white wine
fresh chopped parsley
salt and pepper
~12 large raw shrimp, peeled and deveined, defrosted if frozen

STEP 1:

In a large pot of salted water, boil the potatoes until very tender (some falling apart). Drain. Using a potato ricer, push them through the ricer into the same pot you cooked them in. Add the butter, broth, milk, salt, pepper, and goat cheese and stir over low heat until cheese is melted and mashed potatoes are hot.

STEP 2:

Meanwhile, heat the oil and butter over medium heat. Add peppers and onions and salt, pepper, cayenne, red pepper flakes, and papkrika. When peppers have softened a bit, add tomatoes. Stir till all the peppers/onions are coated in the seasonings.

STEP 3:

When over half the tomatoes have burst, stir in the parsley, lemon juice and wine. Add the shrimp and reduce the heat to low. Cook, stirring, until shrimp are just done. Spoon some potatoes onto the plates. Spoon the shrimp mixture over top. Garnish with extra parsley and serve. Enjoy!

Eat well and enjoy life, friends! More soon...

Mediterranean Orecchiette, Cooked Risotto-Style

How great is Groupon, right?


I came across a Groupon for Fox & Obel the other day, and my fellow Chicagoans know that it's an amazing gourmet market located conveniently (dangerously?) close to my office. As if I needed another excuse to shop there, the Groupon provided me the perfect opportunity to browse the shop and pick up a few things I needed. One of the produce treasures I came across was a pack of "heirloom peppers." I had no idea if they were going to be sweet or spicy, but I am not one to turn down a pepper of any variety, and certainly not an heirloom edition.


As it turned out, they were a variety of red bell peppers, but their thin flesh made them crisper and much sweeter than your average red pepper. They also had an intriguing, elongated shape, reminiscent of Cubanelles. If you happen to find them in your local market, definitely pick some up. They're a nice change of pace.


Among the other things I found at Fox and Obel was a box of Italian orecchiette, one of my favorite pasta shapes, but it's not always available at the regular supermarket. With a few other treats I had around, I had the perfect beginnings for a pasta dish, and I had been wanting to try cooking it risotto-style ever since I saw Mark Bittman do it on his blog a few months ago.


It's exactly what it sounds like - you add dry pasta to a base of oil and butter, and gradually add liquid while stirring, just like risotto - only instead of arborio rice, you use a short pasta. Just like with the rice grains (but to a lesser extent), the pasta releases its glutens slowly, thickening the sauce you cook it in and creating a rich base - all without having to add anything but the broth.


Despite the fact that this blog's subtitle is "How To Wine and Dine Daringly," I almost never share with you my adventures in vino. What a shame! Consider this my first step toward a remedy. We enjoyed this wine (photo above) with dinner, and at about $8 a bottle at Treasure Island, it was an absolute steal! In fact, I may just wrap this up and have another sip or two...or three....

INGREDIENTS
Makes 4-6 servings

2 T. olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
3 heirloom red bell peppers, sliced, ribs and seeds removed
2 T. butter
~2 c. dried orecchiette pasta (or other small pasta, like shells or rotini)
zest and juice of one lemon
1 container (the box) low-sodium chicken broth
salt and pepper
red pepper flakes
fresh chopped thyme
fresh chopped oregano
1 can artichoke hearts, quartered (not packed in oil)
~1/2 cup frozen peas
handful olives, halved (use good quality black or green olives, or a combination)
~15 shrimp, cleaned, peeled, and deveined (if using frozen, thaw first)

STEP 1:

In a large Dutch oven or pot with lid, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion and bell pepper. Add a little salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes. Cook until beginning to soften. Add the butter and dried pasta. Stir unti the butter has melted and coated the pasta.

STEP 2:

Add the chicken broth about a cup at a time, stirring almost constantly (the chicken broth should be at a steady simmer). Add the rest of the ingredients except the peas and shrimp, and continue to add the broth and stir.

STEP 3:

Taste a piece of pasta. When it's just shy of al dente, add the shrimp and peas and the rest of the chicken broth, stir, and cover. Cook for a few minutes, stirring occasionally, until the shrimp are cooked through and the pasta is tender but not mushy. Adjust seasonings if neccessary. Serve and enjoy!

Eat well and enjoy life, friends! More soon...

Yogurt-Marinated Shrimp, Fiery Cauliflower & Indian-Spiced Sweet Potatoes

Someone stage an intervention. Because I think I'm addicted to serrano peppers.


How else to explain my constant craving for the lip-numbing heat, the crisp chili-ness, the slow burn? Serranos just make everything more delicious - bottom line. And I know at least one chef who would agree with me.


The British have a reputation for bland, boring food, but Jamie (like me) adds chilies to almost everything he cooks. And mainstream American curry powders have their roots not in India, but in the derivative Indian cooking of England. I hope that Jamie's uber-inspirational new show, Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, will inspire people around the country who have never so much as picked up a pan to try their hands at making healthy, unprocessed food in their home kitchens.


The show is fantastic - and if you don't catch it in its normal timeslot, every full episode is on Hulu. The amount of resistance Jamie gets from the people of Huntington, VA, is astonishing - but the way he overcomes every obstacle is truly amazing. It's a great show, and I hope that it's reaching the audience that needs to see it most (obviously, people like me are already on the home-cooking bandwagon).


And if YOU weren't interested in home cooking, you probably wouldn't be reading this blog! Hopefully these recipes will be more fodder for creating a great meal of your own - and don't worry, if you're sensitive to spice, you could leave out the serranos entirely and still have a great dinner on your hands. But if you're one of those crazies who can't quell the craving for heat, forget deseeding those babies and have a fiery field day, my friends.


The potato recipe would actually be a great way to indroduce kids to the complex flavors of Indian spices. They're sweet, creamy, and when you use a light hand with the spices, very mild and completely delicious. They'd be as at home on a Thanksgiving spread as they are on an Indian-themed plate.


The idea for marinating the shrimp in yogurt is based on the traditional preparation method for chicken tikka masala (funnily enough, people joke that it's the national dish of the UK) - the chicken is marinated in yogurt and then cooked in the tandoori oven before being stewed with vegetables. If you haven't ever had chicken tikka masala, find your nearest Indian restaurant immediately and try it - it's absolutely delicious. I don't happen to have a tandoori oven in my apartment, but the yogurt marinade gave the shrimp a tangy and complex flavor. The lemon juice thins it out, so only a little of the marinade sticks to the shrimp when you grill it, but the flavor really comes through.

INGREDIENTS

SHRIMP
12-15 medium sized shrimp, cleaned, peeled, and deveined (if frozen, thaw)
1 cup plain nonfat yogurt
several dashes curry powder
a couple dashes cayenne pepper
salt and pepper
juice of one lemon

SWEET POTATOES
3 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks
2-3 T. butter
~1/2 cup milk
cinnamon
nutmeg
cumin
allspice
cayenne pepper
salt and black pepper

VEGGIES
2-3 T. olive oil
1 head caulifower, cored and cut into florets
1 red bell pepper, cut into chunks
1 medium sweet onion, cut into chunks
2 serrano peppers, minced, with all seeds (for less heat, remove seeds and/or leave out serranos)
salt and pepper
a few dashes curry powder
~1/3 cup water

STEP 1:

In a bowl with a lid, mix all the ingredients under the word "shrimp" (except the shrimp, haha) together in a bowl. Place the shrimp in the marinade and make sure they're all covered. Marinate for 30 min to an hour in the fridge.

STEP 2:

Boil the sweet potatoes until very tender. Drain. Pass through a potato ricer (or you can skip this part and just mash them with a fork in the pot you boiled them in) and add in the milk, butter, and spices. Set aside and keep warm.

STEP 3:

Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large skillet with a lid. Add the bell peppers, onion, chilies, and cauliflower. Add the seasonings and curry powder. Cook until veggies are beginning to brown at the edges. Add the water and cover and cook until the cauliflower is tender.


STEP 4:

Heat a grill pan over medium heat. Cook the shrimp, flipping once, until cooked through (about 2 minutes per side). Serve with the potatoes and veggies.


I hope I've helped inspire you to stay in and cook fresh! Check out Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution - maybe over a big dish of spicy sweet potatoes. Eat well and enjoy life! More soon...

Summer in January

Aaaah...life's little luxuries. 40-degree days in January in Chicago (thank you, El Nino!). Coming home after a hellish work week and cooking a relaxed meal at home with a glass of wine. And shrimp pasta so tangy and bright that it almost doesn't feel like winter at all.

Eating this pasta is like escaping to a tropical beach from a blizzard (or ice storm, or icy rain, or ice...hail?!). No matter the weather, or whether it's a weekday or a lazy weekend night at home, this dish is so easy and foolproof that it's always a perfect time to make it.

I picked up the Italian sweet peppers (they come in bell pepper colors but are the same size and shape, roughly, as jalapenos) at Trader Joe's, and every time I use them I wonder why I don't use them more often. They're sweeter and crisper than bell peppers, but not spicy, so they're perfect for any palate - even spice-sensitive ones. They really jazz up the flavor of a sauce. And speaking of sauce, this simple scampi-inspired one is low on ingredients but high on flavor. If you're not a huge fan of lemon, I might start with half a lemon, but the overall effect is tangy, crisp, and delightfully sunny.


SWEET PEPPER SHRIMP SCAMPI & SPAGHETTI

INGREDIENTS

2 T. olive oil
1 T. butter
1 very large or 2-3 small shallots, chopped
1/2 lb. grape tomatoes
10-12 small sweet Italian peppers
3 cloves garlic, minced
juice of one lemon
~1/2 c. white wine
fresh chopped parsley
salt and pepper
red pepper flakes
1 lb. raw, peeled and deveined shrimp
2-3 more T. butter
whole grain spaghetti (1/2-2/3 of a package)

STEP ONE:

Heat 2 T. olive oil and 1 T. butter in a large skillet with semi-high sides. Cook shallots, tomatoes, and peppers, seasoning with salt and pepper, until beginning to soften. Add in garlic and cook for another minute.


STEP TWO:

Add lemon juice, wine, parsley, red pepper flakes, and a little more salt and pepper to pan. Stir and cover. Cook over medium-high heat. Meanwhile, cook the spaghetti until al dente.



STEP THREE:

Add shrimp and the other 2-3 T. of butter to pan. Cover and cook until shrimp are pink, stirring when neccessary and seasoning as needed. Serve over noodles. Enjoy!




These past few weeks, cooking at home has truly been a luxury - I've barely set foot in my apartment the entire month of January! It's nice to remember what makes me love it so much. I hope you're all off to a fantastic start to the new year, and finding - no, making - time to do what you love.

More soon!

Snappy Shrimp Dinner & Korean Soba Noodles

Weeknights are hard. Considering the fact my refrigerator is now too small to hold more than a few days' worth of food, planning meals a week in advance isn't so much an option any more. So, while that cuts down on food waste, it also means I find myself stopping at the grocery store on my way home from work quite a bit.


It's nice to have a few meals that are quick and easy to prepare, making the after-work grocery trek not such a big deal time-wise. This shrimp dish is one of those meals. It includes some of my favorite quick-cooking ingredients (most notably, shrimp), with a few things you see me combine all the time: peppers, tomatoes, onions, white wine, and lemon. I love a sauce with a nice, acidic bite ladled over simple white rice. A healthy heap of spinach rounds it out nutritionally.

SNAPPY SHRIMP DINNER

INGREDIENTS

2 T. olive oil
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, put though a press or minced
1/2 lb. raw peeled, deveined shrimp
1 red bell pepper
1 orange bell pepper
1 red chile pepper
1 can whole peeled tomatoes and all juices
handful fresh parsley, chopped
1/2 c. white wine
juice of one lemon
salt and pepper to taste
several big handfuls raw baby spinach leaves
cooked white or brown rice

STEP 1: Place the rice in a rice cooker or cook according to package directions. While it's cooking, heat olive oil in pan over medium heat and cook onions and peppers (including hot chile pepper) until tender. Add garlic and cook another minute.


STEP 2: Add lemon juice, wine, about 3/4 of the parsley, and tomatoes. Break up tomatoes with a wooden spoon and stir until well-mixed. Season with salt and pepper. Bring heat up to medium-high and cook, covered, for about 5 minutes.



STEP 3: Add spinach to the pan and stir. Recover and cook for about 2 minutes, until spinach is slightly wilted.


STEP 4: Add shrimp, stir, and recover, and cook until shrimp is pink and cooked through, about 4-5 minutes. Remove from heat. Taste and adjust seasonings. Spoon shrimp and veggie sauce over rice. Top with remaining chopped parsley. Enjoy!


I got the idea for this easy noodle dish when browsing thekitchn.com, an offshoot of Apartment Therapy, one of my favorite blogs. The original recipe (found here), was actually for Naengmyun, a Korean noodle dish served in cold broth. I thought the combination of pear, cucumber, and typically Asian flavors was interesting, and I thought it could be nicely adapted into a cold noodle dish - sans the broth, making it more portable as a workday lunch. I strayed from the original recipe, pumping it up with crisp green beans for a greater veggie-to-noodle ratio, but I tried to keep the spirit the same.

KOREAN SOBA NOODLES

INGREDIENTS

3 bundles buckwheat soba noodles
1.5 lbs fresh green beans, trimmed and halved
1/4 c. rice vinegar
1/4 c. soy sauce
3 T. toasted sesame oil
1 one-inch piece ginger, thinly sliced and cut into small pieces
3 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
1 T. Sriracha hot sauce
3-4 T. finely chopped green onions
1 ripe Bartlett pear, thinly sliced and cut into small pieces
handful cilantro, roughly chopped
1 fried egg (for serving), optional
thinly sliced cucumber, for serving, optional

STEP 1: Boil soba noodles and green beans together in a large pot of salted water. Drain.


STEP 2: Meanwhile, prepare the sauce. Combine rice vinegar and next 6 ingredients in a bowl and whisk to combine. Pour over noodles. Add pear and cilantro to pot and toss to combine. Thinly slice cucumber and place on top before serving. Just before serving, fry an egg and place it on top of the noodles. Serve and enjoy!


These noodles are so light and refreshing - perfect for a lunch that won't weigh you down or send you into a midday food coma when you should be pounding out headlines.

Thanks for reading! More soon...

Shrimp & Collards Over Chevre Polenta

I guess I'd call this Southerterranean - a hybrid of Southern and Mediterranean cuisine. If not for the kalamata olives, which it's quickly becoming apparent I'm obsessed with, and the goat cheese, it might be right at home below the Mason-Dixon line.


I wanted to make a variation on a Shrimp and Grits theme, as I was having Sarah over for dinner, and that's her favorite non-sushi food. I'd also been wanting to try making polenta for some time now, but had always been stumped at the grocery store when I could only find pre-made polenta in clear plastic tubes (that's also the only way you can purchase grits here in the Midwest - a travesty). One day it dawned on me that - duuuuh - polenta is nothing more than ground cornmeal, which I keep on hand for pizza-making and the occasional hankering for cornbread. I figured the preparation was exactly like grits - which is simply boiling the cornmeal until it's soft. I was right.

The polenta was so creamy and satisfying (owing to the - ahem - generous amount of goat cheese I stirred into it) that I will definitely be adding it to my list of go-to carbs. There's just something about a cheesy, slightly gritty concoction that makes it the perfect base for spicy, tomato-y broth, and it was a nice complement to the lightly bitter bite of the collards.

On that note, if you haven't tried collards greens (and you most likely haven't unless you're from the south), you should give them a chance. They're extremely nutritious, and with a generous smattering of spices - salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, whatever you have - and a little chicken broth and love, they can be an excellent and hearty side dish. Sometimes I make them my main meal, with nothing more than a chunk of hot, buttered cornbread on the side to soak up their juicy green goodness. Traditionally, they are slow-simmered with a hamhock or thick-cut bacon, but a vegetarian - or semi-vegetarian - version is delicious as well.


SHRIMP & COLLARDS OVER CHEVRE POLENTA

INGREDIENTS

1 and 1/4 lb. shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 bunch fresh collards, cut into smallish pieces
1/2 pt. grape tomatoes, halved
1 can diced tomatoes and all the juice
handful kalamata olives, pitted and halved
juice of 1 lemon
1 c. dry white wine
2 T. olive oil
2 cloves garlic
1/2 red onion, diced
salt and pepper
cayenne pepper
fresh chopped parsley

1 and 1/2 c. polenta (coursely ground yellow cornmeal
3 - 4 c. water
lots of fresh chevre
salt and pepper

STEP ONE:

Heat the olive oil in a semi-deep skillet. Saute the onion until translucent, seasoning with a little salt and pepper. Add the tomatoes, cooking until they start to break down a bit, occasionally helping to squash out the seeds and juice with a spoon. Add the garlic and saute until fragrant, about one more minute.

STEP TWO:

Add the lemon juice and white wine and simmer a couple minutes. Add the collards, olives, some of the parsley, and diced tomatoes. Season with some more salt and pepper and cayenne pepper to taste. Give it a stir, then cover and simmer over medium until the collards have wilted a bit.

STEP THREE:

Meanwhile, boil 3 cups of water for the polenta. Stir in the cornmeal with a whisk, stirring until there are no lumps. If it's a bit dry (you want it on the more liquidy side), add some more water (or you could use chicken stock). Let it cook over medium heat until the cornmeal is soft but not mushy. Take off the heat and stir in the chevre. Taste and season with salt and pepper.

STEP FOUR:

Add the shrimp to the tomato-collard saute and re-cover. Cook until the shrimp are pink and cooked through, about 5 minutes. Ladle some polenta onto each plate. Spoon the shrimp and vegetables over the polenta. Garnish with some chopped parsley. Enjoy!


Thanks for joining me, Sarah, and thanks for reading! More soon...

Mediterranean Shrimp Bake & Spinach Orzo

4 friends. 5 (or was it 6?) bottles of wine. 3 courses. Innumerable conversational topics. One amazing night of feasting and catching up on fun that was long overdue.


When my friend Emily told me that our mutual friend Ashley was a huge fan of my blog (and no shrinking violet in the kitchen, either), and that Ashley wanted to get together to have dinner, we put it on the calendar immediately! Ashley and Katie hosted and provided the first course (sadly, there are no pictures, but they wouldn't have done it justice, anyway): grilled crostini spread with mascarpone cheese, garlic, and artichokes (yum-o-rama). I brought the main course, as you'll see in detail below, and Emily made dessert, the perennial summer favorite, Strawberry Shortcake (cold whipped cream and fresh berries on hot biscuits...mmmmmmmmm.

Since you all couldn't be there (it was a night not to be missed, I can assure you), here is a sampling of our conversational topics (well, the ones fit for public consumption, anyway): single-white-female-esque behavior patterns, trust funds and how we'd like to have some, the pros and cons of gainful employment, questionable spooning incidences, and adventures in babysitting.


Much vino was, ahem, sampled, and we even made it out on the town later...I seem to vaguely remember a dance-off or two...

MEDITERRANEAN SHRIMP BAKE & SPINACH ORZO

INGREDIENTS

1 and 1/4 lb. raw shrimp, peeled and deveined, tails on
2 cans stewed tomatoes
1 large yellow onion, chopped
1 T. olive oil
1 T. butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
25-30 kalamata olives, pitted and halved
1 container feta cheese crumbles
fresh dill, chopped
fresh parsley, chopped
fresh thyme, chopped
salt and pepper
red pepper flakes

1/2 lb. dry orzo
About 8 oz. raw spinach leaves, chopped into smallish pieces
1 jar piquillo peppers, drained and chopped
juice of one lemon
glug olive oil
salt and pepper
red pepper flakes
dried herbs such as oregano, basil, etc.
fresh dill, chopped
fresh parsely, chopped



STEP ONE:

Rinse shrimp and thaw, if using frozen shrimp. Set aside. In a large skillet, heat the butter and olive oil and saute the onion until it's translucent and beginning to brown on the edges. Meanwhile, chop the stewed tomatoes into smaller chunks, making sure you keep all the juices. When the onion is almost done, add the garlic to the pan and cook for another minute, seasoning with salt and pepper.

STEP TWO:

Add the chopped stewed tomatoes and all their juices to the pan with the garlic and olive oil. Add the chopped herbs. Cook for a couple minutes, just until the herbs are wilted. Turn off the heat and let the mixture cool down a bit.

STEP THREE:

Place a layer of shrimp on the bottom of a semi-deep baking dish. When the tomato mixture has cooled some, pour about half of it over the top of the shrimp. Add another layer of shrimp over that, then pour the rest of the tomato mixture over top. If you want, you can pull a few shrimp out of the sauce so that they are visible in the dish.




STEP FOUR:

Spread the olives evenly over the top of the casserole. Don't put the cheese on until right before you are going to bake it. Preheat the oven to 375. Bake at 375 for about 30 minutes, until everything is bubbly and the cheese is getting lightly brown in a few places. Garnish with lemon wedges and extra herbs if desired.



STEP FIVE:

While the oven is heating and the shrimp is baking, boil a pot of salted water and cook the orzo until al dente; throw the spinach in the pot with the orzo about 3 minutes before the orzo is done, so that the spinach wilts a bit. Drain the orzo and spinach and return to the pot, off the heat. Stir in the rest of the ingredients while the orzo is still pretty hot so that it soaks up the olive oil and lemon juice. Set aside until ready to serve (I served the orzo at room temperature and the shrimp bake piping hot over the top, right out of the oven).




The shrimp bake came out great! I was really, really happy with it. I was worried that the dill or the olives or the cheese might overpower the other, more delicate flavors, but I think it worked really well. This is the perfect meal for relaxed dinner with friends: it's low-stress, low-maintenance, and it makes a lot of food without that many ingredients. And everyone seemed to really love it, yay!

The orzo was a nice side dish; I always like when a carb-y side dish and a vegetable can just coexist in one dish so that you really only have to make two things, not three. You could easily serve a salad with this, too, although the crostini were an amazing complement to the rest of the meal - I will definitely be making those soon.

It was the kind of super-fun night that makes you wonder why you don't do it more often. Thanks so much to Katie and Ashley for hosting and for the first course, and to everyone for judging and eating with gusto! (Check out the comments soon for the judges' feedback.


Thanks for reading! More soon...