I was poor. We barely had any food. We were scraping by. But I'm back. And I'm going to update one and all about our fantastic Valentine's Day Weekend meals. GET EXCITED!!
On Saturday, we had a late brunch. And a reprisal of Cafe Lub. Which is the cutest thing in all get-out, just so we're clear.At Jesse's request, Cafe Lub involved chicken fried steak, biscuits, and mimosas. I think the fact that he dipped the steaks in the egg, and I dipped them in the four made them even better -- most things taste better with teamwork.
Especially things that are really really awful for you, but are so tasty and yummy and come with gravy on top and biscuits to dunk in and fizzy mimosas to wash them down.....
Last night for dinner, we had a wonderful first-try on something that I will be making over and over and over again. Shrimp Scampi. It wasn't as good as Sorrento's, but since Nick would stab me if I ever asked him for a recipe, I'll have to approximate. I used Tyler Florence's recipe, sort of.
1 box of linguine. Boiled in salted water. Drained and about a cup of the pasta water reserved.
1 big shallot and 4 garlic cloves grated on the microplane so all the juice goo stuff was collected. That sauteed for a few minutes in 2 tablespoons of butter and 2 tablespoons of olive oil with a pinch of red pepper flake.
A pound of medium shrimp (tails on, shells off, cleaned, deveined) were seasoned with salt and pepper and sauteed in the buttery garlicky shallotty goodness until they were just pink. They were fished out and reserved keeping them warm -- put them in a bowl and cover with a pot lid. Then, half a cup of dry white wine went into the skillet with some lemon juice. Tyler asks you to squeeze in a whole lemon, but that was too much for me. Start with half. Taste, and decide.
When the wine and lemon juice come to a boil, add in 2-3 tablespoons of butter. I'd vote for 3. It makes a difference.
Once the butter is melted in, add a bunch of chopped parsley, put the shrimp back in, toss, and then add the pasta. The sauce should be a little gloopy. Add about half a cup, tops, of the reserved pasta water. Toss around until the water kind of reduces off a little.... the sauce should be creamy and coat all the pasta and shrimp with lovely buttery garlicky goodness. If it's too gloopy still, add a little more water to thin it out.
Serve. Pepper would probably be good. NO CHEESE. Sorry, kids. You'll thank me later.
I promise.
Tonight, I'm making one of the first recipes I ever tried to make in this blog, or at least one of the first I photographed. I think this time will go better. Maybe I'll even photograph the whole way along, you lucky people!!! :)
I'm back. Maybe for good. I hope. :) Here's to post #99!!!
Glad you're back! That shrimp scampi looks so good.
ReplyDeleteRe the biscuit cutter - around here, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting one. If you don't mind sharing your mailing address with a complete stranger, one who uses phrases like, "You can't swing a dead cat..." I'll be happy to pick one up and mail it to you.
You can email me at kudzuuu at gmail dot com
back and bad as evah! dah best. can't wait for many more bloggies. oh and, just so we're clear, i've never had gnocchi. can we still be friends?
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