Shrimply Irresistible!

We keep seeing those Buitoni pasta commercials, advertising an easy date night dinner of shrimp scampi.  The guy rips open the bag of pasta and shrimp and dumps it into a pan, and voila!  "Homemade" date night dinner, lit candles and all.  After much joking about having Buitoni shrimp scampi for dinner, we decided to make our version of date night shrimp pasta.  Shrimp primavera was definitely our inspiration here, despite it being Fall.

The most time consuming part is cleaning the shrimp, and even then, you can just buy shrimp that are already shelled and cleaned.  But if you're like us and buy the shell-on shrimp, you'll need to peel and devein your shrimp.  At the very least, take out the main vein on the back side.    Just run a paring knife down the back, run it under some water, and you're done.  No one wants to eat shrimp poop!

While Justin was cleaning the shrimp, I got to chopping up some onion, garlic, and tomatoes for our sauce.  We had a couple small beefsteak tomatoes and some yellow romas from our share, but you can use whatever you have on hand.  We just let them cook down and release their juices.  If you have grape or cherry tomatoes on hand, as an alternative, throw them on a backing sheet and pop them in the oven to roast.  Once they start to pop, pull them out, and then just smash them with a potato masher for a nice, roasted tomato sauce.

But back to our sauce.  We poured a little white wine, Italian sauvignon blanc to be exact, into the pan to deglaze it, and get all those tasty bits off the bottom of the pan.  Don't forget to cook your pasta while your sauce is cooking.  The shrimp don't take long to cook up, so toss them into your sauce when your pasta is almost al dente.  Since we still wanted some bit to our asparagus, we threw them in with the shrimp.

When your pasta is done, reserve some of the starchy cooking liquid.  Justin wanted to be absolutely sure the pasta was done, so he threw some on the cabinet...it was done!

Once your shrimps are nice and pink, add in a bit of the pasta water and give it a good stir, before tossing in your pasta.

Give it a good toss so all of the pasta is coated in your sauce.  We topped ours with some fresh chopped parsley and basil, and some parmesan cheese.  And to accompany our pasta, we threw together a Fall salad of mixed greens, apple, toasted walnuts, blue cheese, and a cranberry balsamic vinaigrette.

Date night dinners can still be easy without coming from a bag!

Two Hungry [Artichoke] Hearts

We were watching Sandwich King the other day on Food Network, and Jeff was whipping up a grilled artichoke sandwich with a roasted garlic ricotta spread.  All of the components sounded great, so we took them, and morphed them into a delicious grilled salad.

Start by roasting your garlic.  It takes about at least 30 minutes for it to roast, so you'll want to start with this step so it can caramelize and soften while you prepare everything else.  I peeled away some of the outer layers of the garlic skin first.  Then, you'll want to slice off the top of the head so the cloves are exposed.  Drizzle olive oil over the top, and sprinkle on some salt and pepper.  Wrap up the garlic in foil and place it in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes, or until it is fragrant and soft.

While the garlic is roasting, you can start preparing everything else.  We wanted to make the salad a little more hearty, and we had a couple chicken breasts on hand, so we simply seasoned with salt and pepper and a little oregano, and threw them on the grill.  The romaine heart was quartered, and a whole can of quartered artichoke hearts were drained.  The romaine, artichoke hearts, and a red bell pepper all received a liberal brushing of olive oil, and sprinkle of salt and pepper.  Then we threw them on the grill.  The romaine and artichokes only took about 5 minutes, while the pepper took about 10 minutes.  You want the pepper to get nice and charred so you can easily peel the skin off.

Once they've cooled down enough for you to handle, give your romaine a rough chop.  Peel the skin off your pepper, and slice it into thin strips.  Add this all to a bowl with your grilled artichokes.  For some freshness, we tossed in some mixed greens and thinly sliced red onion.  You can also toast up some pine nuts to top your salad, for some added crunch.  Now just plate your salads, and add the sliced chicken on top.  For dressing, we just drizzled some balsamic vinegar over the top.

Now, don't think I forgot about our roasted garlic.  When it's soft, and sweet smelling, pull it out of the oven, and squeeze out your cloves.  They should be a golden brown, and nice and soft.  Using the side of your knife, you should be able to smoosh the garlic into a paste.  You can add a little salt to add some coarseness and help  assist you in making the paste.  Then just add your garlic to a bowl with ricotta, parmesan, and lemon zest.

Mix it all together so it's well mixed, and you're ready to spread it on some crostini, topped with fresh basil.  The velvety ricotta with the sweet roasted garlic was the perfect compliment to our grilled salad.

Outdoor Flicks & Picnics!

As you may have seen on Facebook last night, we had a delicious summer picnic spread that we enjoyed while taking in an outdoor movie (if you didn't see it, you should "Like" our Facebook page!).  One of the things I love about summer in DC is that on any night of the week, you can see an outdoor movie.  Most neighborhoods are jumping on the wagon, and you're sure to find at least 1 movie each week that you want to see.  As foodies, we had to go above and beyond a bucket of fast food chicken or prepared food from the grocery store.  We prepared an awesome spread for movie without going overboard like this:

One of the things I'm not a huge fan of when it comes to summer in DC, is the sweltering, humid weather.  As soon as I step outside, I feel sweaty and gross, and the last thing I want to do is stand over a stove, or in front of a hot oven.  The perfect solution is a cold soup!  And since we picked up a ton of tomatoes in this week's share, gazpacho was the natural choice.

For a little guidance, we found this recipe.  As always, we put our own spin on it.  But to get you started, gather all your veggies, a good knife, a big bowl, and get to chopping!  Make sure you collect all the seeds and juices that may leach out from your veggies as you're cutting them.  That will help thin out your soup.  I left the skins on all of the veggies, except for the cucumber.  He was the only guy that got peeled.  Because we're both huge fans of garlic, we added about 5 cloves.  And since we had a jalapeno on hand, we chopped that up, as opposed to using hot sauce, as the recipe called for.


Once you're done chopping, you'll have this beautiful bowl of fresh summer veggies!  The recipe instructs you to just get your hands dirty, and squish all the veggies together, but I don't think that's an ideal method, considering the peppers and onion aren't as soft as the tomatoes.  Plus, we wanted more of a soup consistency, as opposed to a chunky salsa consistency.  So I pulled out the immersion blender and got to work.  It didn't take long to break down all the veggies either.

Here's where you really need to taste and add seasonings, as needed.  I started with salt, pepper, and juice of half the lemon.  I started out conservative on the lemon but ended up using the whole thing.  Give it another whirl with the blender, and taste again.  If it's not spicy enough, add another jalapeno, or a splash of hot sauce.  I also threw in the balsamic and red wine vinegars, olive oil, and a splash of worcestershire sauce to balance out the sweetness of the tomatoes.


To top it all off, we threw in a bunch of fresh cilantro and parsley.  Again, blend it all up and taste it to make sure the flavor is right where you want it.  Then just pop it in the fridge to chill until you're ready to eat.


No tomato soup would be complete without a grilled cheese sandwich to go with it.  But we couldn't just go with any ol' grilled cheese.  We had to step up our game for all of you! So we chose a nice baguette for our bread, some prosciutto, humboldt fog cheese, and some arugula.

As with any other sandwich, just start building.  I failed to put cheese on both sides of the bread initially, and they wouldn't stick together, so it's in your best interest to do this right off the bat.  The humboldt fog is a mold-ripened goat cheese, but it has a little less tang and a little more smokiness than a typical goat cheese.  It's somewhat soft and crumbly, but it was easy enough to spread on the bread, and melted into the meat and arugula.  With your sandwiches assembled, melt some butter in a pan, and get to toasting!

If you're packing these treats up for a picnic, let the sandwiches cool down a bit before wrapping them in foil, or putting them in a plastic container.  You don't want them to sweat and get all soggy.

All that was left was to pop some popcorn (truffle parmesan popcorn, that is!), throw a couple beers in the cooler, and a couple peaches for dessert!

Beets & Meats

Today's post is brought to you by the letter 'B'.  Brats. Beer. Beets. Bacon.  What more could you ask for?

You could easily just throw the brats on the grill and call it a day, but we cooked at my place tonight, and I don't have a grill.  Instead, we gave the brats a quick sear on each side in a skillet, and then dropped in some  sliced yellow onions and a bottle of Red Hook Pilsner to finish cooking.

While the brats were steaming away, we got to work on the beets, which were the star of the show. Start by peeling and quartering your beets, and dropping them into some salted, boiling water until tender.  Though the recipe called for bibb lettuce, we just used the beet greens, so make sure to give them a good rinse and reserve them.  While the beets are boiling, crisp up some bacon.

You can set the bacon aside, but keep the fat in the pan to cook up the red onion, and wilt down your greens.  We then added in some balsamic, brown sugar, and fennel seed.  I only had the star anise pods on hand, so we substituted the fennel seed.  Let the brown sugar melt down, and then toss in your beets and coat them in the sauce.  Once they're coated, just sprinkle the bacon on top, and you're ready to serve.  Though the recipe calls for more of a salad, ours turned into more of a side dish since we wilted down the beet greens.

The beets, brown sugar and reduced balsamic made for a pretty sweet combination, but the greens and the bacon helped balance it out.  It really could've used the dark beer to cut the sweetness...we just didn't have any we were willing to sacrifice.

It was a quick, tasty summery meal; perfect for a Friday night.

Soup & Salad Snowquester

For those of you living outside the District, the meteorologists/media dubbed today's storm, "Snowquester".  To our dismay, snowquester was more of a rain-quester, but Justin had the day off, and I was able to work from home, so it wasn't all a loss.  But with the cold, windy rain, it was a perfect day for a big bowl of soup and a nice fresh salad.

Since we picked up a ginormous butternut squash from yesterday's share, we turned him into soup, using the recipe we posted about here.  Rather than crumble bacon on top, we seared up a couple pieces of pork terrine.  These went on the bottom of each bowl, and we ladeled the soup over it.  That way, when you dug in for a spoonful, you'd get a bit of the terrine.

The real star of tonight's meal though was the salad with a strawberry balsamic reduction.  We started by toasting up some walnuts and pecans, and by crisping up some pancetta.

 Then we chopped up a granny smith apple, and some radishes we had on hand.

Then it was time to make the dressing.  We chopped up about 6 strawberries and threw them into a saucepan with enough balsamic vinegar to cover them.

As the vinegar reduced, and the strawberries broke down from the heat, it started to thicken, and the sweetness of the strawberries started to come through.  It developed a smell, much like strawberry jam, but still had a bit of a tang from the vinegar.  Once it had reduced down to a thick syrup consistency, we whisked in a bit of olive oil.

Then it was time to build the salad.  We used the bibb lettuce from the share as our base.  Then layered in the apple and radishes.  The panchetta and nuts were sprinkled on top, along with some crumbled goat cheese.  Then we drizzled the dressing on.

All of the components worked really well together.  The apple was tart and crunchy, while the radishes added a bit of peppery spice.  The nuts also added a nice crunch, and the panchetta added some saltiness.  There was the nice tang and creaminess of the goat cheese, balanced out by the sweetness of the strawberries and reduced balsamic.

All in all, it was a great, hearty meal to warm us up through the rain/snow-quester!