I bought some shrimp yesterday to make something unique and different for my roomie, since I told him I usually keep it vegetarian in the house. This is something I do automatically. Its a pain in the butt to make meat, well, to do it well, and so it just makes things easier to leave that to the chefs whenever I go out to eat, and well, I keep it fresh and healthy in the house. But since I have been making food for the both of us, and he has put up with my 100% vegetarian food up until now, I thought I'd surprise him with a treat. So... I brought home some shrimp and slumped into a seriously annoyed frame of mind, and without getting into detail, I didn't make the nice dinner. I made something else, which turned out good, and thank god shrimp is okay in the fridge for a day without going bad. So, today was the shrimp day. Unfortunately, my roomie fell asleep so I enjoyed it alone. Which was fine. I needed some me time. This pasta dish really turned out to be one of the best things I've made since I've been living in this house. Too bad he missed out. But luckily there are plenty of leftovers. Yes, I'm excited as well. I'm excited to eat the rest of it. That's how good it is.
I used the Einkorn pasta again. This time I got the rotini. It's incredible how good it is considering it is flourless. It's not too sticky and after you eat, you don't feel like you ate a 20 pound mule. I somehow managed to boil the pasta last night in a somewhat half-asleep state, and put it in some tupperware to use today. So that was already there. Here is the list of ingredients:
Rotini Pasta. Einkorn & Ezekiel are my faves because they are made of grain and don't have flour, but use whatcha like.
Fresh Basil
Fresh Garlic
Olive Oil (or chili pepper infused olive oil, which is what I used, either is good)
Shrimp
Sea Salt
White wine (dry not sweet)
Cut the basil into very small pieces, or put in a blender, which is what I did and makes your life a lot easier. Use about 8-10 leaves of fresh basil.
Mince the garlic.
Pour olive oil into a saucepan, sprinkle a pinch of salt around the pan and saute the garlic on low heat until soft. My hint about sauteing garlic is to heat the olive oil on med/high to begin with, then when the oil is at that temperature, add the garlic and take it off the stove for a minute or so. Let the garlic simmer as the oil cools down. This is the method I use so that the garlic doesn't burn. If you see smoke/fumes coming from the oil or it is actually boiling, its too hot. Garlic is a tricky thing to get just right, and you have to be careful with it so it doesn't burn, or undercook (crunchy half-raw garlic is not the best in a pasta dish, or... just in general unless taken medicinally). After you take the pan off of the stove, turn the heat down to the lowest setting, put the pan back on the stove after a minute, and let the garlic simmer on low heat. When it is 3/4 done, add the basil. You don't want to overcook basil. Let them both simmer on low for a few minutes, while stirring. Pour in about 1/4 cup of wine. Let it simmer for a few minutes, then add the shrimp. Simmer on low heat while stirring, again make sure not to overcook. Once you see the shrimp curling up, its time to take it off the stove.
While I was close to finishing this, I dumped the pasta into a separate pot, and poured the chili infused olive oil into the pasta and sprinkled sea salt into it and stirred until the pasta was warm and the flavor of the oil had a few minutes to soak in the flavor of the oil. Then I poured the shrimp/olive oil/basil/garlic & wine mixture into the pasta and mixed it up.
This was fantabulous.
A few side notes:
Re: the pesto. Pesto can be made however you want it to be made. Well, thats my rule anyway. I make it how I like it, whatever it is. I didn't have parmesan cheese, and I try to keep the cheese to a minimum anyways, and I just absolutely cant stand pine nuts. So.. my version of pesto is sans those ingredients & that's how I like it.. although they did have a soy parmesan cheese that I used to use. I was told at whole foods that it was discontinued. Not sure if he meant whole foods doesnt carry it anymore, or the company just stopped making it. That would be a shame because the soy parmesan was amazing. If you see it, grab it if you are into dairy substitutes. It's the bomb.
Re: Chili Infused Olive Oil. If this sounds good to you, here's how to make it. Pour olive oil into a separate container (unless you want to use the whole bottle, which is what I do so that I have it on hand whenever I want it)... drop some chili flakes into it. Probably 1 tspn - 1 tbsp will do, depending on how hot you like it. And just let it soak. If you want to bring out the chili flavor more quickly, set it by a window where the sun will hit it. Or, if you want it ASAP, simmer some chili pepper in olive oil... that will infuse the chili flavor into it quickly. But keep it on low, you don't want the pepper flakes to burn. Unless you add an absolute TON of chili pepper flakes, the taste should be quite subtle, so don't sweat it about it being super spicy. You control how much you put in, and you know what you can handle, so just don't overdo it, you don't want to have to dump a large quantity of olive oil because you did a fire drill with the chili peppers. Use your best judgement.
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