I don't have a fancy camera, but I promise you it looked (and tasted) good.
So today I had a craving for pasta. I haven't eaten very much pasta in the last 6 months or so - mostly because I just seem to have lost the nagging desire for it (this is a good thing, I promise you). I don't get cravings for pasta too frequently, so I decided to pay it some mind tonight instead of shoving it under a rug.
I had some shrimp on hand, a bag of frozen broccoli florets, and some fresh mushrooms, so I went to work. The result was a satisfying and delicious meal that didn't take a whole lot of time or effort. I'm going to warn you now that I'm sort of a "make it up as I go" cook so I don't measure anything unless I'm baking or trying something that I'm completely unfamiliar with. So in my recipe write-ups you should expect a lot of ingredients with a lot of fairly inaccurate guesstimates of amounts of ingredients used. But if you're comfortable with eye-balling things yourself, then you should have no problem making my "recipes" taste as good as I intended them to. Let your hungry little heart guide you.
With that in mind:
Pesto Shrimp & Pasta
1 pound peeled, deveined shrimp (I used the pre-cooked shrimp)
Olive oil
Frozen chopped onions, about 1/4 to 1/2 cup
Minced garlic
Fresh mushrooms, sliced
Frozen baby broccoli florets (I used a bag of the Pictsweet)
Angel hair pasta (I would have used whole wheat, but I was out)
Your favorite jar of pesto (I used maybe 2/3 of a bottle)
Salt
Pepper
Parsley (I used dried)
Parmesan cheese (optional)
Put some water in a pot to boil for the broccoli and pasta. Add some salt - it's the only chance you got to flavor the pasta while it cooks! You don't need oil in the water, I read somewhere that it doesn't actually do a thing for you, just stir the pasta after you add it to avoid sticking.
Anyway! Water on the stove to boil.
While the water is doing it's thing, you want to make sure your shrimp are clean and devoid of any tail/shell pieces. I peeled off all the ends and gave them a good rinse. Set those aside for right now. Add a splash of olive oil into a non-stick pan so you can sautee your ingredients. Add the frozen chopped onion (I hate cutting onion and will avoid it at all costs - I'm not sorry) and a few generous squeezes of minced garlic (I am also guilty of using bottled minced garlic when I'm lazy... again I'm not sorry). Add some salt and cook that over medium heat until the onion turns translucent. Slice up your mushrooms into quarter-sized pieces and toss them into the pan with the onions and garlic. Add some ground black peppers and dried parsley to the party.
The mushrooms will initially suck up all the moisture in the pan, but don't panic! Give it a minute and they'll ease up and stop being selfish. Don't add any additional moisture, you really won't need it!
Cook all the ingredients until they're acceptably soft (always taste your food!) and toss in the shrimp and a generous amount of pesto. At this point, your water should be boiling. Add the bag of frozen broccoli florets and cover to return to a boil. Cook the broccoli just for a couple minutes, remove from the water with a wire skimmer and toss that into the pesto concoction. Give it a good stir, cover and let that simmer while you cook the pasta.
Add the angel hair pasta to the pot of boiling water, and cook for about 2 minutes or al-dente. Remove from the water and add into the shrimp pesto pan (try not to get pasta all over the stove like I did tonight. Proper tools are key.)
Stir and mix it all up until the pasta is coated. Add more pesto if you need it, simmer it for another couple minutes to marry all the flavors and enjoy!
Top with some Parmesan cheese if you're into that sort of thing and eat the hell out of it.
My mom inhaled her bowl of pasta and nearly choked... that's how I know she liked it. She's a far fussier eater than I am, so that's a good sign.
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