Shrimp Scampi + THO Tuesday Dinners

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imageI can’t believe how little of summer is left. I am holding onto it like a toddler holds on to a lollipop. Don’t get me wrong, I am thrilled to send my kids to school (for their sake and mine) but I am chaffing at the schedule that comes with the school year. September means football and soccer and a ton of family birthdays, so I am trying to savor you, August. You and your staying up past everyone’s bedtime playing games and sleeping in late, beach days and long runs, swimming in rivers and endless ice cream and gorgeous hikes in the woods.

So to help with this transition that can be brutal, I am starting a series before the school year is upon us.

THO Tuesday Dinners.

I find it helpful to have, in any given season, a repertoire of 5-7 meals that I know everyone will like. Using seasonal ingredients that we seem to crave, and that I will likely have most of the ingredients for in my pantry or my weekly shopping, that cooks fast. The new and exciting recipes I will save for the weekend, when I have more time. I hope that sharing these helps you to make your week easy peasy. And lemon squeezy.

I will publish them every Tuesday, so you can either jam it into that weeks line up if you didn’t meal plan or you can get all the ingredients together for it for next week.

This week I am showing you how I make shrimp scampi.

It is so easy, a five year old can do it.

imageSeriously, my five year old loves to help me peel shrimp. I usually soak them in a bowl of hot water for 15 minutes to thaw them, and then peel them. If your crew doesn’t love shrimp, you can use chicken tenders or cubed chicken breasts. Rotisserie chicken can be added at the end too. See, easy peasy.

imageimageI usually make this dish at the end of summer, when the parsley is overflowing in my herb garden and we are hungry from playing outside all day but still want something sort of light. My kids love it, it cooks super fast 10-15 minutes and I always have a bag of shrimp in the freezer and angel hair pasta in the pantry. If you have tomatoes overflowing you can add those too, they are traditionally in shrimp scampi but mine were still green when I made this last week.

I love how lemony and butter this meal is, and I add a ton of hot pepper flakes to my plate and lots of Parmesan cheese to their plates.

imageHope this dish helps you ease into the school year while still tasting a little bit of summer. xoxo Katie

Shrimp Scampi (printer version here):

Ingredients

  • 3-4 garlic cloves
  • 4 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 lb jumbo shrimp (headless)
  • 3 medium tomatoes, seeded and diced
  • 1⁄2 teaspoon salt, to taste
  • 1⁄4 teaspoon pepper
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • 1 package angel hair pasta, cooked according to directions
  • Plenty of fresh parm for serving

Directions

  1. While pasta cooks, chop the garlic together with the parsley until it almost reaches a paste like consistency.
  2. Heat the sauté pan and, when hot, add the oil. Add the shrimp and toss. When halfway cooked, about 1½ minutes, add the tomatoes and toss for 30 seconds to 1 minute more. Add the garlic and parsley mixture, the salt, pepper, butter, and lemon juice and toss one last time.
  3. Mix cooked pasta with scampi mixture. Turn out onto a plate and serve. Top with freshly grated parm and more fresh parsley, if desired.