I feel like I can say with absolute certainty that the best part of having finished my Masters degree last week is that I have absolutely nothing that I have to do. Sure, my house is in constant and desperate need of cleaning, my wedding is less than a month away, and I have dogs and a fiance to take care of, but it feels like I have all the time in the world. And I love it!
Today’s most stressful moment consisted of going to Fresh Market, not finding what I needed, and having to drive two miles down the road (in the direction of home, mind you) to Whole Foods. Now that’s my kind of day.
I was slightly irritated with the seafood guys at Fresh Market because they wouldn’t peel and devein their Georgia shrimp for me, and I, sadly, have no idea how to peel and devein shrimp. Are you even allowed to be a food blogger if you don’t know how to handle the foods you cooked? So down to Whole Foods I went, where they happily spent 20 minutes getting the shrimp ready for me. Thank God for Whole Foods or dinner would’ve never happened!
I also love Whole Foods right now because of this.
My very own basil plant! Let’s see how long it takes me to kill this beauty.
Tonight’s dinner was the first meal I’d prepared from Weeknight Fresh and Fast, which divides all of its recipes by season (I like that). It was good, although I do think the recipe needs a little more tweaking than many of my recipes from Cooking Light: Way to Cook.
Dinner was an all out celebration of summer, complete with my favorite summer cooking appliance (the grill) and my favorite summer vegetables (summer squash, zucchini, and eggplant). I also threw in some onions (a necessary addition when using squash or zucchini) and topped it all of with shrimp, courtesy of Weeknight Fresh and Fast‘s Grilled Shrimp and Summer Squash recipe. I pretty much stuck straight to the recipe, except I used an array of vegetables, rather than just squash, although I will make some changes if I make this recipe again.
The Dinner Process
Yay pretty veggies (all local, what?)
Lots of chopping.
I know I cut the eggplant wrong. Moving past that...
Onto skewers!
And onto the grill.
Delish.
Grilling the shrimp is a pretty obvious must, too, but there wasn’t space on the good side of my grill for it all. (That’s right, only half of my grill works properly. At least that half is AWESOME!)
This is how summer is supposed to look.
While doing all this, I was also making a simple sauce, and I got to use one of my favorite little kitchen gadgets!
OMG the baby juicer is so cute!
Mixed the fresh lemon juice with the zest from that lemon, dijon mustard, EVOO, a chopped serrano chile pepper, and minced marjoram (it’s an herb; new to me) and basil (from my rocking new basil plant, of course!)
Throw all the ingredients together and mix with the sauce, and you have…
A BIG OLE SUMMERY DINNER
NOTE: the sauce is fantastic with the shrimp, but the vegetables would’ve been better on their own. It also would’ve made for a nice variety of flavors. At least I’ll know for next time.
So I can’t peel and devein shrimp or cut eggplant. What do you wish you knew how to do in the kitchen?
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I don’t know how to devein shrimp either. Although I do know how to peel them.
Umm, I don’t exactly know how to turn my grill on. That’s sort of embarrassing.
That makes me feel so much better, Lee! I learned that one last 4th of July, so I’m not too far ahead of you with the grill.
It took me exactly 1 week to kill my basil plant. That has to be some sort of record.
That dinner looks superb! And I’m like you – I will not peil or devein shrimp. Don’t know how and I know it would just ick me out.
{ 1 trackback }