Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Dinner For Three

Since being back in Utah for Christmas I ended up having to have knee surgery, which extended my stay about a week and a half. My mom, coincidentally, had to have arm and wrist surgery a week before I got home so we ended up being two helpless gimps while Grandma was left to take care of us (lucky her). So yesterday we finally got out to the grocery store and came home with a bunch of goodies - fresh mozzarella, halibut, coconut oil, and a ton of herbs and vegetables. We decided that since its my last week being home I'm going to whip up a few culinary creations while I'm here and I can use them to blog about - Yay! New years resolution fulfilled! 

Here's what we had for dinner: 

Ingredients: Yields 4
4 strips of bacon diced
1 tbsp butter
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3 large garlic cloves
5 small zucchinis
2 - 3 bell peppers 
2 roma tomatoes
1/2 tbsp Beau Monde
1/4 cup green onions
20 - 25 shrimp (we used 5 per person, ours were small)
2/3 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup tomato sauce
1 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup fresh chopped parsley
2/3 cup heavy cream
Salt & Pepper to taste

Directions:
First off cook bacon in the oven on 450° until its crisp
 - not burnt! Chop and set aside.
Now...
1. Peel and chop garlic roughly into disks
2. In a large skillet heat the olive oil and the butter on medium until they're melted together
3. Add the garlic to the pan and cook for about 5 minutes until garlic begins to turn brown then remove from the pan and set aside. In the meantime..

[PREP]
4. Peel all zucchini into long thin strips - so it looks similar to thick linguini
5. Julliene the bell peppers and the tomatoes - taking the seeds out of both before hand
6. Cut the green onion into short strips
7. Chop the parsley and grate your parmesan cheese
8. If your shrimp is frozen - like mine - thaw it out and peel it
9. Have your wine, cream, tomato sauce and shrimp ready on hand so we can

[COOK]
10. After the garlic is taken out of the pan turn the pan up to medium high add the bell peppers (saute for 3 - 5 minutes until soft)
11. Add the tomato and green onion, cook for about 2 minutes until everything is heated together
12. Add your shrimp and cook until at least one side is fully pink then add the wine
13. Let that simmer until the wine is reduced (about 7 - 10 minutes depending on the size of your skillet)
14. Add your tomato sauce - mine was homemade courtesy of Grandma but when I'm at school I usually use a canned tomato sauce like mushroom or Italian style that I get at TjMaxx
15. Now is when I usually turn the heat up to high so that the sauce can begin to bubble and thicken up a little bit - once its at a nice thick consistency is when I add the cream, parsley, bacon and the cheese (save some to sprinkle on top of each plate though as well at the parsley)
16. I let this cook until its all combined and thick then I add the garlic back in and zucchini

Now here's some pictures for your viewing pleasure:


And vuala!! 
This recipe can be vegetarian without the bacon and shrimp or you can add leftover chicken or sausage or whatever you want! Don't have wine? That's fine just omit that ingredient, if you don't have cream add butter instead! This recipe can be changed into whatever you want, this is my version of zucchini pasta, now you can create yours!

Like my new signature! I used this tutorial to figure out how to do place it and I used My Live Signature to create it, check it out for your blog!!

Enjoy!
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