Zesty Shrimps with Pasta - serves 2
Ingredients:6 to 8 oz. medium sized shrimp.
Enough fettucini for two people
1/2 Tomato
A handful of diced onion
Mushrooms*
Pepper Strips (you can use fresh or frozen. If you use fresh, you want a yellow, red, and green)Olive Oil
Spaghetti Sauce
Cayanne Pepper*
Garlic Powder
* - optional, but recommended
Method:
1. Dice the veggies. Use quantities that you prefer, there isn't really a "good" amount. A handful and a half of mushrooms, a handful of onion, and a half of a tomato are my measurements. If you're using fresh peppers, go ahead and do those now. Wash those mushrooms, while you're at it.
2. Next we cut off the tails of the shrimp.
3. Also, lightly coat your largest pan/skillet with the olive oil, heat it over medium-high and toss in the shrimp. If you have uncooked shrimp, wait until it's opaque and orange here. Don't overcook them because they'll be in the pan a long time.
4. When your shrimp is cooked or near enough, DRAIN THE PAN, dump in some more olive oil, and toss in the tomato, onion, and mushrooms. Coat them with your desired spices, but do NOT put in more than a tiny bit of garlic. It really doesn't taste good in large quantities here. I load up on Cayanne, because I like that stuff.
5. Turn the heat up to medium/high, spread the oil and spices around a bit (don't do this for more than two or three minutes)
6. Now add in your peppers
7. Do the same thing to the peppers, too. You add these in later so they're not quite so cooked as the other veggies
8. Drain the pan after a minute or two, and move aside the vegetables and shrimp. Put a little bit more oil (yeah, I know) on the empty half and toss your FULLY COOKED fettucini in. If your fettucini is still cooking at this point, just drain the pan and set it aside, don't put it back on the burner and wait for the pasta to finish.
9. Spend a minute or so cooking the fettucini in the oil (stir it up a bit) before mixing it with the other stuff in the pan.
10. Now add in your sauce and mix that in. Don't cook any more, this is just to evenly distribute the sauce and warm it up.
Helpful hints:
1. The shrimp is pretty expensive, even that little. If you want to get something cheaper go ahead. Fresh, de-tailed shrimp is the my favorite to get, but frozen, pre-cooked tailed shrimp is the cheapest.
2. use store bought spaghetti sauce for this because you don't need a whole lot and really, it's just more expensive and more trouble than it's worth to make your own.
3. Fresh peppers are recommended, but hey, a buck for a pound and a half of frozen ones. Can't beat that.
4. For leftovers, don't microwave it because that makes it taste really bad. Just warm it on the oven.
