cooking4carnivores

The carnivore loves all things meat, of course, but he also loves Italian dishes almost as much. And, while I often indulge his inner meat-eater with things like bar-b-que hot dogs or prosciutto wrapped chicken (what's better than two meats in one bite, right?), I also try to find ways to work in seafood when I can. The best way to do this is to sneak it into an Italian dish. So, recently, I decided to make him shrimp scampi. I adapted these recipes from The Soprano's Cookbook.

First, I began by boiling a large pot of salted water for thin spaghetti for both of us. I then took about 15 medium shrimp that had been cleaned and deveined in advance (there is only so much a girl can do in a day after all) and place them in a skillet. I add about 2 tblsp of olive oil and 2 tblsp of butter. I heated this over low heat while I diced 2 cloves of garlic. I then added the garlic to the pan and tossed the shrimp. I also squeezed the juice of 1/2 a lemon over the skillet as it simmered.

In the meantime, I turned my attention to my dinner. First, I added the thin spaghetti to the now boiling water. I next set up a skillet similar to the shrimp one with the same amount of oil, butter, and garlic. I then tossed in some broccoli florets, slices of squash, and julienned carrots. I again squeezed 1/2 a lemon over the mixture and tossed it in the pan over medium heat. Once the spaghetti was al dente, I drained it and tossed it with a bit more olive oil and some kosher salt. Finally, I chopped some homegrown parsley.

It was then time to make our plates. I piled each of them high with the pasta. I then added the shrimp and veggies respectively. Finally, I topped each with the fresh parsley. Then it was time to enjoy - and boy did we. I served this with a nice crunchy piece of garlic bread. I also topped mine with a bit of grated parmesan cheese. It was a light, but satisfying meal for both me and the carnivore. He hardly even noticed there wasn't any red meat on his plate.