Shrimp Scampi

All of my writing energy is going towards secondary applications for medical school right now, so postings will remain pretty sparse for a while. But I've really missed writing about food. Maintaining this blog really forces me to step outside of the typical meal rotations of soup, salad, and cereal and keeps me excited about my new-found situation of cooking for one everyday.

I'm really glad I found this recipe because it's super quick to throw together on a weeknight. It's also a really bright-tasting dish and a nice change from a tomato-based pasta sauce. Plus, since most of the ingredients are usually in my fridge anyway, as long as I remember to buy shrimp ahead of time, it doesn't take any advanced planning. Lastly, for quite a few reasons, I'm trying to incorporate more animal protein in my diet and shrimp seems to be an easy way to do it.

Pasta Carbonara

My great uncle is the lucky owner of several productive hens, making me the lucky recipient of a dozen awesomely tasting eggs. I honestly don't remember the last time I ate chicken eggs so delicious.



Aside from a simple fried egg that's wonderfully fresh and tender, I can't imagine a dish better suited for these eggs than a carbonara. I went for this recipe, which was amazing. However, I made the mistake of not adding enough bacon and parsley -- I ran out of bacon (a sad affair) and was worried the entire bunch of parsley would totally overwhelm the dish but found myself missing the greens to cut the richness a little. Despite these setbacks, dinner time was pretty quiet, until everyone had eaten their fill, that is.

Vodka gnocchi

I've never been much of a pasta eater. I don't really know why. Maybe it's because it's one of the foods I eat the most slowly, and if you know me at all, you know it how slow that would be. It's virtually impossible for me to finish a plate before it goes cold. And cold pasta is rarely delicious.

But everything changed when we made this dish.

This is a seriously amazing recipe. My stomach is grumbling and my mouth is watering as I think about it. It combines the lovely mouth feel of a great cream sauce with a tomato sauce's tanginess, plus some vodka. I tried to understand the role of vodka here but failed -- some claim that since ethanol is such a good solvent, it can readily hold onto all the good flavors of a dish. But my question is: if all the ethanol evaporates during the cooking process and vodka is supposedly a tasteless alcohol, what exactly does it do?



Well, regardless of this mystery, this dish has become our go-to meal. I use gnocchi because I can actually manage to eat it fast enough without everything going cold by the time I finish AND because Trader Joe's gnocchi is fantastic. And if you eat everything with a spoon, it doesn't really matter that the shape of the gnocchi doesn't do anything to hold onto the sauce.

Chard and eggplant lasagna

I wanted to make a veggie pie with Clagett Farm's chard, but since Helen C. is not a fan of eggs, I decided to made these instead. I had less eggplants and chard on hand than the recipe called for so my stuff to noodle ratio was a bit off, but this lasagna still turned out well. Without a heavy-handed portion of meat and cheese, it was light but filling.

Pasta with roasted vegetables

From Winter 2009

This is a great recipe for using up leftover pasta and lonely vegetables in your fridge. I threw this together for lunch yesterday and it took 30 minutes, 20 of which was me sitting by the cozy oven reading a book (for pleasure! Can you believe it?).