Introduction to Insanity... and Lemon Garlic Shrimp

What happens when a should-have-been-a-chef dentist can't find a job? Absolute stir crazy, cabin fever induced boredom!

Having been told for the past forever few years that I should start a blog, sell my wares, and do "this" professionally, apparently not having a job is how it finally happens. A little background for those who don't necessarily know me yet:

I have been cooking and baking for seriously as long as I can remember. Having grown up in a household half, shall we say Western-, and half Eastern European, I developed an appreciation for all types of food (especially shortbread). Now let me be clear: I was probably the pickiest child on the face of the earth. I can see you in the back there disagreeing with me, but I assure you I win. I literally survived the first four years of my life on air and Cream of Wheat - most people (especially Hubby) respond to this with a shudder and "ewwww", but to me cream of wheat remains my #1 comfort food, especially when I'm sick. I also loved milk and chicken; so basically white food. Although my choices did expand through the years, I remained very picky through to my 20s.

My grandmother, born and raised in Yugoslavia, always has food everywhere ready. We could literally show up anytime, any day and there would be enough to feed an army. She taught me how to make crepes (palachinka in Serbo-Croatian), which I still do purely by feel rather than measurement, because she never measures anything. And she still to this day (despite all my pickiness being gone and my demonstrated willingness to try pretty much anything because I just love food so much!) offers to make me plain pan-fried chicken breast every time I'm at her house ("Julia, what would you like? Do you want me to make you chicken breast?").

My beautiful grandmother Stana

My mother on the other hand was a bit more utilitarian about food when I was young. She is also an amazing cook and has become very adventurous now (much to my sister's chagrin), but having a child who won't eat anything, and a meat-and-potatoes kind of husband (I obviously came by it honestly) tends to suck a lot of your creativity. Most of the time I think she was happy if she found anything I would touch; once when I was very young she actually took me to a paediatrician, worried about my eating habits. The doctor's advice: "she'll eat when she's hungry". Word up doc!
My mom is where I learned baking; every Christmas involved the ubiquitous cookies to be taken to every party, and unbelievable gingerbread houses, one of which was the only thing I could keep down during a particularly vicious New Year stomach bug when I was about nine (full disclosure). Baking with my mom is also how I leaned that the delicious result of combining ingredients does not necessarily mean that each individual ingredient tastes good - case in point powdered ginger...

My mom, Rose; the poor woman had no idea how difficult this child would be

These influences, combined with living alone in Montreal for four years during dental school (a very long and boring story for another time), created a feeling of entertainment for me while cooking and baking (it also made me a crazy person who talks to her cat, but I'm OK with that). My husband Steffan has even gone so far as to claim that baking is foreplay - nice try! Nowadays I love cooking for people; but when Hubby leaves for long periods (he works on a Canadian Navy ship) I tend to eat cereal for dinner with a side of veggie juice from my juicer. It's not worth the clean-up when there's no one to make yummy noises! In part this is my attempt to change that, force myself to cook more for just me (and all of you), and also to continue recipe developing.

Most of my cooking in the past has been straight from recipes I find (Smitten Kitchen and How Sweet It Is are my current favourites - I highly recommend Deb's cookbook - but I also have gotten a lot from All Recipes, Food.com, and Pioneer Woman/Tasty Kitchen) but lately I have started developing some of my own recipes and combining multiple recipes that are almost but not quite there. I have every respect for food bloggers, recipe developers, and cookbook authors and would never intentionally re-use something that is theirs without proper acknowledgement; that being said, I can't really remember where all of my older recipes have come from, but I will never claim that a recipe is my own unless I really did develop it from the ground up (and if anyone does know the sources I would love to hear from you!).

So on to the Lemon Garlic Shrimp!

I make these shrimp all the time; they're really great with just about everything... And really easy to whip up. I decided for fun this time to use the fancy pants spaghettis from PC (squid ink and garlic pepper) and only realised once I opened the packages that it made for a very Hallowe'en-esque plate. This was unintentional, I'm all for prolonging summer as long as possible...

Any pasta works here, or just about any side you want. Just remember to have bread to sop up all the delicious extra sauce!

Lemon Garlic Shrimp with Pasta

Credit: Simplified (very slightly) from The Pioneer Woman
Serves: 4-6 depending on portion size

Ingredients:

2 pounds raw shrimp, deveined (can be frozen or fresh)

1 cup cold unsalted butter*

1 teaspoon flaky sea salt

4 large cloves Garlic, Peeled

½ teaspoons Crushed Red Pepper

1 whole Lemon, Juiced

1 pound spaghetti (optional)

Buttermilk biscuits or crusty bread (optional, recipe for biscuits to come)

Fresh grated Parmesan or Romano cheese (optional)

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Rinse frozen shrimp to separate, then arrange in a single layer on a baking sheet or casserole. Put on a large pot of water to boil.
2. In the bowl of a food processor combine cold butter, garlic, lemon juice, salt, parsley, and red pepper. Pulse until combined. Sprinkle cold butter crumbles over the shrimp.
• If you don't own a food processor, chop the cold butter as small as possible, or grate frozen butter with a cheese grater. Sprinkle butter pieces, chopped garlic, pepper flakes, salt, and lemon juice over all the shrimp in the pan.
3. Bake until shrimp is opaque and butter is hot and bubbly (this can take anywhere from 10 to 25 minutes depending on the size of your shrimp and whether they were frozen or fresh. I like to err ever so slightly on the undercooked side as they will continue to cook after you remove them from the oven). 
4. When shrimp are about 10 minutes from finished, salt the boiling water and cook pasta al dente according to package directions.
5. Drain pasta and toss with a bit of the liquid from the shrimp; arrange shrimp on top and serve with grated cheese and bread to dip in remaining sauce.

*You can also use any combination of butter, olive oil, or any other oil/fat you like; coconut could be really interesting, but I haven't tried it yet (butter just tastes soooo good). You can also sub salted butter, just omit the sea salt - I have to do this because for some inexplicable reason it is impossible to find unsalted butter in Halifax. But we do have extra salt... you know, for all of us out there who have to increase our blood pressure.

Happy Eating!