Angel Hair Pasta with Shrimp and Basil

When my boyfriend gently suggested that I make dinner for him when he got into town, I laughed. He clearly isn't familiar with my culinary mishaps, despite warning him. Off to All Recipes, I go! As usually, I looked for something with few ingredients and high ratings. I found this, and decided that it looked good enough. Little risky making anything pasta-y for my Italian/Portuguese boyfriend who makes phenomenal pasta sauce buuuut....that was a risk I was willing to take.

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup olive oil, divided
• 1 (8 ounce) package angel hair pasta (aka capellini. apparently)
  
• 1 teaspoon chopped garlic
• 1 pound large shrimp - peeled and deveined (I used frozen. Worked!)
  
• 2 (28 ounce) cans Italian-style diced tomatoes, drained (I bought 4-14.5 oz cans. It was a LOT, so I ended up using 3 and it was still a TON)
  
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 1/4 cup chopped parsley
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
• 3 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil, and add 1 tablespoon oil. Cook pasta in boiling water until al dente. Place pasta in a colander, and give it a quick rinse with cold water.(angel hair cooks in like 2 mins, so next time, I think I'll do this last so that the pasta is still hot)
   
2. Heat remaining olive oil in a 10 inch skillet over medium heat. Cook garlic, stirring constantly, until the garlic is tender, about 1 minute. Do not let the garlic burn. Add shrimp, and cook for 3 to 5 minutes (one of the reviews said that cooking the shrimp twice was too much, so I threw it it after all the sauce stuff and just let it cook in the sauce. Tasted a little 'shrimpy' and I made the mistake of adding the shrimp right at the beginning. I'll add it a few mins later next time, because I think it overcooked a little. Or I'll try following directions and sauteeing it and adding it very last to the sauce. We'll see). Remove shrimp from the skillet, and set aside.
3. Stir tomatoes, wine, parsley, and basil into the skillet. Continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until liquid is reduced by half, 8 to 12 minutes. Add shrimp, and continue cooking until the shrimp are heated through, about 2 to 3 minutes. Serve the shrimp mixture over the pasta. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.

This was pretty easy! And it turned out really flavorful, so I was totally pleased. The boy approved, so I'll file it under success! As I mentioned before, the recipe makes a TON of sauce (I used a big frying pan and it was filled almost all the way up and I didn't even use all the tomatoes it called for). Oh! And this was my first time EVER making shrimp!! I was worried that I had overcooked it, but I think it was ok. It still kinda scares me. Well, that and it's a bit expensive for my taste to use regularly.

(The layout and links are all whackadoo in that first paragraph and Blogger hates me so I can't fix it. SORRY)

Warm Spinach Salad

I freaking LOVE warm spinach salad. Spinach? Bacon? Eggs? Heck yes. I just wanted a super basic salad to serve with a turned-out-not-so-great-AT-ALL pasta dish, so I looked up recipes for the dressing and used this one. My salad just had spinach and hard boiled eggs (I put the bacon in the dressing), not all the other stuff in this recipe. Would probably be good, though, if you want to try it.

Dressing:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 large shallot, minced
• 1 teaspoon garlic, minced
• 1/3 cup white wine vinegar
• 1/3 cup Dijon mustard
• 1/3 cup honey (I added extra honey, a couple tablespoons worth)
  
• 2 strips crisply cooked bacon, crumbled (2 or 4 or 6...)
  
• salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat olive oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Stir in shallots and garlic, and cook until softened and translucent, about 2 minutes. Whisk in the vinegar, Dijon mustard, honey, and 2 crumbled strips of bacon; season to taste with salt and pepper, then cook until hot.
2. Pour hot dressing over spinach and toss to coat.

I halved the recipe because there was only two of us, but kept the 2 strips of bacon (duh). It was quite vinegary/mustardy, so I added a tablespoon or so extra honey to cut that down a bit. Do a little taste test and play with it. The dressing turned out thicker than I remember most warm spinach salad dressings to be, BUT it tasted suuuuper good! Totally outshined the crapastic pasta that I made. Oops!