Shrimp & Spaghetti Arrabbiata

So I've been doing much better on the cooking resolution in February. I've already cooked more in the last 2 weeks than I did in the entire month of January! Some things have been hits. Some have been major misses. Like the Lentil soup I tried to make last Sunday. Which was not very tasty & of course yielded like 6-8 servings. Go figure - the thing I liked the least, yielded the most servings. On Biggest Loser a few seasons back, the contestants cooked a dish w/ Lentils & it looked so good, so I bought some over a year ago and finally got around to making a meal out of them. Not impressed. So if anyone has any Lentil recipes, send them my way. I understand Lentils are very good for you, so it would be nice to find a recipe that incorporates them! I think they are also gluten-free, so if I do give going gluten-free a chance, Lentils would be a nice thing to swap in for pasta or something...

Anywho, the best dish I have made so far this month is Shrimp & Spaghetti Arrabbiata. My aunt Barb posted some amazing pics of Fresh Shrimp that they were eating while in Florida, so I got quite the hankering for Shrimp!

I did woose out a bit and bought shrimp at Byerly's that were already peeled & de-vained. Because, yah, I don't know how to de-vain shrimp. This is actually my first time cooking with shrimp so I figured I better not press my luck & try to figure out the de-vaining thing. Maybe next time I cook I'll give that a try!! The guy working behind the counter was sort of a grandpa-type and was really friendly so I am guessing he would have given me a little lesson, so hopefully he is working next time I buy shrimp!

As I said, I hadn't cooked shrimp before so was a little nervous that I would over cook them, but they turned out great. They went from looking like this,

To looking like this,

Very quickly!!

The recipe is really simple - just shrimp, garlic, crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, oregano, red pepper flakes, and fresh basil.

I only made one alteration to the recipe - I doubled amount of crush red peppers it called for since I love spicy food. :)

It looked like this while it was simmering away...

I made some asparagus to go along with it - just roasted them in the oven with a little olive oil, garlic, salt & pepper. Here's the finished product!!

It turned out great!!! I ate the meal while sitting at my dining room table - probably haven't done that in, well, I can't remember the last time I did. All of my meals get consumed while sitting on my couch working on school stuff or watching tv. But I had put some actual effort into this meal & wanted to focus on enjoying so am glad I ate that meal at the table. I need to do that more often!

I honestly think I could eat shrimp every day. Or I could at least eat some sort of seafood dish every day. It is oh so good. I am so thankful that my parents didn't raise me to be picky - I can't imagine not loving that stuff!