I’ve been taking to heart some meal-planning and time-saver suggestions given by readers. There were some great tips, some of which I’ll elaborate on in the future.
One of the things that helps when faced with a late night and the need for a quick meal is having a well-stocked kitchen. I read through simple food guru Mark Bittman’s suggestions for core supplies.
Among the suggestions (and one I was a fan of anyways) is a bag of frozen shrimp. It’s really a versatile little critter than can be cooked quickly in a million different ways.
In the past couple years, I’ve seen several variations of recipes including shrimp and my favorite tiny pasta, orzo. A couple weeks ago, I threw together my variation based on what I had in the house. I made double what I noted below because if you really want to save time, you eat leftovers. Let me know if you try this out and if you make or should make any variations:
Shrimp, Orzo and Green Bean Bake
1 pound shrimp, shelled, peeled, deveined
2 Tbs lemon juice
1 clove garlic, minced
1 cup tomatoes, chopped
1 Tbs olive oil
2 oz. white wine
1 cup orzo, cooked
1/2 cup parsley, chopped
1 cup green beans, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
low-fat feta cheese
salt and pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 450-degrees. Set the water to boil for the orzo
while you chop the veggies.
After peeling shrimp, toss it with the lemon juice while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
Heat olive oil in skillet. Saute onion until translucent. Add garlic and saute until fragrant. Add wine and tomatoes and simmer until liquid is reduced by a quarter.
Toss with shrimp, orzo and peas. Crumble feta on top and bake for 20 minutes or until mixture bubbles and shrimp is pink and opaque.
Cover with parsley and serve.
(Random semi-related tip: If you peeled and deveined the shrimp yourself, don’t throw away the shells and/or heads. I recently read a great shrimp broth recipe on the Washington Post’s website that I linked to over in the “Food Stories” area of this blog’s More Stuff.)
