I am on a mission to utilize my blog to make college life easier for others. Now that I'm a Junior and have lived in 3 different apartments with 9 different girls AND have changed my major about 4-5 times, I think that I have some sort of credibility on this subject. Through the trial and error method, I have learned a lot about how to survive on my own and about myself in the process.
I thought I'd start off with a bang and introduce my culinary specialty. But some background first. I like to cook. Actually, it's more like I like to create things with my own hands and have others enjoy it and cooking is another method to accomplish this. My mom dislikes to cook, but does it anyways because she is fabulous and wants our family to be healthy. That's another facet to my cooking history: my parents are in the medical field and so I grew up with no soda, no candy, no chips, and lots of fruits and veggies in the house. Going to McDonald's or going out for ice cream was a treat. And I am SO GRATEFUL for this because I'm healthy! So my cooking segments are for healthier dishes with lots of color and all-around goodness.
My first dish is a hit. My specialty, you could say.
Ingredients:
-bag of pre-cooked shrimp, any size, 30-60 count
-jar of any cheesy fetticini sauce. My personal fav is garlic parmesan.
-box of whole wheat noodles. You could just have normal noodles, but it's not as good for you.
-milk
-olive oil (less healthy choice=butter)
-side of greens. I like doing spinach.
1. BOIL. Start off boiling the water for the noodles, because this is the longest process you'll have to go through for this dish.
2. SHRIMP. While that's warming up, start...cooking? re-cooking? heating-up?...the shrimp (I don't know, it's pre-cooked, but you have to cook it a bit more). First, you have to defrost and de-tail the little buggers. To defrost, put the shrimp (however much you want, depending on how shrimp-y you want it) in a strainer and run lukewarm water over it for a few minutes. Then de-tail 'em. In a medium-to-large sized skillet on medium-to-high heat, put the shrimp and enough olive oil to get the bottom of the skillet covered. You might need to add more while you're going, to keep the shrimp "wet", so keep the jar nearby. Add any spices you want while they're cooking.
3. NOODLES. Don't forget that you're water is starting to boil, now. Pour in the noodles. I like to break them in half as I put them in, since that makes them easier to eat once they're cooked. They need to cook for about 7-8 minutes.
Momma's tip: You know the noodles are ready #1: when the timer goes off, usually, and #2: you can take a noodle and throw it against the fridge. If it sticks, it's cooked. If it doesn't, don't put this noodle back in, that's gross. Cook the rest for a little bit longer. If it breaks, you've overcooked it.
Drain, but don't rinse.
4. SAUCE: Once the shrimp starts to look a TINY bit brownish from the oil, they're ready. Turn down the heat and take your jar of sauce and pour it in the skillet. This not only saves on cleaning a sauce pot, but the flavors can start to seep into the shrimp.
Momma's tip: pour milk into the jar until it's about 1/3 of the way full. Re-cap and shake. Pour the milk into the sauce/shrimp mixture. This gets the extra sauce off the side of the jar and makes the sauce go further=saves money and feeds more.
5. EAT. Hopefully, you've been heating up your side dish. Like I said, I like to steam spinach with some lemon juice. I also love to have asiago bread on the side. It's a less healthy choice, but you can never go wrong with more cheese. You can mix the noodles with the sauce/shrimp, or just put it on top when you serve it up.
Voila! Michelle's Shrimp Fettcini Alfredo. Hope you have a nice group of friends to enjoy it with :)
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