I’m in a quick-cooking mode as life continues to be completely crazy with games, concerts, award ceremonies, and doctor and dentist appointments – not to mention a completely packed work schedule. I’m throwing together dinners left and right here. My latest entry into the “throw together dinner” category is a salad I whipped up. Once in a while I like to make a big salad for dinner, but it has to include protein. I remembered I had a bag of shrimp, so I got it out and defrosted it (dump the frozen shrimp in a colander and put it in a sink of warm water and it will defrost in minutes). I remembered a trick I saw Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa, do on her show. She was talking about how she likes to serve shrimp cocktail, but finds that if you boil shrimp it is watery and flavorless. So she roasts her shrimp with olive oil and garlic. I gave it a try – putting the peeled shrimp on a baking tray with 2 chopped cloves of garlic, sprinkling with olive oil and salt and pepper. I roasted it at 400 for about 4 minutes and the shrimp was done and lovely looking.

For the salads, I started with a bed of Boston lettuce. Then I just dug in the fridge and found a red pepper, some baby carrots, snap peas, smoked Havarti cheese, and cucumber. I added the shrimp on top. Then I took Martha’s recipe for Green Goddess dip in June Living and modified it into a dressing. I used half an avocado and 1/2 cup of buttermilk. I whizzed that up and then dumped in 1 tsp of Green Goddess seasoning I have from Penzey’s Spice House. I added 1 tsp lemon juice and 1/4 tsp sugar and some salt and pepper. I poured it on top and that was dinner. I served the Herbed Flatbread from yesterday’s post with it. I thought the dinner was fantastic. The shrimp had a wonderful flavor, so I will definitely be using this method again. I loved the Green Goddess dressing – no surprise since I love avocados. Mr. MarthaAndMe was not as much of a fan. It’s hard to get him to eat a salad in general (unless it’s loaded with Caesar dressing). He thought the lettuce was bitter. It was local lettuce, which I find tends to be a bit bitter in early summer. So he didn’t appreciate my lovely salad. Teen Martha wasn’t home and Dude Martha picked at some but didn’t really eat it. Oh well. I guess I’ll stick to making salads for lunch.

I’m in a quick-cooking mode as life continues to be completely crazy with games, concerts, award ceremonies, and doctor and dentist appointments – not to mention a completely packed work schedule. I’m throwing together dinners left and right here. My latest entry into the “throw together dinner” category is a salad I whipped up. Once … Read more →