Extra Recipe #2 - Savory Seafood Penne

I get recipes from a lot of different places. In fact, to compile the original list of recipes for this blog I searched far and wide on the 'Net to look for new and interesting foods to cook. You just never know what's out there. The Husband's healthy eating quest has now added Men's Health magazine to our list of recipe archives. Everything we've eaten has turned out really well, and I have decided there is one single solitary reason for this: the recipes are made for dudes, by dudes. Mario Batali and Wolfgang Puck aside, most guys don't do much cooking. That either resides with their female counterpart if they're married or co-habitating, or they subsist on take-out and mom's leftovers. A man's crowning achievement in the kitchen sometimes results in a pile of Velveeta nachos with a jalapeno garnish. He's overjoyed at what he has accomplished while you, his dutiful wife/girlfriend/women of his harem, are aghast that one would consider routinely defiling their body with such a greasy mess and angry that dinner plans now most certainly do not include a romantic trip to Chez Frou Frou.

Oh, who am I kidding. I love nachos. Furthermore, that was a gross generalization of men which is unfair considering the Husband's kitchen ability. I can entrust him with just about anything in the kitchen and he can whip it up.

So what I'm saying is that Men's Health almost has to make their recipes fool proof for those men out there who don't know the difference between a rolling pin and hole in the ground. And the hilarious thing about this magazine is that they even include pictures of the ingredients! When it says, "1 cup chopped tomatoes," you will see a picture of a tomato right above that instruction. Same for shrimp, pesto, Gorgonzola, and spinach, which all go into this recipe.

Savory Seafood Penne

2 oz Barilla Plus penne pasta
14 medium precooked, peeled shrimp
2 tbsp crumbled Gorgonzola cheese
3 cups chopped baby spinach
1 tomato, chopped
2 tbsp chopped walnuts
3 tbsp ready-made pesto

Directions
1.If you're using frozen shrimp, defrost them by running warm water over them. Cook the pasta according to package directions; drain and transfer it to a large bowl. Add the shrimp, cheese, spinach, tomato, walnuts, and pesto, stirring well to help wilt the spinach and mix in the pesto.

And that is all there is to it! Boil the pasta and then throw everything in a big bowl together. Can't be any more straightforward than that - love it! And it turned out really well. A few things I did differently: I made my own pesto when it calls for jarred stuff. I really prefer to know exactly what goes into my pesto - basil, pine nuts, parm, garlic, olive oil - and what I make probably has less fat than store bought pesto. Also, shocker, but I eyeballed a lot of the ingredients. I didn't exactly measure out the cheese or the spinach or the pesto. Don't act like you're surprised. If you've read any of my other posts you know that's pretty much common place for me. Finally, there is no mention of par boiling the shrimp. It calls for precooked, frozen shrimp, which is what I used, but I still wanted mine to have a little more doneness to them, and I didn't trust the hot pasta to cook the shrimp enough to my liking. So when I drained the pasta, I reserved the pasta water and dropped the thawed shrimp in there for about two minutes, stirring often. They pinked up and curled so I knew they were done. Throw it all into a bowl, toss well, and voila.




I've been pretty impressed with the recipes that have come from Men's Health magazine. I'll try to post some in the near future. If this streak continues, they'll have a better succession rate than Southern Living's recipes.