If I’m being totally honest, I’ve been really struggling with finding inspiration to write about food since the time has changed. I’m a visual person and not having natural light to take beautiful food photos has been really taxing my gig. When I started this blog back in August, it never occurred to me that I’d need to procure some artificial lighting if I wanted to eat dinner after 5pm in the winter. But hey, seasons change and we must adapt. And adapt I have!

Luckily I have a talented Babyface with a plethora of photo equipment and after some playing around with setups, we finally found a really, really nice way to light our totally dark kitchen. Woohoo!

Tomatoes

Of course, it isn’t the magic of beautiful late evening natural light in September, but it will definitely do! And there were some photos that I was so happy about that I skipped into the living room to show Babyface. Yay!

Pasta

Alright, lets talk about weeknight dinners. While I would love to have weekdays free to blissfully spend hours in the kitchen making elaborate dinners, the truth is, I have a “real job” and after 8+ hours at the office, I just want to get dinner on the (coffee) table. This is one of those dinners that can be on my plate 20 minutes after I walk in the door.

Pasta

Spicy Shrimp Linguine

Adapted from Cooking Light

10 ounces linguine (cooked per directions)
1 tbsp. olive oil
5 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 pound large shrimp, peeled and deveined
4-5 roma tomatoes, diced
2 heaping tbsp. sour cream
2 heaping tbsp. tomato paste
Salt and pepper, to taste
5-6 leaves basil, chiffonade

Heat olive oil in skillet over medium heat, add red pepper flakes and garlic. Cook until garlic is softened, 3-4 minutes. Add shrimp and cook 2-3 minutes. Add next four ingredients and simmer for 5 minutes or until sauce thickens. Remove from heat and stir in linguine. Top with ribbons of basil.

Shrimp Linguine

I used pre-cooked, frozen shrimp. Mostly because it was on sale. But feel free to use fresh, it will definitely taste better.

Shrimp

Make sure you salt your pasta cooking water. Simple food means you need to inject flavor every time you can.

Water

I cooked about 3/4 of a box of pasta. Please ignore the bandaid. It was an unfortunate incident with a conditioner bottle. Seriously.

Pasta

While the pasta is cooking, heat up your oil and saute the garlic and red pepper flakes. Mmmm, yummy garlic infused oil!

Oil and Garlic

Once the garlic softens, toss in your shrimp and saute just for a minute or two to absorb the flava. Then add your tomatoes.

Shrimp

Bring to a simmer.

Shrimp

You want to cook out some of the liquid from the tomatoes and shrimp, but not all.

Shrimp

After a few minutes, add the sour cream, tomato paste, salt and pepper.

Pasta

Stir well and cook just a few minutes until it thickens and makes an awesome creamy sauce.

Shrimp Pasta

Stir in your drained pasta until it is all coated in the sauce.

Shrimp Pasta

Spoon into pasta bowls and sprinkle with basil ribbons!

Shrimp Pasta

Mmmm. Done in 20 minutes. And delicious!

Shrimp Pasta

Remember my veggie promise from yesterday? Well cue salad made by the Babyface. Big salad for two.

Salad

Mmmm. Veggies tasted SO good. My body is so happy.

Salad

And of course, some wine. White, for a change of pace.

Wine

One more time, with feeling!

Dinner

Later dudes!

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