Day One-Twenty-Five - A Look Back at my Sunday Dinner

I haven't been to the gym since I got back from Nacogdoches.  I have to go today!!!!  I must!  This is me talking myself into getting my lazy butt in gear and doing something with this day.  I will go to the gym.  I will go to the gym.  I will go to the gym.  But first, let me tell you about what I cooked yesterday.

First a little background information.  About a year ago, I bought a horribly expensive Mediterranean cookbook from William - Sonoma.  I love cookbooks and am always looking for an excuse to buy a new one.  My excuse for this one was that I have a tagine that I love cooking with, but there aren't a lot of tagine recipes out there.  This book includes Moroccan recipes which means tagine recipes so....  I bought it!  I still have not cooked any of the tagines in the book.  But that is neither here nor there!

Then about three months ago, our dinner club went to this amazing Greek restaurant in Frisco.  I have always liked Greek food since I first ate it in Houston when I was in my early twenties.  But this place in Frisco was even better than I remembered Greek food being.  So, now I have become obsessed with Greek food.  If I find some Greek food that I don't like, maybe I will lay off for a while.  So far, I haven't.  So, Friday I went to Central Market and they had Gulf shrimp on sale.  They were huge shrimp - 10 to 15 count!  So I got two pounds wrapped separately with the intention of grilling one package on Friday and freezing the other package for a later date.  When I got home from the grocery store and looked at the thermometer I couldn't make myself go out in the 107 degree heat and light a grill.  So, I froze both packages and ate a pimento cheese sandwich.  Saturday night I ate the last of my pimento cheese.  By the way, next time you go to Central Market buy a container of their pimento cheese.  It is excellent!

So, yesterday if I didn't thaw and cook one of those packages of shrimp I was going to have to go to the grocery store and buy something else to cook.  I still wasn't up for grilling the shrimp so I decided to look through cookbooks and see if I could find an interesting new recipe for them.  So, now we get back to the Mediterranean cookbook.  (You knew I would eventually get back there, right?)  Above each recipe in the book, is the country of origin.  As of today, I have prepared two recipes out of this book.  Both of them are Greek and both have been prepared in the last two weeks.  The one I did yesterday was Baked Shrimp with Tomatoes and Feta.  TO - DIE - FOR!  If you are looking for something complex, it isn't for you.  But if you want a simple shrimp dish and you like tomatoes, you will love it.  So here's the recipe:

Baked Shrimp with Tomatoes and Feta

3 Tblsp Olive Oil

1 Red Onion, chopped

2 Tblsp thinly sliced garlic

2 lbs. Ripe Tomatoes halved, seeded and chopped

1/2 tsp dried Oregano

1/4 tsp sea salt

Freshly ground Pepper

1 1/2 lbs large Shrimp, peeled and deveined

1/2 lb Feta Cheese crumbled into large chunks

3 Tblsp chopped fresh Parsley

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a large frying pan over medium heat, warm the olive oil.  Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring often, until the onion is soft and translucent, 5-8 minutes.  Stir in the tomatoes, oregano, salt and pepper to taste and simmer until slightly thickened, 5-8 minutes longer.

Pour about half of the tomato mixture into a 2 qt baking dish.  Arrange the shrimp over the tomatoes and scatter the cheese over the shrimp.  Spoon the remaining tomato mixture over the top and spread evenly.  

Bake until the shrimp are opaque throughout but still tender when tested with a knife, about 20 minutes.  Sprinkle with the parsley and serve at once, directly from the dish.

The book suggests that it is best served with a chilled white wine like restina and plenty of crusty bread for dipping into the juices.  It was.

For the record, it was only necessary for me to go to the grocery store twice yesterday after I decided on this recipe for ingredients.  Yes, you read that correctly, I went to the grocery store twice yesterday to make something for which I already had the main ingredient.  On my first trip to the store, I bought the feta, tomatoes, crusty french bread and dry white wine.  I mean, I had tomatoes, but I didn't have two pounds of them!  Then I went back an hour later and bought the red onion.  I could have sworn I had one, but there was not one to be found in my kitchen.

I will do just about anything to avoid Central Market on a weekend so I made both of my grocery runs on Sunday to Whole Foods instead.  I understood the fascination with Central Market when they first opened and totally got why there were people walking around slowly just looking at everything like they were in a foreign country.  But that place has been open for years now.  Why do people still go in there for entertainment?  It's not an amusement park!  It's a grocery store!  Buy what you came for and get out of the way!!!!!  My first trip to the store on Sunday I went to the Whole Foods at Preston and Park.  It is almost as bad as Central Market.  I had 5 things in a little hand held basket.  I stood in line for 10 minutes at the express lane with one person in front of me waiting to check out.  It is bad enough that the moron in front of me has 22 items at the express lane, (yes, I did count them) but for the checker to stop checking every few minutes and chat with her is unacceptable!  Nothing in my basket required ice, but when the checker asked me if I needed ice for anything I was purchasing I was tempted to answer "Yes!  Now that I have spent so much time in line, I do need ice!!!!"  I always consider it a victory if I get through the express lane and pass the person who checked out in front of me before I get to my car.  That proves my "express" experience.  I passed the lady with 22 items before I even reached the exit!  Winning!!!!!

Once I realized that I didn't have a red onion, I almost scrapped the entire meal.  I just didn't feel like I could face another Sunday trip to the grocery store.  But I decided to go to the Whole Foods at Coit and Beltline and OMG!  What a difference!  I don't go to that one too often because it is small and the selection isn't as great.  But that also means that they don't have all of the looky lou's.  Everyone there is there simply to buy some groceries.  What a novel thought!  I was in and out with my red onion in less than 2 minutes.  It is also much closer to my house than the Whole Foods in Plano.  I really have to stop going to that one.  I get angry everytime I go.  Let's face it, if you are counting the number of items that someone in the express lane is purchasing you are a little uptight and should not be out in public.

Anyway, that is my shrimp recipe that I found yesterday.  If you cook it, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.  I also had a nice green salad with it along with the crusty bread.  It was delicious and filling.  Bon appetit!