Shrimp Pasta with Avocado and Ricotta cheese

The best inspirations come from staring at the contents of your fridge and thinking "This is about to expire; I should make something with it. What goes well with this?" That's how I came up with this recipe--ricotta cheese and ripe avocado needed to be eaten. Originally I was going to cook a hot pasta with spinach, onion, and peppers until I started chopping up vegetables and preparing the avocado. I realized that all the ingredients I was using were in guacamole except for the spinach. I should rename this post "Shrimp Guacamole Pasta Salad." There's a couple of things I would do differently next time: more avocado, less ricotta. The dish came out pretty good but I couldn't really taste the avocado underneath all that ricotta.

Ingredients

• 16 med shrimp
• 1/4 cup red bell pepper, finely diced
• 1/4 cup green bell pepper, finely diced
• 1 tbsp lime juice
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• x servings of pasta of your choice
• 1 med tomato, diced
• 1 ripe avocado, peeled and pitted
• 8 oz part skim ricotta cheese
• 1/8 med onion finely chopped
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• dash of crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil

Procedure

1. Cook the shrimp in a frying pan with the olive oil, garlic powder, basil, oregano, salt and pepper. Set aside in a bowl and put it in the refrigerator.
2. Boil a pot of water and cook pasta according to the directions on the box.
3. In a large bowl, smash the avocado with a fork and mix in the lime juice. Add the ricotta cheese and then mix in the vegetables until well mixed. 
4. Take the shrimp out of the refrigerator and mix it in with the avocado and ricotta mixture.
5. If your large bowl with the avocado-shrimp-ricotta mixture is big enough to toss in the cooked pasta, do so. Otherwise, find a larger bowl and toss everything in it. Mix well.

Shrimp and chive omelet

This is a very traditional Chinese/Cantonese dish that I ate a lot of when I was a kid. My dad would usually put in some onions but I was lazy this morning. Usually this dish is served for an afternoon or evening meal and not breakfast, but today I had it for breakfast. I believe this dish is pretty easy to make and not that "Chinese" at all. It's just a little unusual to see a pairing of chives and shrimp in an omelet in American cooking. I do have one really vivid memory about this dish. One time we were having family dinner at my parent's restaurant and a drunk customer comes up to the table and asked to try some of this omelet; then he goes ahead and tries a bite with his bare hands before we even get a chance to respond. Anyhoo, he liked it. Then he paid his bill and left. I never forgot it because it was so comical. I believe he was wearing a t-shirt that said "Silly rabbit, dicks are for chicks." It's funny how I can remember little details like this and forget important stuff like different ways to optimize a batch reaction. Ah, I digress.

All ingredients mixed in a bowl before being cooked.

Finished product

Close-up of finished product

Ingredients

• 4 large eggs
• ~ 2 tbsp of chives washed and cut into approximately 1 inch pieces (I usually just put in however much I want.)
• 12 small shrimp
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tsp oil

Procedure

1. Mix all ingredients into an appropriately sized bowl.
2. Put oil in pan at med heat.
3. Pour in half of the mixture into the pan.
4. Cook until shrimp turn slightly pink and the egg is cooked enough to be flipped. Flip the omelet and cook for another 1-2 min. Then place omelet on plate when done.
5. Repeat step 4 with the remaining mixture.

Shrimp Scampi

Soundtrack: Stone Temple Pilots, Album: Purple

Technically, I made this for breakfast since I didn't wake up until about noon today. I found a recipe at http://southernfood.about.com/od/shrimprecipes/r/bln81.htm, halved it and added onion to it. It turned out delicious! I am glad I added onion. I usually don't order shrimp scampi at restaurants because it's so easy to make at home. Making this dish reminded me how much butter is in this recipe, which I plan on cutting in half next time I cook it. Seriously, 8 tablespoons of butter is a bit frightening to see melting in a large skillet. Scampi is pretty much all butter with some white wine. Also, this dish reminds me that parsley is definitely not my favorite herb and is best in small doses. On another note, I put on Purple and started the dish and finished cooking when the CD ended. I'd say that's quite a feat. Now I know that I cooked for exactly 46 minutes and 59 seconds. That's 46 minutes and 59 seconds of good cooking and awesome 90s rock/grunge. I felt like I should have been cooking something like mac and cheese or a pizza to go with the music instead of shrimp scampi.