Shrimp Scampi with Angel Hair and Asparagus

I dine out so often that I sometimes forget I'm actually not a bad cook. However, a new work schedule that involves a lot more hours, but with a more flexible schedule means that I find myself working from home more than I'm used to. As a result, I'm home for lunch -- with no time to run out for anything. This means that I need to be able to whip something up from what I already have at home fast, like "in between conference calls" fast.

Fortunately, I'm a big fan of improvisation in the kitchen. Today, I found myself thinking about a nice batch of fresh asparagus that I bought on Monday night and hadn't used yet. What would I do with asparagus at lunch -- without running out to buy a nice piece of fish or chicken to serve as a main to my traditional side veggie?

My mind wandered to the bag of frozen pre-cooked shrimp I'd purchased at Trader Joe's a couple of trips ago. Need to use that, too. Bingo. Shrimp scampi with asparagus! I absolutely love Barilla Plus pasta, which is a multigrain pasta that has more protein and fiber than regular pasta. I much prefer the taste and texture of this pasta to 100% whole wheat pasta -- and since it's made from a blend of grain and legume flours, I find it to be more filling as well. For this reason, I always have at least a box or two on hand in our little pantry. (Ask Jenny. She loves how I dominate our Lazy Susan.)

So here's how I made a healthier version of a restaurant quality meal in under 15 minutes. (Caveat: this doesn't include the time it takes for water to boil.) I started boiling some water for pasta. I planned to use 1/4 of the box, so I just boiled enough to fill about 3/4 of a medium sauce pan. (Cooking's an art, not a science... which is probably why I'm not horrible at it.) I put the pasta into the pan and followed the directions (cook for 6 minutes) on the back of the box.

In the meantime, I busted the frozen shrimp out of my freezer, learned that a serving is about seven shrimp, put eight in a strainer and ran cold water over them for about 5 minutes.

While my shrimp were "quick defrosting," I put a saute pan on the stove and threw about a tablespoon of olive oil in it. I crushed a clove of garlic and then minced it finely before tossing it into the pan with the heating olive oil.

I moved my shrimp out of the way and set to work with a handful of my asparagus bunch. I broke the ends of the stalks of my asparagus off (just take the bottom of the stalk and see where it breaks -- you don't want to eat the very bottoms) and gave them a good rinse. After patting them dry, I threw them into the pan with the olive oil and garlic for a quick saute.

By now, my pasta was done, so I went ahead and drained it. I dumped most of the water out, but saved some in the pan with my pasta, which I just poured right into the colander housing my (still not 100% thawed frozen) shrimp. Once I drained any excess water, I put the pasta and the shrimp into the sautee pan. (I put a tiny bit extra olive oil in the pan with the asparagus first, right before adding the pasta. Literally, less than a teaspoon.) Then I mixed everything together, making sure that the pasta got some of the olive oil. I grabbed a fresh lemon, cut it in half and squeezed the juice from both halves over the pasta. After adding a few turns of fresh ground cracked pepper and some fresh lemon zest, my meal was ready to eat.

Now, in the future, I'd probably swap about half the lemon juice for some dry white wine on hand. (I'd definitely recommend this if you don't love the tart flavor of lemon as much as I do.) But since I'm mostly a red wine drinker, I didn't have any white wine on hand and I was doing this off the cuff. Adding a tablespoon or so of butter to the sauce would also make it richer and cut the acidity, but since I do eat in restaurants so often, I try to keep my cooking at home on the healthier side. However, the butter would be a good way to plus the sauce up a little.

Definitely no need to follow this recipe exactly -- just thought I'd pass it along as fodder for inspiration the next time you find yourself wondering "what exactly am I going to eat?" Shrimp scampi. Delicious, fast -- and totally doable.

*Caveat: I am not a professional chef. The extent of my "formal training" is a few classes at The Chopping Block. I continue to learn to cook mostly by cooking with good cooks whenever I can, trying tons of new dishes in restaurants, figuring out what flavors work together and understanding what I like.