Pasta with Lemony Apples, Walnuts and Shrimp

Friday nights are officially about pasta or seafood (think mussels) and sometimes just a little bit of both. This dish came together with the odds and ends in the refrigerator – apples, walnuts, white wine and the shrimp and loads of black pepper! With notes of lemon, garlic and shrimp, this will remind of scampi, with ust a fresh breadth of fall.

The pictures are not the prettiest, possibly attributed to enough of the wine that I had drunk while cooking all of this fun stuff. Well, my fuzzy and somewhat addled thinking also had me a little reflective!

Along my reflective horizons was this article that caught my attention and feed by way of local kitchen’s facebook feed. I know, I know, what is that they say about getting your news from a facebook feed?

Well, something about this whole thing struck a chord, right along the lines of what I had been discussing at a talk at the Chappaqua Library, I do think we have gone through a pendulum shift with trying to reclaim dinner. I happen to love Jenny’s blog, for its perky style and interesting food options.

I actually do not often like her somewhat mechanical approach to meal planning, possibly that is the moderate in me, which now leaves us with the question, what if I hate making dinner?

Well, folks, here is the deal, maybe it’s the tiger mom in me, dinner does not have to be a fancy elaborate ritual, but I thing wholesome eating is a part of family routine. I did say wholesome as in NOT processed food, this does not however have to become a complicated ritual with menu boards or work plans, it can be a simple rice and dal meal, it can be something put together in a slow cooker. In fact, even as I write this, I have the slow cooker happily bubbling along. It is a part of my weekend routine.

This being said, cooking dinner is not going to raise your children by itself, there is a lot of happening there the schlepping, the running around, the robotics, the homework checking, well you get the drill. I am not asking you to reclaim family dinners (sorry, Jenny) I am telling you not to let it go! Believe me, my mother did not find cooking therapeutic, it was just a part of our life, not unlike going to school, or learning to read. As for the Dad’s not being a part of the meal equation, well, they need to be a part of the parenting equation and there are many more things to parenting than the meal dynamic.

Possibly, the same sense of unblemished acceptance that puts for you a rather uncomplicated meal, that is surprisingly seasonal, made from the offerings of the refrigerator. On a random note, I need to mention that I finally put the lovely almonds sent to me by California Walnuts to good use.

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Pasta with Lemony Apples, Walnuts and Shrimp

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

A sweet and savory pasta, tossed with shrimp, apples and walnuts.

Ingredients

8 oz pasta (I have used penne here)
Salt for boiling and to taste
11/2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 medium sized apple, cored, peeled and diced
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
3/4 pound medium shrimp, peeled with the tail on
1 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest (from 1 lemon)
1/2 cup white wine
3 tablespoons lemon juice (from 1 lemon)
3/4 cup water or stock
2 tablespoons chopped parsley or cilantro
2 tablespoons of Parmesan cheese
Plenty of freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

Heat the water with a little salt and olive oil and cook the pasta until al dente. Drain and Set aside.
While the pasta is cooking, add the garlic and cook until golden. Stir in the apple and cook for 4 minutes until the mixture is fragrant and golden.
Add in the walnuts and cook for a few more minutes.Stir in the shrimp the lemon zest and mix well.
Add in the wine, lemon juice and sugar and simmer the sauce for about 7 minutes.
Toss with the pasta, and add in the parsley and Parmesan cheese.
Serve with loads of freshly ground black pepper.Schema/Recipe SEO Data Markup by ZipList Recipe Plugin2.6http://www.spicechronicles.com/pasta-lemony-apples-walnuts-shrimp/

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