Angel Food (lowfat)

My fiance won’t be in Pensacola too much longer. Soon he’ll be heading to Oklahoma to live out his fighter pilot dreams. So, visiting him a couple weeks ago, I had to take advantage of what may the freshest seafood available to us for quite some while. There’s this great fresh seafood market in Pensacola, FL called Joe Patti’s Seafood. It sits right on the water, and boats dock alongside it to deliver their catch. Doesn’t get much fresher than that!

The market has all sorts of really cool (re: intimidating) whole fish, crab legs, claws, lobsters, clams, etc. Wanting to make a quick and tasty dinner, rather than exercise my culinary muscles, I chose some very approachable 21/25 jumbo shrimp.

I love spicy food in the summer (it goes so well with a crisp pale beer), so I decided to make Shrimp Fra Diavolo for dinner - a tasty saute of shrimp served with a spicy tomato sauce over whole wheat pasta. I’ll have to make the Fra Diavolo sauce again to be able to give an actual recipe. Essentially, I used San Marzano tomatoes, a little garlic, fresh basil leaves, cayenne pepper, and a splash of balsamic vinegar. It was too sweet. Then, my fiance got home and decided to dump some cajun seasoning in it, against my protests. Turns out he’s got a pretty good palate after all. The sauce was suddenly nicely spicy and not too sweet. The shrimp, however, were more controlled affair. So, here’s my homespun recipe for Spicy Lemony Sauteed Shrimp (or Shrimp Fra Diavolo when served with the spicy tomato sauce).

If you have fresh herbs on hand (especially basil, parsley, or oregano) mince the herbs and toss with shrimp at the end of cooking.

1 tbsp olive oil

1 medium shallot, minced

2 large cloves garlic, minced

1 lb shrimp, peeled and cleaned

generous pinch Cayenne pepper

generous pinch of salt

1 lemon, halved

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add minced shallot to pan and sauté until shallot softens and is translucent. Add garlic to pan with shallot and sauté until garlic just begins to color (do not let garlic turn brown). Carefully add shrimp to pan so oil does not splatter. Stir and sauté shrimp until it is barley cooked, just opaque on each side. Remove pan from heat. Sprinkle cayenne and salt over shrimp to taste. Squeeze juice from lemon over the shrimp. Add herbs, if using. Toss shrimp until well coated with spices and aromatics. Serve immediately.

Serves 4, est. time 30 min (incl. prep), est. 4 WW points