Garlic Shrimp Pasta

This is a recipe I modified from one my Aunt makes.

She was born and raised on an island in Italy and is a wonderful cook.

I grew up watching her cook and bake .... and I loved it!

One day she came to my dad's house with some linguini.... went to his garden and cut up some fresh tomatoes... added some diced garlic, fresh basil leaves, olive oil and a little salt... and there was her dish to pass.

It was awesome!! 

It was room temperature and a quick easy pasta "salad" and sooo fresh tasting.

I was thinking while I was eating it that some shrimp scampi would be great over top of this... then I thought maybe some spinach... and boom... a new recipe was born.

She laughs when I tell her I came up with this from her simple pasta salad.

Anyway, I love this dish. 

I don't make it very often because shrimp can be expensive and also, it's a little time consuming to make.

But I knew it was definitely a recipe I had to share on my blog

So when shrimp went on sale... I was all over it.

I hope you enjoy it as much as the rest of us!

Ingredients:
6 C Fresh spinach, cut up
1 Bag shrimp, raw
10+ Cloves of garlic, diced
8 Roma tomatoes, diced (= to about 4 cups diced)  *Or you can use petite diced tomatoes  maybe 2-3 cans
1/2 C Olive oil
1 Tbs butter
1 tsp garlic salt... or more to taste
1 Box linguini
*1/4 C Fresh Parmesan cheese (optional topping)

Directions:
Cut up spinach, tomatoes and garlic first (set aside)

Shell and de-vein shrimp (set aside)
In large pot, bring water to boil for Linguini
Boil noodles until done (aprox 8-10 minutes)
While noodles are boiling:
Add about 2 Tbs olive oil to a large fry pan
Add about half the garlic and sautee lightly

Add the spinach until it gets soft and wilty

Add the diced tomatoes and cook until warm

Set the cooked veggies aside
In another fry pan, (on Med/high heat) add 2 more Tbs of olive oil and  1/4 of the garlic you have left
Add 1 Tbs butter and shrimp

cook just until pink

Sprinkle with garlic salt to taste
As soon as shrimp is done, add in veggie mix and cook about 2 minutes until heated through

When pasta is done, drain & rinse
Place pasta back in pan and add remaining olive oil and garlic to it (you can salt it also)
Serve by adding pasta to individual bowls and topping with shrimp mixture.

***Review:
We all love this dish. Because of a shellfish allergy, we don't allow the little kids to eat shrimp yet, but the two older ones loooooove this dish!  Of course the 8 yr old picks out the spinach & tomato, but that's to be expected.  This is a family favorite for sure.  The little kids are happy to eat garlic noodles with parmesan on top! 


**Tips:
Definitely make sure you have your shrimp,veggies, and pasta water prepped before you start.  It makes it a lot easier.  I didn't boil the pasta 1st this time and I was all off.  The shrimp was done way before the pasta...


lots of multitasking going on here

 and FYI... if you let shrimp keep cooking after they're done, they will get dry and rubbery.  So you want to stop cooking them right after they turn pink. I just took them off the heat until the pasta was done and re heated them quickly right before we ate.  It was a pain though.
Seeding roma tomatoes is ideal. It makes them less watery... which is what you want.  Here is a photo of how it looks.  Just slice in half from the top down and scoop out the seeds.  It's pretty easy.

Tomato on the left is seeded, tomato on the right is not

Also, I hope the recipe makes sense.  I've never written it down before now, so I kind of wrote it as I went.  Please feel free to ask if you have any questions or if I wasn't clear on something!
I hope you love it just as much as we do!



For printable directions see below:

Ingredients:
6 C Fresh spinach, cut up
1 Bag shrimp, raw
10+ Cloves of garlic, diced
8 Roma tomatoes, diced (= to about 4 cups diced)  *Or you can use petite diced tomatoes  maybe 2-3 cans
1/2 C Olive oil
1 Tbs butter
1 tsp garlic salt... or more to taste
1 Box linguini
*1/4 C Fresh Parmesan cheese (optional topping)

Directions:
Cut up spinach, tomatoes and garlic first (set aside)
Shell and de-vein shrimp (set aside)
In large pot, bring water to boil for Linguini
Boil noodles until done (aprox 8-10 minutes)
While noodles are boiling:
Add about 2 Tbs olive oil to a large fry pan
Add about half the garlic and sautee lightly
Add the spinach until it gets soft and wilty
Add the diced tomatoes and cook until warm
Set the cooked veggies aside
In another fry pan, (on Med/high heat) add 2 more Tbs of olive oil and  1/4 of the garlic you have left
Add 1 Tbs butter and shrimp and cook until pink
Sprinkle with garlic salt to taste
As soon as shrimp is done, add in veggie mix and cook about 2 minutes until heated through
When pasta is done, drain & rinse
Place pasta back in pan and add remaining olive oil and garlic to it (you can salt it also)
Serve by adding pasta to individual bowls and topping with shrimp mixture.