Shrimp, Asparagus, and Thunderstorms

I've been in a cooking slump. It's been a good number of days since I had the urge to get into the kitchen and whip up something delicious. And I was really tired of take out food. I mean, how many Subway sandwiches can you eat before you're bored to tears?

I'd recently eaten at a local restaurant and talked to the front of the house manager about the cookbooks on display; she shared her love of collecting cookbooks, and invited me to come back to talk with the chef one of these days. He has a sizable collection that he uses for inspiration when creating dishes. Before I left the restaurant, the house manager gave me a copy of Food Editors Favorites: Treasured Recipes.

This is a cookbook that's been around since 1983, and was published for Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) with the permission of the Newspaper Food Editors and Writers Association (now known as the Association of Food Journalists (AFJ.) Like always, I read through the cookbook and made a list of what sounded good. Then I dilly-dallied around, went shopping, and was ready to make food. And what night did I pick to get started? The night of severe thunderstorm watches and warnings.

We'd had a couple of days of 80+ weather, which doesn't make me feel like heading into a kitchen to heat things up. It does make me want to walk to the local Dairy Queen, but I suppose I can't live on just soft serve ice cream...can I?

I decided to make two recipes that required overnight marinading: Chinese Asparagus and Broiled Shrimp with Rosemary.As I started working on the shrimp dish, I could hear thunder in the distance. I kept Weather Underground up on my computer screen to watch the progress of the storm.

First, I took the shrimp out to defrost and placed it into my blue colander.

Both recipes suggest marinading overnight, so all I really needed to do was prep and wait. The skies grew darker and the air seemed calm. A pregant calm, as if something's coming. Soon.

I pulled the asparagus out of the fridge, took pictures. I remembered seeing asaparagus growing at my sister's house over the weekend, the stalks shooting up from the ground. The asapargus had been transplanted from an aunt's house years ago, and now produces a good crop each year.

I peeled asparagus. The rains came, heavy at first, then insistent. The radar changed from green to red to pink. The storm blew threw, dropped the temperature 15 degrees, brought in cooling winds. I chopped asparagus,  checked on the shrimp, ate dinner. I blanched the asparagus in boiling water for a couple of minutes, then drained thoroughly.

I made the marinade for the shrimp - olive oil, lemon, lemon peel, garlic, rosemary, cayenne, parsley.

I made the marinade for the asparagus: soy sauce, sugar, cider vinegar, sesame oil. I tasted the marinade and decided to fuss with it by adding tupelo honey and pepper. I figured fresh cracked pepper would be a nice counter element to the saltiness of the soy sauce. The recipe actually called for additional salt on top of the soy sauce! I added the asparagus and squished it around with the marinade to combine.

Both shrimp and asparagus went into the fridge for an overnight staycation. The next day after work, I ate some watermelon (which I'll tell you about later,) and put the finishing touches on the two salads. But honestly, the asparagus needed no further touches.

I'd never had an asparagus dish quite like this. It was slightly salty, somewhat sweet. And despite absorbing the flavors of the marinade, the asparagus remained tender-crisp. It was a good change from your basic asparagus with lemon-butter sauce.

I separated the shrimp from the marinade and broiled the shrimp...a little too long. I love the flavor of rosemary, and it's a heady compliment to shrimp and lemon.

I piled both the shrimp and asparagus onto my plate, along with some store-bought traditional potato salad, and had a tasty summertime dinner. 

The next day, I had the same combination for lunch at work. I still had potato salad and asparagus remaining, so I munched on both of those until they were completely gone. I'd say that's a success!