39-14

Ingredients



eminent doom for the polenta



Seriously people, it's going to get it.



Mid carnage



I killed it dead.

Then lovingly brushed it with olive oil.

Sun-dried tomatoes and their delicious blood oil.

Capers, they are up to no good ( I think they are planning on stealing something)

Sun-dried tomatoes and garlic, sizzling away and making my kitchen smell super Nom.

Stimp Shrimp

Kitchen is smelling super duper Nom at this point.

Shrimp and all the nomness.

Polenta "pillows".



Finished meal.




Alright, so this was another recipe from the 'I ♥ Trader Joe's' cookbook, but like I stated in my Tuesday post, I made a slight difference in that I bought all the ingredients at a "mainstream" grocery store. This was for a few reasons, the most important of which was to show that these recipes are not exclusive only to the TJ's. I will say that, I am sure there are recipes in the book that are exclusive to only TJ's but not all of them are and this is one that falls in the latter category. Okay, on with the meal.

This one was fairly simple like last weeks, but, it did require some specialized equipment. That being the broiler, a feature of my oven that I have used, but I don't make a habit of it. I remembered why I don't use it all the time now. It is a huge pain in the @$$, that's why. The recipe called for me to cook the polenta in the broiler, and since I have never cooked polenta before I was going to trust the book. I now know better. Cooking the rounds in the broiler made them a bit mushy in the middle and a little burnt on the outside (see picture above).

This meal over all got a 6 from both of us. The over all ingredients are very good, and together they are also very good, it was the specificity of them that left us feeling rather 'meh' about it. For instance the shrimp; the frozen, raw, shrimp that I could find was simple peel. Next time I would definitely get fully peeled shrimp so that it would soak up more of the flavor and we won't be left with a pile of 'skins' when we are done. I would also cook the polenta in the oven and not the broiler, to try and get more of a 'pillow' like texture; something that these rounds lacked.

The meal was good enough to garner the boy getting seconds, so that is a good thing. It also made my house smell fantastic!! This is all owed to the sun-dried tomatoes; they just smell so good. They taste good too, I bet that some culinary genius could come up with a delicious sun-dried tomato ice cream. Ah, sun-dried tomatoes...



Next week: I have nothing planned so far. The weather is supposed to be really, really nice, so maybe something with a summery feel to it? Or made I will get that grill that my BFF has promised me and light it up; I do have frozen swordfish steaks in my freezer, hmmm...