Monday, April 14, 2008

What's cooking: A quick Sunday dinner

Usually Sunday dinner is anything but quick at our house (when we're home and not gone skiing). But we mixed things up this weekend and had the long dinner on Saturday. I spent most of Sunday in my office working on the catalog for Sophie's school's auction. I logged items in the database, listed them in the catalog, paginated the catalog (I'm in publishing, so I've got to have recto/verso running heads), filled in the table of contents, indexed the damn thing, printed it off, and finally I was ready to COPY it. Except then the copy machine and I got in a big fight, with the screen that reports paper jams in various parts of the machine lighting up like a Christmas tree. I cleared the jams, it printed two or three copies, it jammed again. Damn this thing that is the size of my bathroom and probably costs as much as my car. I finally gave up and hauled things off to another machine, which printed all the copies I wanted except it was out of staples, and so since I lacked the bandwidth at that point to deal with finding and adding new staples, I stapled all the copies by hand. Which is a long way of saying that I got home much later than expected, with nothing planning for dinner.

When I'm in a fix like this, Trader Joe's frozen uncooked prawns are my go-to ingredient. There's always some in my freezer. I had bought some fresh romanito tomatoes at the produce market the day before and had from my weekly produce box leeks, spinach, and green garlic. I had in the fridge kalamata olives, shredded parmesan, and a block of feta cheese (I like Bulgarian for it's big gamey taste).

And so I made this:


Which doesn't have a name but was quick, easy, and good. Here's what I did:

I thawed the prawns in a colander in the sink under running cold water. I drained and then dried them in a kitchen towel. I sprinkled them with a little sugar and salt and then sauteed them in olive oil. When they were just pink, I added minced garlic, tossed, and then transferred into a bowl.

I added a wee bit more olive oil, and sauteed the leeks. I then deglazed the pan with about 1/3 cup white wine and added the tomatoes (halved), olives (pitted and sliced), and spinach. When the tomatoes were soft and the spinach wilted, I added the prawns back in, tossed over heat, and added the cubed feta. I served over pasta with shredded parmesan.

Did I mention that I am totally over our school auction and completely sick of being the president of Sophie's school's P.T.A.-like organization? Sick sick sick. But it's Sophie's school, and it's about her and her education. That's what I've got to keep reminding myself to keep from going postal and telling everyone to go f*&$# themselves. Because that's really what I'm wanting to do right now. More on that later.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looks awesome. But I can't read your posts anymore. They make me too hungry. And unlike you, I do not have much going on here in the way of healthy organic groceries. Sigh.

Beth said...

Sounds delish! I LOVE TJ's prawns...they are perfect for that quick, yummy meal:)

KatieGirlBlue said...

Hmm...I wonder what my favorite muppet, Pepe the King Prawn ("I am not a shrimp!") would have to say about this meal?

You just reminded me how much I LOVE angel hair pasta. Yep, thats it. Tonight's dinner at chez KGB = angel hair pomodoro. Thanks, Figs. You made the decision easy.