Shrimp with Cilantro Pesto
Hubby and I have been enjoying our new kitchen so much but sometimes we get a bit ambitious… I pick exciting new recipes I want to try and then it’s 8:30 before we sit down to eat. Yea, that just doesn’t sit well in my stomach. So we’ve been trying to save those more intricate recipes for the weekends and focus on easy to make weeknight meals. This is our most recent go-to weeknight meal. We’ve been eating it about once a week because it takes no time at all.
The first thing you need for this meal is some frozen pesto. Obviously freshly made pesto or pesto from a jar would also work, but I’ve started freezing pesto, as I’ve seen so many other food bloggers do. See, our fridge came with these little mini ice cube trays. They’re somewhat useless for making ice cubes, so I use them for pesto. The first time I froze pesto was after we made the salmon with cilantro pesto. Now, any time a recipe calls for fresh herbs, I take whatever is left and whip up pesto to freeze.
The next thing you need is some shrimp. We like to buy the two pound bag of shell-on uncooked frozen shrimp when it’s on sale. Just thaw 1/2 the bag and remove the shells. I like to sprinkle the shrimp with some Old Bay prior to throwing them on the griddle that came with our new stove.
Once the shrimp is cooked, throw it in a bowl with a few of your pesto cubes. I like to use 4-6 of my mini pesto cubes for a pound of shrimp. Now cover the bowl with saran wrap and shake it so that the heat from the shrimp defrosts the pesto and the pesto distributes itself on all of the shrimp (a ziplock bag would work for this too, although I’ve never tried that).
And voila, in no time at all, dinner is served. I like to steam some veggies or throw together a quick salad to serve with this shrimp.
Shrimp with Cilantro Pesto
Yield: Serves 2
Ingredients:
1 lb uncooked shrimp, peeled
Old Bay seasoning
frozen pesto cubes
Directions:
Sprinkle Old Bay on the peeled shrimp and cook shrimp in a pan, on the grill, basically any way you like.
Put cooked shrimp into a bowl with a few pesto cubes and cover. Shake to distribute pesto. Enjoy!
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
This is the perfect recipe for all of the leftover ingredients I have! Hubby made me buy a 3-pound bag of cranberries because he loves them, but you only use 12 ounces for cranberry sauce so I’ve got about 2 pounds of cranberries left to use, plus lots of pumpkins and pecans. This is definitely being made this weekend!
Oh man. That does sound good. And I know it must be if you’re repeating it because I am the same way. I’m going to make a cranberry maple pecan cake on Friday… but this is really tempting too.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Oh, man! If I only had more time for Thanksgiving dessert table – this is certainly one I would try.
Oooh this cake looks so ooey gooey and delicious! I wish there weren’t already so many desserts coming to my Thanksgiving table because I’d totally make this!
Sues
This looks super delicious and your photos look great too! Happy Thanksgiving to you and hubby!
ooooh, my, i must try this 🙂 happy thanksgiving!!
What a fabulous recipe! All the flavors sound delicious to me.
This looks amazing! It looks so moisty yum, I should try to make this sometime, Love your blog! this is my first comment for you so I thought I’d show some appreciation for your blog, because I’ve been drooling over all your recipes for a while
Shandra-http://shandrita.tumblr.com/
Your photos are beautiful! The pictures I took of the actual cake didn’t look to appealing, the photos I took of the bite sized cake bites looked pretty though lol
Good job!!
What a great recipe! You totally had me at caramel/pecan/cranberry topping.
Just finally made this cake and it is astoundingly good! Truly the best dessert I’ve had in…oh, a very long time. Thank you for your post!
I tried to be good, I really did! This cake was so delicious, I not only had seconds, I had a piece for breakfast the next day and for a snack later that day. This one goes on my Christmas menu!
beantownbaker — December 1st, 2013 @ 6:52 pm
I doubled the recipe this time and you’ll remember the middle didn’t quite bake through. It also spilled over a bit, so next time, I’ll put a pan under the cake in the oven.