Both my husband and I love to eat shrimp. The problem is that cooking with uncooked shrimp can be more work than one hopes for when trying to prepare a quick meal. With a few exceptions, quick meals are usually the goal around here for our busy household. That is why we were so happy to discover frozen SeaPak Shrimp products.
SeaPak offers breaded butterfly shrimp, popcorn shrimp, shrimp scampi, and several other varieties of shrimp and other seafood products. The selection of SeaPak products was limited at our local supermarket, but we were extremely thrilled to discover that BJ's Wholesale Club carried the Popcorn Shrimp. The larger size was an excellent value and gave us enough shrimp to make the following pasta dish twice.
Recipe: Popcorn Shrimp & Spinach Pasta
INGREDIENTS:
1lb penne pasta
baby spinach
12oz of SeaPak Popcorn Shrimp
4 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 heaping Tbsp minced garlic
1/2 Tbsp basil
lemon juice
grated Parmesan cheese
Step 1. Start water boiling in medium or large pot. Cook penne pasta as directed on package.
Step 2. Preheat oven and bake popcorn shrimp as directed on package.
Step 3. Five minutes before pasta is done cooking, put the olive oil in a french skillet over medium heat. Then add the minced garlic and basil. Once the garlic aroma becomes strong, turn the heat down to simmer to prevent the garlic from burning while the pasta and shrimp are finishing cooking and baking.
Step 4. Add the cooked pasta to the garlic mixture.
Step 5. Add the baked popcorn shrimp on top of the pasta. Then drizzle lemon juice (to taste) over the shrimp.
Step 6. Turn the heat up high and throw in the baby spinach. Toss the contents of the skillet to coat with garlic mixture. Remove from heat promptly to prevent the baby spinach from shriveling up and losing its fresh green color.
Step 7. 5 minutes after the skillet is removed from the heat, toss with grated Parmesan cheese (to taste). If done too early, the cheese will melt and loose it's grated texture.
This recipe should serve 4 to 6 adults. Ours fed 2 adults and 3 children with a whole adult serving leftover. This past dish would be great served with freshly baked bread sticks or garlic bread. Leftovers can be reheated in the microwave. The breaded coating on the shrimp will not be as crispy, but they still taste great.
You can use the SeaPak product locator to find the popcorn shrimp or other SeaPak products at your local retailers. I hope the selection of SeaPak products will improve in my area. I am anxious to try some of the other products. We will definitely be buying the SeaPak Popcorn Shrimp again from BJ's.
Thank you to SeaPak for sending us a coupon to use towards one shrimp product free of charge to base this article upon.
