Shrimp Lo Mein

                    I have a pet peeve and it’s directed toward me! What I do that drives me nuts is that I tear out so many recipes from all the cooking magazines I get each month and do nothing but lose them or find them a year later. It is so unbelievably frustrating to find great recipes that apparently I didn’t care enough about to put on my priority list. And the thing that is even more annoying is that I do this almost every week: flip through a magazine, rip out some dinner or dessert options, put them in my drawer/basket/pocket book/ whatever landing is near, go about my day, and never think back to them again. Urgh, why do I do this?

                Well, this habit stops now! Um, well, maybe this habit stopped this week! Case and  point….I came across this recipe in this month’s Real Simple and placed it on top of my forks so that each time I went for a fork, I would see it and eventually make it. Well well well, what do you know? It worked! I tweaked it for what I had in my cabinets and loved every bite.

                One tweak I sort of regret: The recipe calls for lo mein noodles; I only had stir fry rice noodles to use. Although I love rice noodles, they absorbed a lot of the sauce in this dish by the second helping. Yes, second helping, you read that right! Anyway, I would have to recommend the originally called for noodles or thin spaghetti because losing sauce in the midst of a meal is a sad situation! Beyond that though, this meal was full of flavor and texture. The tender shrimp paired well with the crunchy string beans and carrots, while the noodles offered a delicate aspect to the plate. Furthermore, it was ready in a snap and clean up was less than usual! C’mon let’s be realistic here: that’s an amazing feature for a mid-week mealJ

                So here it is, tweaked a bit but straight from this month’s edition of RS! Bravo to me! Enjoy……

Shrimp Lo Mein

Serves: 2-4

Adapted from: Real Simple

OBJ: TCW be able to rip out a recipe from a magazine and actually use it!

Ingredients:

8 ounces stir fry rice noodles (preferably lo mein noodles should be used or thin spaghetti)

2 TBS vegetable oil

20 peeled and deveined medium shrimp

2 C string beans, trimmed and cut in ½

½ C carrots, peeled and chopped

½ onion, diced

1 clove garlic, chopped

¼ C oyster sauce

2 TBS rice wine vinegar

1 TBS soy sauce

½ tsp chili garlic sauce

S & P: salt and pepper

Crushed red pepper, for serving

Procedures:

1. Cook the noodles according to the package directions

2. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large sauté pan over high heat. Add the shrimp, string beans, carrots, onion, garlic and ½ tsp salt and a pinch of pepper

3. Cook, tossing occasionally, until the shrimp are cooked through, 2- 3 minutes. Remove shrimp from pan to a plate

4. Lower the flame on the sauté pan to medium, add the oyster sauce, vinegar, soy sauce, chili garlic sauce and ¼ C pasta water. Stir well and cook until thickened, 2-3 minutes

5. Add the noodles and shrimp to sauté and toss well to combine

6. Serve with sprinkled red pepper flakes over top