Spaghetti with shrimps and zucchini

I hope you all had a great weekend. Mine was quite packed with social activities, but I manage to bake some cookies and will share the recipe very soon. So happy I’ve got some baking done.

Monday’s is always somewhat busy for me because every Monday night at around 7 pm I have a date. A play date that is. It started when my hubby and my Greek neighbor John had Dutch lessons together one evening a week. Me and Georgia (the wife) would get together and cook and hang out. There is not much cooking going on nowadays, but lots of playing with Spyros aka “the monster”. Since we are not blessed with any kiddies of our own I love my play time with Spyros. We play with trains, puzzles, footballs, balloons; basically whatever he gets his hands on. He’s starting to talk and sometimes forget that I don’t speak Greek. I try to pick up some words here and there, but thank god he does understand English as well. It’s always good fun. Because he has to go to bed in time I try to go over there at around 7. This means I have about 1 hour to make and eat dinner. That’s very tight considering the time I need to cook. Today I actually had time left. I made this super easy spaghetti dish using just a few ingredients:

-       Spaghetti (one handful)

-       Shrimps (as much or as little as you like)

-       Some white wine (again as much or as little as you like)

-       1 zucchini

-       Garlic (I used a lot, about 5-6 cloves, but you can use more or less)

-       About half a lemon

-       1 big tablespoon of crème fraîche

-       Salt and lots of fresh grounded pepper

I started with cooking the spaghetti in water with some teaspoons of salt. I always salt the water after it boils because if you do it ahead it takes longer for the water to boil.

As my shrimps came out of the freezer I put them in a bowl with some lukewarm water so they could defrost enough for me to peel them. If you have fresh and peeled shrimp you could make this dish even faster. To make it look more I sliced them in half.

I used a potato peeler to cut my zucchini in nice thin ribbons. Now it’s time to put it all together.

I put some chopped garlic (2 cloves) in a bit of olive oil and let them brown a bit. Then I added the shrimp shells. The shells have lots of flavor so I normally keep them and try to extract as much flavor as I can. When the shells change color I added a bit of white wine so the flavor could infuse in it. Then I put it all aside. You can skip this step if you are in a hurry.

Again I added some olive oil and the rest of the garlic. I started on low heat so the garlic can flavor the oil a bit. Then I put it on high and added the shrimp. I seasoned it with some salt and lots of fresh pepper.

Then I added the zucchini ribbons and the liquid I got from the shrimp shells.

When they soften a bit the spaghetti went in and another splash of wine. And to make it nice and creamy I added one big tablespoon of crème fraîche. To finish it all I squeezed a good amount of lemon on top.

I’ve never made this before so I’m very happy it turned out like this. It was so good my hubby and sister went back for seconds. Yah to stress free Monday meals!