Roasted shrimp and asparagus pasta in lemon sauce

Today's recipe is one that I have been messing with for a few months now. I finally think I have it perfected.

Ingredients:
1 lb angel hair pasta (or any pasta of your choosing, I just think angel hair works best)
Olive oil
2T butter
1 lb of asparagus, trimmed and cut into bite size pieces
1lb large shrimp, peeled & de-veined
Salt and pepper
Zest of 2 lemons
Juice of 2 lemons
1 large shallot, finely sliced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
3-4 small anchovy fillets
Shredded parmesan (approx 1 handful)

1. Pre heat oven to 400 degrees
2. Lay shrimp in a pile on a baking sheet. Drizzle with approx 3T olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and toss to coat.
3. Place a large pot of salted water on the stove, add 2T olive oil, and bring to a boil.
4. Bring a smaller pot of water to a simmer (this will be for your asparagus)
5. In yet another pan/skillet slowly melt the butter with 2T of olive oil.
6. Put the asparagus & pasta into their pots. Cook until done to your liking, which will probably take about the same amount of time as the shrimp will be in the oven.
7. Place the shrimp in the oven, and roast for 6-8 minutes until the shrimp is pink and cooked through.
8. Turn the heat a little bit higher under the butter and olive oil mixture. Medium is perfect.
9. Into the butter add the anchovy fillets & stir until they are dissolved.
10. Add the lemon juice, zest, shallots, and garlic to the butter and anchovy sauce. Cook until the shallots are soft. DO NOT burn this. Cook it over medium or lower heat just until the shallots are soft. Then you can either turn the burner off, or put it on the lowest heat possible. If the lemon zest burns your sauce is ruined.
11. When the timer goes off take the shrimp out of the oven, and check to see if your pasta and asparagus are done. Drain the pasta, and drain the asparagus.
12. Place the pasta in the butter sauce and toss to coat.
13. Add the shrimp, asparagus, and a handful of the shredded parm. Stir together.
14. Plate and serve!

Enjoy this meal. It is very easy, and VERY flavorful. Don't be scared of it because it has anchovy fillets in it. When they are melted into olive oil they take on a rich, nutty flavor. It won't even taste like fish.

Here is the cast of characters:

First the lovely shrimp. You are just going to pile them right on a baking sheet like so.

Then you put 3T of olive oil on it, sprinkle with about 1T each of salt and pepper, and toss to coat.

And trust me, if you must sample the wine to be served with dinner at this point, well I sure won't be telling anyone. Consider it a quality control of sorts. Wouldn't want to serve anyone bad wine would you?

Now shake the pan up so the shrimp are scattered across it evenly.

Place a pot of salted water on the stove top and bring to a boil. Place a smaller pot of water on another burner, and bring to a simmer.

Take a large skillet and put it on ANOTHER burner, at which point I was wishing I had a six burner stove. Melt the 2T butter and 2T olive oil over very low heat. Put the pasta in the boiling water, and the asparagus in the simmering water.

Place the shrimp in the oven and set your timer for 6-8 minutes. I set mine for 7 to check their progress at that point.

Now turn the heat up to medium under the butter and olive oil. Pick three or four fillets out of your anchovies.

Put the fillets in the pan, and stir them until they dissolve. Which is really hard to get a picture of it turns out! Where's my professional photographer when I need him/her?!

Then add the garlic, shallots, lemon zest, and juice. Turn the heat down and cook just until the shallots are soft. Like I said above, be very very careful not to have the heat on too high. Burned lemon zest is the nastiest flavor on earth and you will ruin your sauce if you let it get that far. There is no saving it once it's burned.

Now things will be happening quickly. The shrimp, pasta, and asparagus will likely be done at the same time. Take the shrimp out of the oven.

Drain the pasta, and the asparagus.

Now put the pasta (as much as you can fit) into the sauce and toss to coat.

Now add the shrimp, asparagus, and a big handful of the shredded parm.

Stir this together.

Plate it all pretty like, and serve! I usually give another sprinkle of parmesan at this point.

Enjoy!

Lemon Cornmeal Cake with Lemon Glaze and Blueberry Sauce

I saw a picture of this cake, in Bon appetit's April 2009 issue. I fell in love and knew I had to try it! Alas, we were in the middle of a thousand stressful things, including getting prepared to move. So this lovely recipe had to wait. I did end up making it last weekend.
As per usual, the cast of characters:
Glaze-
1 1/2 cups packed powdered sugar, sifted
2 tablespoons, or more, fresh lemon juice
Cake-
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup yellow cornmeal
3/4 cup sugar
3 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk
2 large eggs
1 tbsp finely grated lemon peel
3/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted, cooled
Crushed blueberry sauce (I have a recipe for this if anyone wants me to post it. Luckily my mom is skilled in all things canning so I had a delicious jar of her blueberry sauce willing to sacrifice itself to this recipe. Blueberry sauce not pictured below. Well, part of the jar is...)
First task was grating the lemon peel, and squeezing the lemons. Grate just the very outer yellow part of the peel. The white part just doesn't taste good, trust me. I always put citrus peels down the disposal because it makes the kitchen smell delicious and fresh.

I used the grated peel of two lemons.

And, of course, the juice from those lemons as well.

Now to sift the powdered sugar. I always check the thrift stores for one of those old fashioned sifters. You know, with the pump handle? For now I just use this. It works fine. Just isn't nearly as cool as an old school sifter would be.

Plus, I always make a mess with this, like so...

Now add the lemon juice to the powdered sugar. I had to add 3 tbsp just to get it to a glue consistency. Which is not what you want...

You want a thin glaze, like this. Now set that aside. I think I ended up using something like 5 tbsp of lemon juice.

At this point, I was melting the butter in the microwave. Not the best idea, as I soon found out. I heard a loud POP come from the microwave, and this is what I discovered.

Awesome, just what I want to do in the middle of baking a cake, clean the microwave.

But it had to be done. I am far too anal to let something like that sit.

So I got another stick of butter, but this time put it in a pan over low heat to melt. I pre heat my oven to 350 degrees, then butter the cake pan.

I draw a rough sized circle out of some wax paper, and press it to the botom of the pan.

Then I bust out this beauty. I have often heard these mythical stories about the great Kitchenaid mixer, and how every good cook should have one. I couldn't afford one and tried to convince myself that I didn't need one, hell didn't even WANT one. That is, until I was completely surprised with one from my boyfriend (now fiance which he can thank the kitchenaid for as well), on Christmas! I literally wept with joy. Literally, I cried. Then spent half an hour caressing the box as if it were my own newborn child. Behold, the beauty...

Now I also have heard that every good cook should have a food processor, which I do NOT have. ::hint hint, nudge nudge:: Brad, if you are reading this...

I digress, on with the recipe.

Now I combined the flour and cornmeal.

Yellow cornmeal is beautiful, on top of being damn tasty.

Add the sugar,

baking powder, and salt, in a large bowl.

Whisk the ingredients to blend.

Now in the mixer, I poured the buttermilk, and turned the mixer on to med-high speed.

Added the eggs,

lemon peel,

and vanilla.

Pour the wet ingredients, into the dry ingredients.

Then add the melted butter. Which, if all turns out right, wouldn't have previously exploded in your microwave.

Using a rubber spatula, fold the mixture together until just blended. DO NOT STIR.

It will look like this:

Then pour the mixture into the buttered, and papered, pan.

Now, the recipe calls for a 9 inch diameter pan, with 2 inch sides. Well my pan wasn't 2 inched high, but I decided to pour it all into one pan anyhow. It was less than half an inch off from being 2 inches, but that didn't stop me from being nervous about it. Especially when only nine minutes into the 30 minute baking time it looked like this:

As you see here, it turned out okay after all. Aside from that dip in the middle which proves to be problematic in a minute. This is after 30 minutes of baking.

Run a knife around the sides of the cake, which should be seperating from the pan a bit. Flip the cake out onto a rack, and behold it's beauty.

Then flip it back over onto another rack, so that the top is facing up again. Stir the glaze up until it is blended. While the cake is still hot, drop the glaze onto the cake by the spoonful. Spread it to within 1/2 inch of the edge.

Some glaze may drip down the sides of the cake, but I think this makes it look even better.

Don't you agree?

Now look at that blasted dip in the center. My concern was that the glaze would run into it, and make the middle of the cake too rich, and basically soaked in lemon glaze. I just continued to use the back of a large spoon to push the glaze towards the edges of the cake. I did this for just a few minutes until the glaze started to harden in the places I wanted it to go.

Then I sprinkled the left over lemon peel over it. Because what the heck, it makes it look fancy. One of my favorite Food Network shows is the Barefoot Contessa. Ina always says to put something on the outside of the dish, to let people know what is on the inside. In this case, that was lemon peel.

When it is cooled slightly, slice this bad boy up!

Then pour on a generous spoonful, or three, of blueberry sauce.

Tada! Enjoy! I know I did. This is also delicious with a nice cup of coffee in the morning, says Brad.