A shrimp recipe recently made the rounds on the Internet. Maybe you even made it. It’s a simple oven baked recipe that involved melting butter on a rimmed cookie sheet, then laying slices of lemon in the butter, and placing shrimp on top of the lemon. If you’d like to try this recipe yourself, just Google ‘shrimp’ ‘butter’ and lemon’, and I’m sure you’ll find it. I made it one time and served the shrimp on rice, but the rice was inedible because of bitterness that leeched out of the lemon skin. <<ugh>>. (I must add that I only know of one other person who had this problem with the recipe and plenty who did not, but I wasn’t willing to take the risk again).

I decided to alter the recipe a bit, and now I’m totally in love with it. Here’s the altered version:

Simple Shrimp and Linguine

makes 2 large servings (John and Diane sized)

Ingredients

-12 to 16 ounces medium to large size shrimp (I usually buy frozen peeled (no tails!) and deveined shrimp and keep it on hand. So easy to thaw in a colander in 5 minutes under cold running water.

-1/2 stick butter

-1 clove garlic, crushed

-juice from one large lemon

-1/2 package Italian seasoning (I use Good Seasons Italian dressing seasoning)

-8 ounces linguine

-Parmesan cheese

Directions

-Heat oven to 350 degrees and put a big pot of water on to boil (for the linguine)

-Cover a large rimmed cookie sheet with foil (for easy cleanup)

-put the butter on the cookie sheet and melt it in the oven

-stir in the lemon juice and garlic, then lay the shrimp over it all. You don’t have to be neat about this.

-sprinkle the Italian seasoning over the shrimp

-Bake for about 15 minutes, depending on the size of the shrimp. Don’t overcook or the shrimp will be rubbery.

-5 minutes into the baking time for the shrimp, add the linguine to the water and boil for the recommended time.

-Drain the pasta and put it in a large serving bowl or two individual pasta bowls. Spoon the shrimp on top, then pour as much of the butter/lemon juice as you like over the linguine. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese to taste.

-Eat up, and let me know what you think!