Three Beautiful Things 02-28-2023: Snow Falling Fast Oh Fast, Expansion in the Kitchen, Columbo Recites Limericks

 1. The snow fell hard and fast this morning in Kellogg. I was hoping I wouldn't have to shovel sidewalks more than once and it turned out I didn't. Shoveling gave me a good workout. The snow was on the wet and heavy side (not terribly heavy) and enough had piled up that when I finished, I was winded. That workout sure helped me sleep well. That was the silver lining! 

2. Our weekly HelloFresh box arrived on Monday. Late this afternoon, I fixed one of this week's meals: Garlic Butter Shrimp Scampi over Spaghetti with Roasted Broccoli. 

As with the other two HelloFresh meals I've prepared, this meal expanded my cooking imagination, introduced me to some new techniques, and, as a bonus, it was a straightforward undertaking. 

To begin, I put on a pot of salted water and began to heat it up for the spaghetti. I also turned the oven on to 450 degrees. 

I minced the garlic cloves and made sure the broccoli florets were the size I wanted. I quartered the lemon.

I dropped the broccoli florets in a bowl, drizzled them with olive, salted and peppered them, and put them on a parchment paper covered baking sheet to roast for about fifteen minutes, until fairly crunchy.

In the meantime, I combined about three tablespoons of slightly softened butter, one garlic minced, a good sprinkle of Parmesan, a pinch of chili flakes, and a about three squeezes of lemon in a bowl, mixed it up with a fork, and made garlic butter. This was a new technique for me. I'd never made garlic butter. 

I brought the pot of water to a boil and started cooking the spaghetti.

I opened the pack of shrimp, patted it down with paper towels, put the shrimp in a bowl with olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper, tossed it all together, and cooked the seasoned shrimp in a pool of melted butter.

When the spaghetti was cooked, I drained it. I transferred the shrimp into the Dutch oven I'd used for the spaghetti. To the shrimp I added the spaghetti, the garlic butter, a quarter cup of pasta water, a packet of seafood stock concentrate, and the broccoli. I tossed it all together, squeezed more lemon juice into the mix, emptied the Parmesan cheese packet, and added another pinch of chili flakes. 

Not only was this meal delicious, but I am confident that I can make this dish again without its ingredients coming in a box. I'd never made a shrimp and spaghetti and broccoli dish before and enjoyed how making this meal increased my sense of possibilities for future dinners.

3. Satisfied with our dinner, Debbie and I watched another episode of Columbo and watched Lt. Columbo not only enter into an impromptu battle of limericks with an Irish poet, he also figured out how this poet was involved in running guns to Northern Ireland and guilty of the murder Columbo was investigating.