Lemony Garlicky Shrimpy Pasta-y

Not too long ago, I discovered an amazing store in my neighborhood. I find myself regularly being pleasantly surprised with the new and fabulous businesses in Union Square. I’m pretty sure this store isn’t new, but I had not been in before. The gem I’m talking about is Capone’s. It’s a tiny little space doing huge things! The first really fabulous thing they’re doing is cutting their pasta to order fresh for you. But that’s not all. They are carrying loads of flavors of pastas to choose from. They are also carrying several varieties of sauces to go with them. In fact, they have a giant diagram of your choices. On the vertical side are the flavors of pasta you can get. Horizontally are the sauces to choose from. Then across the bottom are the varieties of cuts you can get your pasta in! In the middle the diagram shows you which pastas go best with which sauces. ITS PASTA FOR DUMMIES! Pasta Guide - CLICK ME!! They also carry ready made dinner, meats, cheeses, deserts, you get the point. I highly recommend you get yourself in there!

But for dinner the other night, I had defrosted the garlic scape pesto from another blog (the recipe that keeps on giving). I knew I wanted to grill some shrimp to go with it. So I went to Capone’s to get pasta. I told the girl I was making pesto and without blinking she told me that I needed to use lemon pasta! Perfect! It would work beautifully with shrimp too! She suggested linguine goes best with seafood. So one pound of lemon linguine and several other goodies later, I went back to the house to cook! And what an impressive Italian dinner did come of it!

Here’s the breakdown:

 

1 small eggplant

21 jumbo size raw shrimp

¾ cup pre-made garlic scape pesto

1lb. lemon linguine

handful fresh basil

s&p

Soak bamboo skewers for 30 minutes before you start cooking. Pre-heat your grill. Cut your eggplant into ½” slices. Shell the shrimp and season with salt & pepper and skewer your shrimps. Get your pasta water boiling. Start grilling your eggplant a few minutes before your shrimp. When you flip your eggplant, put the shrimp skewers on the grill. Flip your shrimp about 2 to 3 minutes after starting. They do not need long and overcooked seafood is the WORST! Dice up your eggplant and drop your pasta into the water. Put shrimp, eggplant and pesto into a sauté pan. ONLY COOK YOUR PASTA FOR 2 MINUTES! Fresh pasta doesn’t need long. After draining your pasta, throw it into the pan with the shrimp, pesto and eggplant. Toss it all together with a smidge of heat under it. Serve with a bit of fresh basil on top. Josh added fresh parmesan cheese on top, but I have a serious policy against dairy and seafood together! I also served it with lemon wedges which I squeezed over the whole dish.

It was so delicious. You could definitely taste the lemony goodness in the pasta. Besides being yummy, it was also very quick! So it makes for a great quick but very impressive dinner. We loved it! Thank you to the good folks down at Capone’s for helping this Irish girl make a lovely Italian meal!

Ciao!