Well I went roller skating on Monday night and I had a blast…a video has surfaced of me skating around the rink and completely ignoring my kids, it was great.  But then I woke up in the middle of night with the worst sciatica of my life…I highly doubt those two things are related though.

And thank heavens it did not snow 2 feet last night…we didn’t even get a flake.  Without going into too much detail, part of my job has to do with participating in several phone calls at all hours of the night when it snows too much…can you say, ANNOYING!  No, I don’t work at a 24 hour pizza delivery place in a college town…but I bet they have the same issues.

I’ve really had to start budgeting my time lately in order to keep up with blogging, working, parenting, exercising, and drinking wine as much as I would like.  My dad and I are also playing hot potato with his camera, I had that thing in my possession for 2 weeks and he didn’t even know it was missing and now all of the sudden he needs it practically every other day.  He must have picked up a photog gig on the side or something…at least tonight is my night, he said he would drop it off soon…shared custody is really hard.

I’m so freaking excited to share this recipe with you guys…it’s the bomb diggity.  My inspiration for this came from a dish I used to order at a tiny little Italian restaurant in my home town…the dish was called Linguine Pescatore.  Pescatore is Italian for fisherman which makes total sense because I love a fisherman and I love linguine.

This dish is sort of romantic, and people will definitely think you’re a fancy pants if you make it for them.  But of course like everything else I make, it’s a piece of cake to throw together.  You could probably make this dish AND bake a cake without breaking a sweat.

Here is what you need in the way of ingredients…

4 cups chopped roma tomatoes (about 10 tomatoes)
1 cup white wine (chardonnay or sauvignon blanc)
2 cloves chopped garlic
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1 pound shrimp (peeled and de-veined)
1/2 pound calamari
1/2 pound bay scallops
1 bunch flat leaf (Italian) parsley
salt and pepper to taste


Start by chopping up a boatload of roma tomatoes, at least 4 cups worth..and get a large pot of salted water going on the stove.

Then sauté some chopped garlic in olive oil over medium/low heat, like this…

After about a minute or so, add the 4 cups of chopped Roma tomatoes to the garlicky oil…


Then add 1 cup of good white white (chardonnay or sauvignon blanc works well)…yes, 1 whole cup of wine, see… 

Now add some salt & fresh ground black pepper, and then add some red pepper flakes for heat (anywhere from 1/8 to 1/4 tsp depending on your spice tolerance level) and then let that all cook over medium/low heat for a good while…

Next for the shrimp…it should be peeled and de-veined (you can leave tails on if you want).  You can obviously buy shrimp that has been peeled and de-veined for you but I got an awesome deal on some that weren’t yet ready for the party.  De-veining shrimp is about the easiest thing to do on the entire planet…you just take a small sharp knife down the back of the shrimp and remove the vein, like this…

I do it over the sink with the water running…put the shrimp under the running water to help remove the vein, the water does most of the work for you.


While the sauce is cooking away, use a separate pan to sauté the shrimp in some olive oil over medium/high heat, like this…

Most people overcook shrimp, it’s nobody’s fault it just happens.  Shrimp take abut two minutes to cook in a pan on the stove.  When you think it might be getting close to being done, guess what…it’s done.  Even if it’s not completely done, it will continue to cook after you get it out of the pan.


Set the shrimp aside in a bowl, like this…

If this photo doesn’t get your mouth watering, something is wrong with you…just look at it!
The sauce should be smelling pretty freaking good by now, you may want to taste it and add a little more salt if you feel the need but remember that the seafood has salt in it so please don’t go overboard.


Now it’s time to prepare the calamari…you can buy packaged calamari that has already been cut into rings, or you can cut it yourself.

This is what a calamari “tube” looks like…

I bought this at whole foods, I usually get mostly tubes and a few tiny octopus looking guys.  If you don’t care for the tentacles, just get the tubes…and if you don’t care for calamari then leave it out of the recipe all together.  Here’s another little known fact, calamari is cheap.  I got 1/2 pound (which is alot) for under 5 bucks…holler!

I cut them into 1/2 to 1 inch rings, like this…

It’s now time to throw your pasta in the boiling water, I used about 2/3 of the package but you can use the whole package if you would like…cook it for about 8 minutes (or until al dente).

If you’re using fresh linguine that’s even better…and if that’s the case I’m going to stop cooking this right now and just head on over to your house for dinner.

Now just add the calamari (rings and tentacles) right into your simmering sauce on the stove…

Now add about 1/2 pound of bay scallops (these are the small ones, also not expensive)…  

The sauce is going to cook both the calamari and the scallops perfectly in about 8 minutes which is about the same time it takes to make the pasta…this is good news.

At about the 7 minute mark, add your shrimp back into the pan…

and stir it around in the sauce and then drain your pasta and throw that in too.  

Toss it all together and it’s ready!

The last thing I do is add some chopped flat leaf parsley, it gives it a nice freshness and it looks pretty.

I don’t know if I’ve ever had anything that tastes better than this dish…there’s just something about tomatoes cooked in white wine, it’s hard to put into words other than to say…it’s a party in your mouth.

Cheers!

The Good Cooker


Photo Credit: Ariel Slabach