I have been physically unable to cook since my accident. Cooking really is a nice stress reliever for me — and the past six weeks have been quite stressful. I needed to cook. Why couldn’t I cook, you may ask?  My right arm has had some severe mobility and strength issues. I am recovering quite well though.

I knew I wanted to try to cook a meal on Sunday, but what would I make. Flipping through the channels on Sunday morning I stumbled upon the Spring Lunch episode of Giada at Home.  The entree was a Linguine with Shrimp, Asparagus and Cherry Tomatoes.  This sounded great – it wouldn’t require me to use both hands while eating and I really love shrimp, asparagus and of course tomatoes.

I made my shopping list and hit the store — twice. I forgot to put asparagus on my list. Ugh.  I also got the wrong shrimp – I didn’t get peeled shrimp, but easy peel instead. More on that later.

This recipe was super easy to make. It didn’t take a lot of chopping or other prep work.  It was quite a quick meal too.

My tomatoes really liquefied before the everything else was done – and since I love tomatoes so much, it was a bit disappointing.  Perhaps the heat was too high or I let it cook too long.  If I thought about it at the time I would have reserved 25% of the tomatoes and pop in the pot about 5 minutes before serving.

I mentioned earlier that I purchased the wrong type of shrimp.  The unpeeled shrimp added a huge amount of flavor — way more than I expected.  I didn’t even realize they were unpeeled until I dumped the sauce on the pasta.  The sauce it self was quite runny, but within a few minutes the pasta had absorbed this very flavorful liquid.  The worst part was peeling the scalding hot shrimp with a gimpy hand.

Would I make this meal again? Probably not. It was quite tasty and easy, but it just didn’t sing to me. I must say, using the unpeeled shrimp really kicked the flavor up a bit.