This is the time of year that I get in the biggest rut with cooking. “Honey, do you want fajitas? Pasta? Chili? Again?” is how it goes and I am unsure if it’s the cold or lack of good, in-season ingredients but it is time to break out the big guns. Or at least rifle through my cookbooks.

(Seriously though, I am dreaming of farmer’s markets where what’s for dinner is made from whatever looked amazing and colorful and fresh.)

Based off of a recipe for Shrimp Creole, I took a container of grape tomatoes, an onion, oregano, red stamp pepper, basil, sautéed everything with just a little bit of olive oil and added white wine to make a sauce. The tomatoes burst and really thicken the sauce up; toss in a little sauce from a jar if you want (really technical recipe here, right?!).

Arrange a pound of raw shrimp in the bottom of a glass pan and pour the sauce over it. Sprinkle bread crumbs and mozzarella cheese on the top, bake at 375 until the shrimp is pink and fully cooked. Serve over rice.

We shall call it Shrimp Whatever.

Breaking my cooking rut will continue once I book a class at The Chopping Block– my darling grandmother got Ryan and I a gift card for Christmas! Thinking Julia Childs sometime in February…