Tonight I made up a meal and it was good

I actually planned to write about something else, but this meal I cooked tonight deserves an entry. If anything, I wish to keep the recipe and, at this point, I still remember what I mixed together.

The whole deal was nothing but one of those random let's clean the fridge kind of moments. So I did. I picked out a bag of frozen shrimp (yeah... shrimp that would make those from the Adriatic shriek in horror), a zucchini, steamable broccoli florets and some other leftover things. And then I decided I will somehow cook it all together with some quinoa. So I did.

Here are the ingredients, in case someone is willing to experiment as well. Or, well, recreate this light and refreshing masterpiece. It is, in fact, a summer meal, but summer in Minnesota doesn't last long enough, ok?

Aha, ingredients. Here they are:

300 grams of shrimp, which is, for metric-impaired, 10.5 ounces

1 medium zucchini, sliced, diced, whatevered, with peel of course

4 small and thin green onions, sliced

about a handful of steamed broccoli florets

2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

some chopped parsley (regular, for European people; Italian for Americans)

juice from about 1/2 of a lemon, freshly squeezed

1 tablespoon of butter

3/4 of a cup of quinoa (both regular and red)

50 ml of Redwood Creek California Chardonnay 2008 

1 big clove of garlic

The whole deal equals about 1220 calories and feeds, I'd say, four people. 

I prepared the quinoa first. I brought about a cup of water and some of that wine to a boil, threw in the grains, simmered for about 15 minutes in a covered saucepan. Added some salt; quantity unknown.

Meanwhile, I chopped what had to be chopped and tossed it in a non-stick pan, along with the oil. So here came the garlic, green onions, zucchini and parsley. And then they cooked. For a while. I never pay attention to time (unless I am in a hurry, of course). I added the broccoli, as well as the shrimp. And then lemon juice and the remaining wine. Quite possibly some salt and freshly ground peppercorns. Something was missing so I threw in a tablespoon of butter. Unsalted butter, of course. And that was it.

Once I decided this was cooked, I mixed it with the quinoa. Voila. Excellent meal. I would suggest trying this at home.