Shrimp Scampi with Artichokes

Ellie reveals the secrets of having the food you crave while keeping it healthy.

Craving Italian, that’s what I’ve got, I’m making shrimp scampi with artichokes, a simple salad and a hunk of crusty bread. It is real food that satisfies completely. Start here just putting a little heat in my pan with two tablespoons of olive oil, heart healthy oil and this is the thing, a typical scampi recipe starts sometimes with a cup of butter for four people. It’s just not necessary, you get a wonderful creamy sauce, delicious rich sauce without all the butter. To that, I’m going to add a couple of shallots here, you need a quarter cup of shallots altogether and shallot has a fantastic oniony flavor, very rich oniony flavor but without the bite of onion. I love to use shallots. Toss those into the oil. To that I’m going to add some garlic and it really would not even be a scampi without garlic. That’s just going to cook for about 2 to 3 minutes with the shallots. Be extra careful not to let the garlic burn because that makes it bitter. You just want all the sweet flavor of the garlic to come through. Next up the shrimp. This is peeled raw shrimp, I’m just going to toss that right in just patted it dry so it wouldn’t splatter in the oil. Stir that through and shrimp is a terrific source of lean protein. Almost no fat, I’m going to add some artichokes and this is my special dish into scampi. It’s not traditional in scampi and I have an 11 ounce package of artichokes which are frozen which I defrosted under the sink. They are sometimes packaged with a little bit of acid to maintain their color and rinsing them also takes away that acidity. Some wine, a third of a cup of white wine. I’m using Pino Greco and some lemon and lemon and seafood, just the natural together for good reason. I’m just going to let this simmer here for three to four minutes until the shrimp are all cooked through, it happens really fast. In the meantime, I’m going to whip up a simple salad. When I say salad, I’m talking about the simplest salad ever. Salad presto. I call it that because you pretty much just open a bag of lettuce and you can have salad instantaneously. Now for the most simple dressing ever. Starting with two tablespoons of olive oil, real classic Italian dressing. Then the Italian people are really quite famous for knowing that sometimes the simplest things are the best things. Some red wine vinegar, one tablespoon and this vinegar has such a bright flavor. Then to up the Italian ante, a little more some dried basil, a couple of pinches, some salt and pepper and that’s it. Simple delicious Italian style dressing. Drizzle it up over the greens. Give it a little toss. That shrimp scampi is smelling so good, I’m going to add a little bit of parsley to that, two tablespoons and I use flat leaf parsley. I really like the flavor. It also has vitamin A and vitamin C so it adds nutrition as well as color and taste. Sprinkle that in, this looks so good. Dinner is ready. What would an Italian meal be without some crusty bread? I’m using whole grain Italian style crusty bread, you can get all the antioxidants and still all that chewiness, all the antioxidants will sop up the juices from the shrimp and there goes the scampi. Each person gets a nice heaping pile of shrimp. Salad, easily prepared. You see what I mean about satisfaction guaranteed?