By: Beverly Wilson
The Recipes

THE BEST OF THE BASICS: SPAGHETTI WITH SHRIMP & BROCCOLI

My late husband Alfred (who you can read more about in my story Random Thoughts & White Spaghetti) had a passion of rejecting any type of sauces on his food (especially spaghetti). He was strictly a meat and potato man (if that is such a description one could call for one’s self).

HE NEVER MEASURED ANYTHING!!!!!  But I’m not one to talk.  My mom’s generation never measured any ingredients, either.  Everything was done by sight and individual taste, passed down to the following generation leaving them to figure it out.  If you weren’t in the kitchen when they started preparing the meal, everything would be left up to chance and the taste buds of the cook.

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I did not realize how many recipes were out there utilizing these three ingredients!  THANK GOD FOR THE INTERNET AND SITES LIKE:  ALL RECIPES, GOOD HOUSEKEEPING AND AMERICA’S TEST KITCHEN!!!

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Like the old saying goes: “Practice makes perfect!”

This became one of our favorite one pot recipes:

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Pasta with Shrimp and Broccoli

Ingredients:

1 lb. medium shrimp
1 lb. broccoli, chopped into florets
1 lb. spaghetti
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
Salt & pepper, to taste

Directions:

  1. Clean shrimp and de-vein (if needed).
  2. Fill a 3 qt pot 1/4 full with water and bring to a boil over high heat.
  3. Add shrimp to boiling water and let cook for 3-5 min
  4. Add spaghetti to boiling water and place broccoli in steamer basket in same pot above the boiling water. Cover pot.
  5. Cook spaghetti, broccoli and shrimp until pasta is done (additional 7-10 min).
  6. Remove steamer basket and set aside. Drain water and rinse spaghetti and shrimp.
  7. Place spaghetti, shrimp and broccoli back into the pot.
  8. Add stick of butter (or you can pre-melt butter, if desired). Season with salt and pepper (to your taste) and stir until butter is melted and ingredients are well mixed.
  9. Plate the mixture and re-heat if necessary.
  10. Serve immediately – enjoy!