Shrimp with feta and burst tomatoes

Recipe Hits: Well, I was looking for something sweet and savory with some carbs but not too carb heavy and VOILA! The Kitchen Witches of the world whispered in my ear and I made this! I cannot take credit for the recipe though - the NY Times Cooking page delivered again. In terms of good adjustments, I ended up adding fresh basil finely diced to the tomato cooking stage because I had some on hand and real herbs going bad is my version of preventable cooking sin.

Recipe Misses: I cooked it down more than the original recipe required because I read the reviews and they said it was slightly soupy as written. This being said: Two things I learned when I make this again - I would cook down but keep stirring because some of the orzo stuck to the bottom, because I mean, what is this? Amateur hour? Second thing, I would do would not quite as much water and but still add some because the orzo absorbed liquid as leftovers and removed from the heat ended up absorbing all the extra liquid.

Ingredients

• 3 large garlic cloves, grated or minced (about 1 1/2 teaspoons)

• 4 tablespoons olive oil

• 2 teaspoons dried oregano

• 1 ½ teaspoons red-pepper flakes, plus more for serving

• Kosher salt and black pepper

• 1 pound shrimp, peeled, deveined and patted dry

• 1 pint grape or cherry tomatoes

• 1 cup orzo

• 1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes

• ½ cup crumbled feta

• ½ cup roughly chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves and fine stems

Plan of Attack

Shrimp!

Marinating them in diced garlic, olive oil, and spices makes them delightful. Adding a garlic clove diced, tsp of red pepper flakes, salt, pepper, and olive to the shrimp before you start on the tomatoes means they have more flavor than expected.

Tomato Prep

Wash your tomatoes and cut them down their midline…This cutting step is my edition because I am not so into eating the tomatoes whole and they cook down better

Cook your tomatoes

Pour olive oil into the bottom of your dutch oven and add your tomatoes, salt, pepper, and powdered garlic to taste (my addition so it is totally optional). Turn on medium/medium low, then add the garlic cloves and diced basil or parsley (whatever you have on hand). My family sauce recipe call for cherry tomatoes and basil to be married perfectly, so I add basil wherever I can!

Cook until the tomatoes are blistered and the garlic is aromatic, then add the rest of the oregano and red pepper flakes.

Add the Orzo

Carefully measure an entire cup

Mix Orzo

Mix the Orzo in throughly, toasting

Toasting the Orzo

Toast the Orzo for 2 minutes. Note, this recipe things you have a more substantial Dutch oven than I do so mine did not actually “Toast”. My 2 Quart dutch oven is usually good for my needs but if your Dutch oven is more roomy you’ll get actual toasted orzo.

Getting Saucy

It’s time to add your tomatoes…and water…

Lessons Learned With This Step

Add the tomatoes and the water. ***NOTE - I did not have the correct size of tomatoes (I had a can with twice as much tomatoes) so I omitted some of the water. Part of what I enjoy about cooking is the problem solving part so I usually try to make it do if I can using what I have if I get home from the store and realize I am missing something. There’s been some real hits (like this recipe) and some misses…It’s about food progress, not perfection!

Toasted Orzo: the Saga

Toast the orzo for about a minute * Note, this recipe things you have a more substantial Dutch oven than I do so mine did not actually “Toast”. My 2 Quart dutch oven is usually good for my needs but if your Dutch oven is more roomy you’ll get actual toasted orzo. I feel kind of cheated out of toasted orzo, but it was still go ORZO I believe…haha

Add the Shrimp

. Try to make sure each shrimp has its own spot in the broth, so they all cook evenly

Enjoy!

Cook until shrimp are done (app 5 minutes) and serve hot sprinkled with Feta cheese. I used herbed feta from the grocery store but you could use Farm Market Feta with probably better results

Lessons Learned With This Step”

*I mentioned this before but I am mentioning it again. I ended up cooking down the pot uncovered after the shrimp were cooked to cut down on the liquid, but going forward I would cook it down and keep stirring until I was satisfied there was not too much liquid instead of cooking it down covered without stirring. I added the shrimp and then since the dutch over holds the heat, add the shrimp then and turn the heat down to keep the orzo from sticking to the bottom which the shrimp cook.

Enjoy!

My Food Reflection - Written last week during Lent, and published and edited today

Often in this section I write about for me the intersection of faith and food or the overlapping of how we live and what we eat. This post is not exception.

Recently I was speaking with somebody about how the observation of Lent, the Catholic season of reflection and atonement seemed like such a chore when I was growing up. Catholicism is not necessarily the most popular kid in the religion room and some of the world’s cycnicism about this faith which was so important to my parents and my grandparents rubbed off on me. “Why?” we would moan “can’t I just give up something I don’t like during Lent?” or “It’s not fair” when told my outfit was not mass appropriate. As I have gone through life I have met people also raised Catholic and I have met other people raised in other faiths who seemed to feel frustration with the old fashioned notion that rituals and even repentence were of another era, like they made sense to people before MTV and Hip Hop but they certainly had no place now. Did I love my faith? Yes, in my own crunchy way but rearranging my life around rules seemed about as fun as “Rearranging my life around rules” sounds.

This post is not about religion but it is about ritual and tradition and the healing which can sometimes come from seeing value in ancient ways when the ways today seem to feel hollow. As a grown person I practiced my faith in a way which felt authentic to me, but it was not until my life turned upside down I have found a season dedicated to reflection so solemnly appropriate. What I got wrong was that this season was all about suffering because we were somehow inherently wrong; this season is about the hope we can all, as special and enlightened we are, have the hope we can always be better.

Aside from times when I had medical things which required me not to observe them, I have tried, somtimes successfully and sometimes not so much, to not eat meat on fridays. This has led, as a low key foodie, to me making a variety of dishes. I love fish and shrimp so it’s not such a burden, but it does take effort. I find in this effort a way to live my prayer as in an old fashioned way, in this tradition of my faith , this whole holiday revolves around perhaps the most famous meal in the history of humanity. You know what? This pandemic and interruption in my life hit me pretty hard and this way of praying in action helps. It does. You can call me crunchy or old fashioned or even crasser things reserved for people who have the courage to live what they believe, but in observing this ancient custom I feel better and I feel closer to the people I love and miss and the God I believe in as I understand him. Some find my devotion antiquated and I often find I am the only young person in mass or adoration when I am brave sufficiently to go and sometimes it hurts my feelings when people make fun of my piety, as if it means I am somehow not cool or not exposed or I don’t understand how the world works because if I would be so jaded I would not even bother to show up. Since I have had so many rare experiences and have lived with losses nobody should have to carry I can tell you your jokes might hurt a little but I think I cling to prayer and humble observance of the ancient rituals because I understand more about the world than a lot of people who won’t risk believing in somebody or something. If you’re hurt by organized religion or have been wounded by the ways some chapters of my faith were intolerant or unfair and cannot wrap your head around a simple faith in a complicated person, it’s ok. . Just remember intolerance is always intolerance no matter who you are refusing to tolerate; be tolerant of me as I ask leaders in my faith to be tolerant of all people no matter what they look like, where they live, who they love and to whom they pray.

Prayer helps me, personal reflection makes you a better person, sacrifices are asked of all people who love, and when I cook on Fridays in Lent I am following the footsteps of women who before me found comfort in the incense, the statues and a faith built entirely around a scared unwed mother who changed the entire world.

You should just try to understand we all love the people and things which comfort us and make us better. After the dust settled, I realized for me the people “willing to sit with me an hour” are the people who comfort me and in terms of the things which comfort me, this includes my faith. As a lady who has seen many dark corners of the world and ugly behavior of humanity, who prides herself on being progressive and has often found herself unexpectedly at the center of popularity, I am saying I love my very unpopular faith as you love your most special uncle who sometimes smokes a cigar, says exactly the wrong thing and loses his temper but who understands you better than everybody else. I don’t love the homophobia, or the sad secrets or the extremism. I love the nuns who chain themselves to fences to protest the execution of the developmentally disabled and the priests who sat with gay men dying of AIDS before it was even known if it was safe and the priests who sat with with people of dying of COVID even when it was known it was not safe. And yes, I love the parts of my faith which believe in teaching people to read, visiting prisoners, soothing the broken and caring for children nobody seems willing to be fair to. Some of the people most impassioned about fairness, equality and social justice are members of Catholic clergy or people who were raised in my faith. In fairness to people who think I am not being fair, I have seen this same passions both in people who were raised in this faith tradition or traditions with similar calls to service for whom it is hard to feel connected to their familial faith but still feel compelled to build their lives around being fair and kind and I have seem these passions for whom organized religion is not something they were ever exposed to. Nobody gets to choose what religions they are exposed to as a child; you only get to decide what you do with what you have experienced.

It is complicated, but being raised Catholic is so much a part of who I am, not being honest about the best parts would be like being hating my hairy toes so much I refuse to use my feet to dance or resenting my stubbornly my unruly hair I chopped it off. So I cook fish on Fridays…

I think this season brings to us understanding it is ok to believe in something. You don’t have to believe in my faith and it is ok if you think some of its customs seem old fashioned. As my own lover of vintage everything, I think some of the old fashioned parts are the best parts. I encourage you, if your faith journey has included experiences which undermined your belief in the wisdom of believing in something unseen then take a risk and believe in something like the power of kindness and rigorously be kind. When it is hard, when it is scary, when you are hungover, when you’re angry, always be kind and it will change your life. I am not a perfect person and I am definitely not a perfect Catholic but what I get perfectly is the power of belief to affirm and comfort. My interpretation of my faith, no matter what you think, asks me to be kind and fair every day and my conviction this call to be this way has made every difference in my life.

In ways which don’t break you or make you resentful, making a decision to adjust your routine or even your food routine, in an effort to bring your closer to the spiritual life you desire can make you more confident in what I like to call divine wisdom. Everything in moderation- I am not talking about hurting your body, I am taking about eating simply on a specific day or going meat free a day a week in the name of knowing you can. A family I have recently met but who have quickly become very important to me are about to start preparing for the observance of Ramadan and I find their humble commitment to doing something which seems so physically hard so openly in the name of a faith which has labelled so many unfairly a very beautiful statement. It’s not a Catholic concept and we are experiencing a 3 week period where millions of people observe a holy season - whether it be Passover, Ramadan, or Easter, and like me many of those people believe there is worth in doing something hard, you are making the decision to do…even if the hard thing is not eating the hot dog you feel like you NEED to eat. If it’s not your choice it is hard to benefit from- it’s the beauty of it being YOUR faith journey. Go ahead, try it…Do your own version of cooking fish on Fridays and in your simple personal commitment you might find some of the comfort we all so deeply need in this year, perhaps more than other years.