Rotelli with Shrimp in Creamy Drunken Tomato Sauce

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How’s everyone this weekend? We hope you’re all having a good one and eating well. It’s sunny here, but still cool. I apologize for those who might be jealous looking at the picture. For someone who has suffered through years of Vancouver winters, it’s a nice change to see sunshine peering through the blinds in the middle of February. If you’re freezing out in the snow or counting the days until spring or summer, I’m bringing the sunshine to you.

We hit some hundred golf balls yesterday morning [again, don't hate us...hehe] and don’t you follow my example because I didn’t wear a glove. I was left with blisters on both hands and when we got back home for lunch, I was sore, cranky and the last thing my brain and body wanted to do was exert any more effort than the required minimum. As much as I’d like to stick to our new year’s goal of providing step-by-step visual guides for our recipes, it just didn’t work out yesterday. I initially thought that this What-would-you-like-to-eat-for-lunch-honey? -Oh-okay-I’ll-see-what-I-can-come-up-with-in-20-minutes dish won’t make it to the site so I didn’t bother taking photos while cooking.

Surprises of surprises, we both finished two platefuls of it and I was this-close to licking my plate clean. I mean…Wow. Loved it! How can I not share the recipe (as much as I can remember of it) after that?

I wanted a creamy sauce but we didn’t have heavy cream like we usually do, and honestly I am not going to make a supermarket run just for that. Instead, we had leftover crème fraîche that we bought for Dan’s Chocolate Pudding Pie [I made him promise to post about that soon!]. I’ve never used creme fraiche for a dish, but it’s still cream so it should work right? I chose my favorite go-to pasta tomato sauce base, Muir Glen Tomato Basil which doesn’t have any overpowering flavor that you can easily transform it into whatever you like, really. I had the last minute idea to add lemon juice along with the parsley at the end, which gave it a light refreshing kick. The overall result was more than I’ve ever hoped for — it was smooth and creamy, but not too much that you can’t eat a lot of it, and all the flavors just blended together so wonderfully. I hope you try it.

So without further ado, here’s the recipe:

Rotelli with Shrimps in Creamy Drunken Tomato Sauce

Ingredients [good for 2 full servings]

• .6 lb medium-sized shrimps [approx. 60-70 count]
• 1 1/4 c tomato and basil sauce
• 1/4 yellow onion, coarsely chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1/8 tsp creole seasoning
• 1/8 tsp paprika
• 1/2 c chardonnay [I used Bonterra Chardonnay]
• 1 1/2 tbsp creme fraiche
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• parsley, chopped
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• fresh ground pepper
• kosher salt
• 6 oz uncooked rotelli

[Before starting your sauce, start up boiling your water for pasta]

1. Heat olive oil in medium heat. Saute onions, with fresh ground pepper and kosher salt, until they become translucent/limp. Lower heat to medium-low, mix in the chopped garlic and saute for 2 minutes.

2. Toss in the shrimps. Add ground pepper, salt, and creole seasoning. Saute for 3 minutes.

3. Pour white wine and mix. Cover and leave for 5 minutes.

4. Remove cover, stir, and allow wine to reduce to half. Mix in the pasta sauce with paprika and allow to simmer. Stir in the creme fraiche.

5. Turn off the heat. Drizzle sauce with lemon juice and chopped parsley. Give it a quick stir.

6. If your pasta cooked just at the same time as the sauce, use a slatted spoon to transfer the rotelli into the sauce . If not, make sure to keep some pasta water in case you need to thin out your sauce. Toss in the pasta and serve with fresh ground pepper.

Dee-li-cious!