I Don't Mean To Brag...

  

I'm jumping right in!  Last week I ended Friday's post by mentioning that my other success from last week was GF shrimp Alfredo.  Say what?!  No foolin'.  I'm actually sad I didn't take pictures because it turned out beautifully.  Of course, this can absolutely be done with regular pasta and regular flour in just the same way, so conversions are easy-peasy.  Here's what I did.

First, I started with the Great White Pasta Sauce.  Since that was before we had to cut gluten out, here's my slightly revised version of the recipe:

Great White Sauce

3 tbsp butter
1 tbsp regular or GF AP flour (If you're using GF AP flour, I'd recommend just a little less than a tsp of cornstarch to help thicken it if necessary)
1 1/2 to 2 cups milk (depending on how thick you like it--I used 2 cups)
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1 large pinch of salt

Make a roux out of the butter and flour. Add the milk, cheese and salt, mix well, and let thicken. You can add a little starchy cooking water at the end if that's your style too.  Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.

So that's your sauce recipe.  For those of you that don't have to eat GF, I found out recently that the longer you let the flour and butter cook, the less thickening power it has, so keep that in mind.  You probably only need to cook your roux for a minute or two.

The next step in my process was the pasta.  Now, you can use whatever pasta suits your fancy.  I think angel hair is pretty traditional with this dish, but Mike doesn't like angel hair--he thinks it's a sissy pasta :-)--so I got fresh, GF linguine from the refrigerated section instead.  I don't usually spring for fresh pasta, but this was a big deal.  Of course, you never want to overcook any pasta get mushy, but GF pasta is a fickle thing.  I used to always cook my semolina and durum pasta just past al dente because Mike didn't like the bite of it.  You cannot do this with GF pasta!  There's a fine line between done and mush with GF pasta, so I generally cook it about two minutes under the package directions, taste it, and then test again every minute or minute and a half after that.  Then, I pull it out at al dente (a little before if I have a more liquidous sauce, as with Alfredo) and let drain.

Finally, there was the shrimp.  There are some foods that I don't like to dress up too much, and shrimp is one of them.  A little Old Bay seasoning (seafood seasoning will do if you can't get Old Bay) over the little darlings and then into the hot sauce to cook for just a few minutes until they turn pink.  Remember, you're not going to pulling them out of the sauce, so it's heat will continue to cook them.  You don't want to overdo it.

Mix everything together and call it a day!  Mike was so happy about this dish, and I was, if you will remember, on cloud nine.  Challenge accepted and subsequently blown out of the water!