i ended up making 2 dishes with the shrimp last night. shrimp, veggie, and white bean salad, and shrimp and sausage fra diavolo.
i cleaned and peeled half of the shrimp - reserving the shells, and the other half were split and cleaned but shells left on.
my neighbor gave us some homemade macedonian style pork sausage (some of the best sausage i've ever eaten. he's a butcher in costco, so he knows his way around an animal), so i browned it as set it aside. then, i finely diced a half an onion and a green bell pepper, sauteed it for a minute over medium high heat then added 5 cloves of garlic, sliced, and sauteed another minute until it was beginning to get color. i added a good pinch of hot pepper flakes, a tsp of dried basil, a tbsp or so of capers, and a large can of chopped tomatoes and let it simmer a few minutes.
while the sauce was cooking down a bit, i quickly made about a cup of shrimp stock from blanching the shell-on shrimp that'll be used in the salad, and the shells that were removed from the shrimp for the fra diavolo. just a cup of water brought to a boil, in go the shrimp and shells, cover, turn off the heat and let steam for a minute or two until the shrimp are just cooked through. then, reserving the liquid, discard the shells and shock the shell-on shrimp in cold water and refrigerate.
next, i added the shrimp stock to the sauce, sliced the browned sausage into pucks and put it into the sauce. simmer for a few minutes until the sausage is cooked through, then stir in 2 heaping tbsps of tomato paste to thicken the sauce.
finally, the shelled shrimp are added to the sauce; it's stirred once or twice, then the pan was covered and the heat turned off. the shrimp were cooked through just from the residual heat in about 3 or 4 minutes.
for the salad, i finely diced the other half of the onion and green bell pepper, and tossed it in a large bowl with about a half cup each of small broccoli and cauliflower florets, a half cup of sliced white mishrooms, a half cup of finely diced celery, 2 minced cloves of garlic, a rinsed and drained can of cannelini beans, a tbsp of lemon juice, 2 or 3 tbsps of evoo, a tbsp or so of red wine vinegar, s&p, and a good pinch or 2 of parsley. then i removed and discarded the shells from the cooked shrimp, and tossed the shrimp into the veggie mix. then i spooned it onto a bed of mesculun, and hit it with a little more evoo and red wine vinegar.
lol, i wanted to type this out so i wouldn't forget. i've found it helpful to submit recipes because i can never remember exactly how i made something every time i cook, but if i enter it here, i can always search and look back.
i guess i should copy and paste these as recipes.
edited to add: ok, they're posted as recipes.