Recipes: dinner #1

We made this recipe while at Beth's in June. It is from Cooking Light magazine. We used chicken in addition to the shrimp, but it didn't take the marinade quite as well and turned out a little dry. Ours was a bit overdone, too, but the shrimp were still very juicy.

Lemongrass and garlic shrimp

This is our version on the top and Cooking Light's version on the bottom.

Ingredients:
1/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons canola oil
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 fresh lemongrass stalk, trimmed and coarsely chopped
1 large garlic clove, grated
36 jump shrimp, peeled and deveined (about 2 pounds)

Directions:
1. Combine sugar, canola oil, fish sauce, chopped lemongrass, and grated garlic in a food processor or mini chopper; process until the lemongrass is finely chopped. Transfer mixture to a large zip-top plastic bag. Add shrimp; seal and marinate in refrigerator 45 minutes.

2. Prepare grill to high heat.

3. Remove shrimp from bag; discard marinade. Thread 6 shrimp onto each of 6 (12-inch) skewers. Place skewers on grill rack; grill 2 minutes on each side or until done.

We served this recipe with sugar snap peas sauteed with garlic salt and olive oil and also ciabatta bread with butter.