Baked Herb Shrimp with Tomato Polenta

Happy Friday! While we're still in the Lenten season, I offer you a seafood recipe that made my tastebuds do backflips.

I adore shrimp. I absolutely adore them. They're plump and sweet and work with so many different flavor combinations and cuisines. For this recipe, I went with fresh herbs and zesty spices.

Into the pool I dumped: juice of one lemon, fresh chopped garlic (I used 4-ish cloves), fresh thyme, fresh rosemary (I kept it ‘rustic’ aka lazy by leaving the leaves on the stalks), tablespoon of crushed red pepper (use less or more depending on your taste buds), salt and cracked black pepper, and a few glugs of olive oil. I bought about a pound of cleaned, deveined shrimp. They jumped into the pool, too.

While I let the shrimp marinate for a few minutes, I cooked the polenta according to the directions on the box. I easily could (and probably should) have halved the recipe but leftovers are my jam.

About this time, I poured the shrimp marinade pool into an oven safe dish and baked for 10 - 12 minutes at 375°. Once the shrimp was cooking, I focused back to the stovetop and added a 15 oz can of chopped tomatoes to the polenta.

Once emptied of tomatoes, I poured it about halfway full with milk to swirl around and get the rest of the tomato goodness and poured that in as well.

Here is the shrimp when I pulled it out of the oven:

I know. Amazing. The kitchen smelled so fresh and fantastic.

Since this is basically a fanciful version of shrimp and grits, I plated the shrimp on top of the polenta in our big bowls.

The shrimp were succulent, bright, fresh, and a little bit spicy. The polenta was the perfect creamy compliment. I would definitely make this again, particularly adding tomatoes to the polenta - I can imagine this would be a good addition to couscous or quinoa, too!