Shrimp, feta, and fresh herb mac and cheese

As you may or may not have previously read on this blog, I love to cook! Now, you may be wondering, why hasn't this girl talked about cooking at all even though she's a self professed foodie? Oh, well, that's because my retail job took over my life during the month of december and I didn't get around to cooking anything fun or much less document it. Fortunately for you, me, and Dt's appetite, my job has slowed down tremendously so I have time to mess around in the kitchen again! Woooo!

So this is a recipe that I found on Pinterest and decided that I would try it. Dt is a huge fan of mac and cheese and shrimp so I thought this would be a good way to combine the two and adult-ify it!

This is the picture that caught my eye on pinterest.
Unfortunately, my pics look nothing like this. Courtesy of  Annie's Eats

The ingredients, pretty simple!

So the ingredients are all really basic and easy to find. When possible, I substitute low-fat, fat-free, or wheat ingredients. The original recipe just calls for milk and pasta. I used organic skim milk and whole grain pasta but that's just my preference, def not required. In the past, I have found recipes where you need to use regular ingredients or the recipe doesn't work, but I found out this was not one of them. This dish also disguises the whole grain pasta if you have picky eaters or boyfriends who don't like anything but normal pasta. 

Also, do you see that huge bunch of parsley off to the left? Does anyone else hate buying that huge bunch just to throw 1/2 of it away? It only costs $.99 but it still feels wasteful because no recipe calls for 5 cups of parsley and I don't use it in every day life. Anyone have any suggestions so I feel less like a wasteful person? Hmpf.

This was prior to cooking. It looks really blah and white but that's probably because of my horrible camera. I apologize for all of these pictures because I am not a photographer or in possession of a baller Nikon. 

Hungry much? Ha!

So this is the final product minus a serving. Oops! We may have gotten carried away and forgotten to take a pic before serving up. Whatever, you get the picture and you get to see what the deliciousness looks like inside (even though it looks really gross...). Overall, this was a huge success! We paired it with large salads and it was super filling. The shrimp were actually done perfectly which I was pleasantly surprised with because I was worried they would get overcooked in the dish but they didn't. I'll def be making this one again.

You can find the original recipe here but I've copied it below to make it easier. Also, check out her awesome pictures because they're much more appetizing than mine!


Ingredients:
1 lb. pasta shapes *I used whole grain shells
1 lb. raw shrimp (31-40 ct.), peeled and deveined, cut in half (if desired)
10 oz. feta cheese, crumbled and divided
Zest of 1 lemon, divided
½ cup Panko breadcrumbs
2 tbsp. fresh parsley, chopped, divided
5 tbsp. butter, divided
4 tbsp. all-purpose flour
3 cups milk *I used organic skim
2 tbsp. fresh dill, chopped
8 oz. Gruyere cheese, shredded (about 2 cups)
½ tsp. kosher salt
½ tsp. ground black pepper

Directions:
Bring a large pot of salted water to boil.  Cook the pasta until al dente according to the package directions.  Drain well; set aside.  Add the raw shrimp to the warm pasta and toss together.  The heat from the pasta will partially cook the shrimp.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 400˚ F.  In a small bowl, combine a handful of the feta, a pinch of the lemon zest, the panko, 2 teaspoons of the parsley and 1 tablespoon of the butter, melted.  Toss with a fork to combine; set aside.

In a medium saucepan, melt the remaining 4 tablespoons of butter over medium-high heat.  Once the butter is melted, whisk in the flour  to form a paste.  Cook 1-2 minutes, whisking constantly, until light golden brown.  Whisk in the milk.  Continue to heat the mixture, stirring frequently, until it bubbles and thickens, about 5 minutes.  As soon as the sauce has thickened, remove from the heat and stir in the remaining feta, Gruyere, remaining parsley, remaining lemon zest, dill, salt and pepper.  Pour the mixture over the pasta and shrimp; toss well to coat.

Transfer the mixture to a lightly greased 2½ or 3-quart baking dish.  Sprinkle the breadcrumb-feta mixture evenly over the top.  Bake for 20-25 minutes, until lightly browned and bubbling.  Remove from the oven and let cool 5-10 minutes before serving.

Let me know what you think!