Sunday Dinner - Birthday Style

Tonight's menu:

• Shrimp and veggie linguine
• Garlic bread

This dinner was a special birthday treat, made by Matt! I got to sit back and relax while he planned and created this delicious meal...a wonderful way to spend my birthday evening. He used two recipes to make it, combining elements from each. One was from Allrecipes.com and he pulled some inspiration from this Ezine article as well. I don't know exactly what he did since I wasn't in the kitchen, but the final dish included shrimp, broccoli, cherry tomatoes, and spinach all sauteed in garlic, shallots, and butter, then mixed into the pasta. The flavors and colors were marvelous, and the dish was light and healthy to boot.

The garlic bread was a bake-at-home frozen garlic baguette. We usually make our garlic bread with a fresh baguette covered in melted butter and minced garlic, but since Matt was cooking by himself he opted to go the easy route. It actually worked really well with the pasta dish, which already had a lot of garlic. The pre-made garlic bread is usually more salty than garlicky, and I think our usual garlic-intense version would have been a little overpowering. As it was, the bread was a perfect complement to a light and savory dinner. Happy birthday to me!