Easy Dinner Alert: Garlic Shrimp and Asparagus with Bow-tie Pasta

It's been a while since I've had a recipe to share. Tonight as I was cooking, though, I thought this quick and healthy choice may be a good one for those of you in need of dinner ideas (as I always am). When we go to an authentic Italian restaurant, I love to order garlic spaghetti. I love it and don't love it at the same time, actually. It's always delicious (love that), but it's such a cheap meal to make that I cringe at the price Italian restaurants want for something that would cost less than $5 to make at home...for the whole family.

This dish takes my favorite garlic spaghetti concept and adds in some healthy shrimp and asparagus so we don't go into carb overload. Also, if you use frozen ingredients like I did, you can keep this meal on hand as a standby idea. Ready? Without further delay, let's cook!

What you need: 

• 3/4 box of bow-tie pasta (feel free to sub in your favorite variety or whatever you have on-hand)
• One bag of frozen (fully-cooked, peeled, and de-veined) shrimp
• One bag of frozen asparagus (or fresh, your choice)
• Olive oil 
• Parmesan cheese, to taste
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• Minced garlic (about 2-3T)

What you do: 

• Get your pasta water boiling and cook pasta according to package directions.
• Steam asparagus (you can easily do this by dumping the asparagus in a microwave safe dish with about 1/2-1 inch of water; microwave for five minutes or so). 
• Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.
• Run cold water over shrimp to knock some of the ice off, drain (I usually do this right in the bag to avoid dirtying another dish).
• Add shrimp and garlic to hot skillet and begin to sauté. 
• Once asparagus is steamed, add that to the skillet. Continue sautéing all until pasta is cooked. 
• Drain pasta, toss with parmesan.
• Add pasta to skillet with shrimp and asparagus. Add more cheese, salt, and pepper to taste. 

Serve and enjoy! We served strawberries and bananas on the side, but I was wishing that I would have picked up some crusty Italian bread or even a cheap loaf of garlic bread. This meal fed my family of five - two hungry adults and three moderately hungry little kids. :)

This post is listed on the Time Warp Wife's Titus2sday blog link-up. Please head over to Darlene's site to check out all of the awesome blogs linked up today!

We've also linked up at The Gathering Spot blog hop. Check it out!