Saturday shrimp broil.

After a week of takeout and quick dinners (an excuse for quickie homemade mac and cheese is always ok, though), I decided to do a big grocery shop, stock the fridge for the coming week (have dinner plans for every night through Thursday!), and make a special dinner for us tonight. In the latest issue of Food Network mag, they have a little pullout on things to make in foil pouches on the grill - we didn't do the jalapeno poppers this time (jalapenos stuffed with muenster and drizzled in oil and spices, yum!), but I've been dying to try a mini shrimp broil, so we went with that. And because I realized recently that our store does usually have mussels (which I've never bought or made before), we did those, too. And some zucchini I've had in the fridge since last week's farmer's market.

I won't detail the "recipes" because they need some tweaking (i.e., lots more seasoning, salted butter, longer steaming time), but we had two pouches of shrimp and a pouch of mussels - high for 8 minutes for the shrimp, medium-high for 10 minutes for the mussels. Some butter, wine, and fennel with the mussels. Some butter, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes for the shrimp. And, of course, some fresh basil from my "garden" for the zucchini.

Carnage.

This time around, it was all about the process. Wrapping stuff up in foil. Grilling it up (well, watching Brad grill it up). Melting the butter. Eagerly opening the foil packages. Making a big ole mess eating with our fingers. Definitely makes me even more eager to do a full-on clambake this summer with all our neighborhood peeps!!! (Yes, proper clambake attire WILL be strongly encouraged. [I'm looking at you, Brad's straw hat and yellow shorts.])

You can't have special dinner without dessert, so, per Brad's request, strawberry shortcake. Well, as I told Hillary, it was more strawberry shortcake-ish. I don't do the full-on business - I like to keep it simple. In hindsight, I would have made some cornbread from scratch, but we had premade shortcake cups with some vanilla bean ice cream, strawberries, and a little whipped cream. Works just fine for me!

I go easy on the whipped cream. Brad had lots more.

Tomorrow, grilled quesadilla Father's Day dinner! Then... back to work. You mean... I have to go back!? :)