Apparently the best recipe I've cooked in 30 years

I'm from New England. I don't like seafood. As close to an oxymoron as you can get. Because I don't like seafood, I don't cook seafood very often. My husband is from New England. My husband loves seafood. My husband has eaten seafood just a handfull of times in the 30 years we've been married, and the majority of those times were in restaurants. Poor man. So when I found a recipe for Creamy Shrimp Alfredo in the most recent edition of Kraft's Food & Family magazine, (and when I saw shrimp on sale at my local grocery store), I thought I'd give the recipe a try. Thirty years of marriage times cooking dinner every night minus maybe one meal a month out in a restaurant equals (besides one lucky husband) 10,500 meals. Of those 10,500 meals, my husband has disliked two -- a fish meal because the fish still had a few bones and he was apparently traumatized by his mother in his childhood about fish bones (rolling eyes), and a burned meatloaf. Ten Thousand, Four Hundred and Ninety-Eight successful meals. And here is the recipe for the one he raved about the MOST. It took less than 30 minutes to prepare! CREAMY SHRIMP ALFREDO 1/2 lb. linguine, uncooked 2 tbsp Kraft Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing 1/2 lb. uncooked deveined peeled medium shrimp 3 cloves garlic, minced* 6 oz Philadelphia Cream Cheese 3/4 cup chicken broth* 1/4 cup Kraft Grated Parmesan Cheese, divided Cook pasta as directed on package. Meanwhile, heat dressing in large skillet on medium heat. Add shrimp; cook and stir 2 to 3 minutes or until shrimp turn pink, adding garlic for the last minute of cooking. Remove shrimp with slotted spoon; set aside. Add cream cheese and broth to skillet; cook and stir until cream cheese is completely melted. Return shrimp to pan and add 3 tbsp. of the grated Parmesan cheese. Drain pasta. Add to skillet; toss to coat. Transfer shrimp pasta mixture to plate and top with more Parmesan cheese. *Changes I made: I made the chicken broth with 1 cube of chicken bouillion and 1 cup of water, using 3/4 cup of the "broth" according to directions. For the garlic, I used 2 teaspoons of pre-minced garlic from a jar. I also added black pepper to the sauce, but then, I REALLY like black pepper.

Where I've been

Whew - did you think I'd disappeared? I'm here. Let me tell you what's been going on with me. I have this other blog, called Quilting on a Budget. In light of the struggling economy, the blog is of interest to many quilters who are trying to purchase fabric, use up their scraps or generally not spend money on what can be a very expensive hobby / craft. I popped the blog up just as a way to better communicate with my Yahoo Group of the same name, but it drew in quilters like flies to honey. To be honest, I didn't expect it, nor was I ready for it. I'm an entrepreneur by heart, having set up and run several successful home businesses in my lifetime. But this time, I wasn't ready. I suddenly had advertisers knocking on my door, and had no advertising space or systems set up. I had publishers emailing me to review books, quilt shops contacting me to sponsor give aways -- and, plain and simple, I got overwhelmed with it all. I have been working on the blog 40 to 50 hours a week, and still not keeping up. Who knew a year ago when I opened the blog that budget quilting would be a hot topic! I'm good, at least, in recognizing when I need to take a step back, look at what's going on, figure out why it's going on, and fix it... That's what I've been doing with the QOB blog for the past several weeks. Looking at what is bringing in 500 people (and more) a day, what's getting the advertisers a head's up about the blog -- and why am I not able to stay on top of it all? The answer, of course, is having a "system" in place to keep things moving smoothly, to respond to emails in a timely manner (and set up a filter system to even know those emails came in!), to have available space for advertisers.... and the list goes on. So that's where I've been. Setting up business systems and - very soon - an entirely new web site to meet the needs of my blog readers on the Quilting on a Budget blog. I've spent the last two days simply decluttering my office and catching up on filing! Of course, life at home as been going on around me as usual. Jeff now works from home fulltime. Mr. B is still here two days a week and just this week started riding a two wheeler! EXSIL is still being a threatening pain in the butt (which is why Jeff is working from home for awhile), and my daughter is looking for a new place to live to get out of his line of fire. Honestly, I miss being here and doing my daily journal. Hopefully all the new business systems put in place in the past week will allow me to be on more of a daily schedule that will let me return to 1) having a clean house and 2) enjoying this blog and reading my friends' blogs! If you're a quilter, do stop by the Quilting on a Budget blog -- there's a Give Away going on right now for a great quilt book called FRENCH BRAID OBSESSIONS. You can read the review and enter the Give Away, which ends May 23, 2009.

writer / CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

And WOO HOO! Chris won American Idol!!!