Shrimp and white beans

No photo of this one, yet, but I just needed to rave for a moment. We started dipping into Mark Bittman's big list of 100 fast and easy recipes from earlier this summer, and we have fallen in love with the simplest recipe of all. It's for shrimp and white beans, which we have started eating over toast.

Basically, you take some shrimp (we use frozen from Trader Joe's) and chop them into little pieces. Open a can of white beans, put them in a frying pan with a little olive oil and chopped garlic. Then, add the shrimp. The whole thing cooks up pretty quickly, and somewhere near the end I usually squeeze half of a lemon over the whole thing and sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper. The last two times we've eaten this, I made a side salad, using the juices from the pan (deglazed a la Bittman with a dash of sherry vinegar) as a dressing. A slice of toast on the side, and the meal's complete. It keeps us full and energized, and the shrimp juice makes a surprisingly wonderful salad dressing.

Mixed greens with tuna, green beans, and broccoli

This was the first meal that we made in our new home in Tucson. Pretty simple mix of fresh ingredients, plus some albacore from the can. We purchased just about everything at a Trader Joe's nearby; I'd nearly forgotten how totally wonderful that store is. 

Nothing special for the dressing. Jenny used a bit of the oil from the oil-packed tuna, and then drizzled some balsamic vinegar over the top of it all. I got tomatoes on mine, but Jenny isn't a huge fan of raw tomatoes. Right there on the plate is also one of the forks from our Jasper Morrison set, Knife Fork Spoon, a highly recommended set of tableware.