Shrimp and How to Keep a Man Happy

Remember when I won the awesome grilling cookbook from the Food Network? I have slowly been testing the recipes and there is one I have already made twice. It's that good.

Recipe courtesy of the Food Network Kitchen's Get Grilling
New Orleans Style BBQ Shrimp

1/2 C extra virgin olive oil
8T unsalted butter (my 2nd round I only used 5 and it still tasted good!)
12 cloves of garlic, smashed
2 bay leaves (Kelly - do not smoke these!)
4 sprigs fresh thyme
1 pound large shrimp, shell on and deveined (make sure they are raw)
1t Worcestershire sauce
1T kosher salt
1T sweet paprika
1/2t cayenne pepper (more if you like to keep it real spicy)
2T dry sherry
3 lemons, cut into wedges

And the most important ingredient - a loaf of crusty bread

Preheat the oven to 350. Yes, although this is a grilling cookbook, you are using the oven and the stove and never come close to the grill, unless your grill is your stove.
Heat the butter, olive oil, garlic, bay leaves, and thyme in a large ovenproof skillet over medium heat, until the butter melts and the herbs are fragrant - about 5 mins. At this point you should realize just how amazing this meal/appetizer will be - 12 cloves of garlic and a stick of butter?? How can you go wrong, really.

Toss the shrimp, Worcestershire sauce, salt, paprika, and cayenne together in a bowl. Add to the skillet along with sherry and transfer to the oven. Bake until the shrimp turn pink and curl, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a serving dish and serve with lemon wedges and lots of bread for sopping up the sauce.

I made this as one of the appetizers for Glenn's finer things, and I kid you not, I ran upstairs to get a spoon of some sort, and by the time I was back the entire thing was gone! Your guests will love it as an appetizer, or you can make it for 2 or 3 and serve it with a side salad for a (kind of) light meal. Just keep the sopping up of sauce to a minimum if you are counting calories, and you're set!

Now on to the 'how to keep a man happy' part of the post. It was Glenn's birthday a few weeks ago and I threw him a birthday party. I had every intention of making two birthday cakes, one in the shape of a castle and one a multiple layered confection dream.

Sometimes intentions are not that realistic. Especially when you have a friend staying with you and you all decide to go to lunch together, and then you realize you haven't even bought any of the food you are preparing for 20 people in 2 hours. Woops.

So what's a girl to do when her husband needs an awesome birthday cake and she has no time to make said cake? A good cook never tells her secrets. Just look at that happy face, whatever I did, it obviously worked.