Paprika Shrimp with Vegetables and Rice

Paprika is wonderful. It's this lovely little spice that had gone unused and unloved in my spice cabinet for far too long. And it smells amazing, especially heated with olive oil and garlic. Yum!

This is one of my favorite things to make for dinner during the week. It's fast, easy, healthy and utterly delicious. I'm fond of making it with jasmine rice but last night I tried brown jasmine rice. Usually I'm the first to wrinkle up my nose at the mere idea of substituting brown rice for white rice but it was quite good - less chewy than regular brown rice but definitely healthier then white.

We like our plates heaping but you could easily add a little more vegetables and make this a perfect meal for four.

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 1 pound raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 1 head broccoli, chopped into bite sized pieces
• 1/2 head cauliflower, chopped into bite sized pieces
• salt to taste

Directions

• Heat the olive oil in a large pan with a lid
• Add the garlic and paprika, reduce heat to medium, stir to spread the paprika evenly
• Add the shrimp and stir making sure to coat each shrimp with oil and paprika
• Add the broccoli and cauliflower, stir
• Cover the pan to steam vegetables*
• When shrimp is completely pink and vegetables are no longer crisp, remove from heat, add to rice and serve.

Recipe loosely adapted from EatingWell

*If you're making rice, which I highly recommend, you can start cooking it at this point. After years of being too intimidated to try rice, I finally found a very simple recipe that seems to work well for both white and brown rices. For every cup of rice (I usually only need one) add a cup and half of water.

Mix and set on the stove, uncovered on low heat. When it starts to boil, add the lid, but only covering half the pot. Mix often. When the water is almost gone, cover it completely for a few minutes. Usually at this point the moisture is gone but the rice is still a little crisp. Turn off the heat and cover the pot allowing it to steam until the rice is fully cooked.