Contributed by Dawn Marie Hamilton
Gardening is one of my many hobbies. The other day I was at the garden center, ogling this plant and that, when I found the cinnamon basil plant pictured above. Of course, I had to have it. I took the herb home, snipped off a few of the spicy-sweet leaves and used them in a romantic shrimp scampi dinner for two.
Ingredients:
3/4 cup brown rice
2 cups spinach, chopped
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons olive oil
8 cloves garlic, minced
½ pound shrimp
6 leaves basil, minced
¼ teaspoon dried mustard
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
black pepper
1. Add rice to two cups boiling water, cook on medium heat (low boil) with no lid for 30 minutes. Stir in spinach, cover with lid, remove from heat and set aside.
2. Melt butter in sauté pan. Add olive oil and garlic and stir over low-medium heat to flavor oil. Raise heat to medium, add shrimp, basil, mustard and lemon juice, and stir often until shrimp is opaque and cooked through.
3. Drain rice in colander. Split rice and spinach between two bowls. Pour scampi over top of rice mixture and sprinkle with pepper to taste.
Serve with white wine. Enjoy!
