Matt's Shrimp Pasta

This is just a little family favorite of ours.

1 pkg. Penne Noodles
Olive oil
red onion diced
Garlic chopped finely
lemon juice
Shrimp (raw, this can be frozen then thawed, but don't get the pre-cooked kind it WILL NOT work out.)

cook the penne noodles to your liking.

While the noodles are cooking, add in a skillet or frying pan: olive oil, onion, and garlic. The amounts on this will vary depending on how much you like onion and garlic. Put enough olive oil to cover the bottom of your frying pan. Saute them until they are slightly golden.
Add the lemon juice. This will be about equal to how much olive oil you put in. mix it well with your spoon (add just a sprinkle of crushed red pepper flakes if you want) then add the shrimp.
Cook the shrimp until it's nice and pink. If you cook the shrimp too long, it will turn very tough so this might take some practice to find just the right pinkness for your liking.
**Keep the heat at a medium level so your other ingredients don't burn.**
Pour over noodles and add some Parmesan cheese! Eat up!

bagels!

Here is a great bagel recipe that I just tried today! It's fabulous!

Homemade bagel recipe

4 cups bread flour

1 Tbls sugar

1 1/2 tsps salt

1 Tbls vegetable oil

2 tsps instant yeast

1-1/4- 1-1/2 cups of warm water.

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl. You don't have to worry about soaking the yeast when you use instant yeast (most yeast sold these days is instant yeast). The dough should feel stiff, but add the extra water if it's really stiff, or you can't get all the dry flour incorporated.

Plop the dough down onto the counter, and knead for about ten minutes, or until the dough is uniform and smooth.

Cut the dough into 8 equal sized balls, and let rest for 10-20 minutes.

Pre heat your oven to 425.

Now, take each of the dough balls and using two hands, roll it into a little snake on the counter. When the snake is longer than the width of your two hands, wrap it around your dominant roiling hand. The dough rope should be wrapped so the overlapping ends are together at your palm, near the start of your fingers. Now take the two overlapping ends, and use your palm to squish/roll these two ends together. Once the dough is fused, you should have a perfectly circular bagel-to-be! This is the only part of the process that can take a little practice before your bagels will look really professional. Don't get discouraged if they don't look perfect, it just takes practice!

Let your bagels rest on the counter for about 20 minutes, and meanwhile, bring a pot of water to boil, and grease a large baking tray lightly. You can just rub a splash of vegetable oil and rub it around.

After the 20 minute wait, your bagels will start to look puffy, and it's time to get them boiling! Add them as many at a time as you can to your boiling water without crowding them. Boil for about a minute, turn them over, and boil for another minute. Take them out a let dry for a minute and then place them on your oiled baking tray. Repeat until all the bagels are boiled.

Add the tray to the oven, and after 10 minutes, flip the bagels over, bake for another ten minutes; and they're done!

Let them cool for at least 20 minutes, get the cream cheese ready, and feast on what's got to be one of the best weekend brunch treats possible!

You can add any toppings you like to these. To make sesame, onions, poppy seed, caraway etc. etc. bagels just have a dry plate ready with the seed or spice topping spread out on it. After the bagels have come out of the boiling water, place them face down onto the seeds, and then place the seed side up onto the baking tray. Bake and flip as for plain bagels.