The Zack and Katie project, Gluten free AND Onion free

You all may know about my GFF by now, well, having her involved in my life gives me a good excuse to be creative when I'm coming up with new menus. Over the years I have developed a variety of different menus that can be pulled out at the mere mention of a dinner party. Vegetarian menus, no red meat menus, no chicken menus, no pork menus, no gluten menus, no vegetable menus, no spice menus, I am even working on some no onion menus. The only group I haven't really had to accommodate thus far is vegans. And I really hope I don't get any vegans cause if I can't cook with dairy along with all of the other restrictions, I will be one sad chef. So, this one falls into the no gluten and no onion menus. It is also part of my 45 minutes or less collection of easy and attractive dinners. So here it is. The polenta recipe is adapted from cooks illustrated.

Marinated Shrimp with Parmesan Polenta
For the shrimp
2lbs large shrimp, uncooked shelled deveined and rinsed in cold water
1/2 cup Extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup dry white wine (cooking wine is fine)
juice of one lemon
3-4 large garlic cloves pressed/diced
2 Tbs minced fresh parsley
dash salt
dash pepper
2 dozen bamboo skewers soaked in water

For the polenta
7 1/2 cups water
1 1/2 teaspoons table salt
Pinch baking soda
1 1/2 polenta ( I use quick polenta)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
Ground black pepper
butter (can use a non dairy butter like substance.
2 cups parmesan cheese (can use pecorino romano)

For the shrimp
combine all ingredients in a bowl. add the shrimp and let sit for an hour. DO NOT LET THEM SIT for longer than an hour and 15 minutes or they will start to cook in the citrus juice.

let bamboo skewers sit in water for 10 minutes while the shrimp are marinating.
Skewer the shrimp there is no real rhyme or reason to this though I usually try to stick the skewer two times through each shrimp to ensure stability.

grill the shrimp for 5-10 minutes on each side or until they look done.

For the polenta
Bring the water to a boil
once the water is boiling, add the salt and the baking powder ( this helps keep the polenta from clumping)
Then slowly pour in the polenta while stirring. Make sure you keep stirring until all of the polenta is thoroughly wet. Continue to stir continuously for 1 minute
then turn down the heat and leave the polenta to simmer for 5 mins stirring occasionally. pour in the cheese and incorporate. turn off the heat and stir in the butter.
It is now ready to serve.


Put big spoonfulls of the polenta in the bottom of a regualr or salad bowl. Then liberate the shrimp from the skewers and arrange on top of the polenta.
garnish with leftover parsley.