Countertop Cuisine: Pesto Shrimp with Spinach and Bell Peppers

I’ve been tweeting all week about wanting to cook a complete meal using only my toaster oven.  Responses ranged from interesting recipe suggestions to inquiries on how exactly this is done.  There were also those who questioned why I would own a toaster oven in 2011.  To you I say, how else am I supposed to heat up frozen pizza bites after a night out of the town?

Apparently there are other cooks who not only own toaster ovens, but use them for other reasons besides late night snacking.  One such person is Sonja Morgan, a star of Bravo’s hit reality series The Real Housewives of New York.  She notoriously cooks entire meals using only her beloved countertop accessory.  She’s even writing a cookbook about the food she has prepared for her famous guests which includes royalty and New York’s elite.

I’ve been bitten by the Sonja bug and wanted to test this method out for myself.  I didn’t want to make something that a toaster over is typically used for – pizza, open faced sandwiches, nachos – you get the idea.  Instead, I went all out and decided to make a real meal using fresh ingredients while keeping it simple.

Before this week, I would have never imagined dining on a meal of pesto shrimp with spinach, red bell peppers and rice made exclusively in a toaster oven. (Yes! I even cooked the rice in there.)   Prep time/clean up were a breeze and the ingredient list was kept minimal. On top of that, the texture of the rice held up great and the shrimp and vegetables were steamed to perfection, retaining all the pesto flavors. 

This is going to put a whole new twist on my late-night snacking.  Bye-bye, frozen and unhealthy! Hello, lean and gourmet!

Ingredients:
Recipe serves one.

1/4 cup white rice
1/2 cup water
1/3 lb peeled and deveined large shrimp
1 cup fresh spinach
8 red bell pepper strips
2 tablespoons prepared pesto
Salt and pepper

Directions:

Preheat toaster oven to 450 degrees.

Fill coffee mug with ½ cup of water and cook in microwave for 2 minutes, until its boiling.  Stir in rice and place in toaster oven. Cook for 35-40 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl mix together shrimp, pesto, spinach and red bell pepper. Season with salt and pepper. Tear off a large piece of tinfoil.  Place shrimp mixture in middle of tinfoil and seal the foil packets by folding the top edge and sides, leaving enough room inside the packet for air to circulate.  Cook for about 20-25 minutes until shrimp is completely cooked through.

To serve, place rice on plate.  Top with shrimp, spinach and red bell peppers. Drizzle with remaining pesto juices from foil packet and enjoy!

(Cook’s note: I know the cook time seems a little long for shrimp, but toaster ovens don’t heat up as hot as a regular oven so trust me on this one!)