Shrimp & Pie

This weekend was an all-round very good weekend. After our Saturday full of hiking and Granny B, Sunday was full of more family and good food. There's nothing like ending a fast with an AMAZING meal. Jack and Susan came over for dinner, and boy were they lucky that they got to sit in on an evening of Nanny's food experimenting. I'd found a recipe on Pinterest for copycat Cheesecake Factory Shrimp Scampi. As always, I took it upon myself to make some changes, and I think it turned out better than what we'd get in a restaurant. I'd never cooked a shrimp dish before, but I think we'll be making this weekly until we get sick of it. Seriously, everyone LOVED it.  Even Lilly ate two bowls full. For dessert, we had coconut cream pie. Lilly, as always, was Miss Mooch, and insisted on begging for bites from Jack. He thought it would be funny to smear it all over her face, instead of putting it into her mouth. The poor thing needed a bath so badly by the end of the night. 

Click here for the link to the shrimp scampi recipe. I substituted red bell peppers for the tomatoes, since I don't like how mushy tomatoes get when you cook them. Everyone agreed that the flavor of the peppers added much more to the dish than the tomatoes ever would have. 

I left the tails on the shrimp, and that was our only complaint. Rookie mistake, I guess! I guess we'll have to make it again, and see if no tails makes a difference. Hehe!

She's never been let loose with spaghetti, so I was a bit interested in how she'd handle the angel hair pasta. She was shoving handfuls into her mouth. 

Purposefully missing her mouth, because smearing it all over her face was much funnier. Typical Jack. 

Seeing her trying to get it into her mouth actually made me feel bad. But she knew he was messing with her, and the little chuckle that she let out was cute

This is Ryan, refusing to share his cookies (even though he complained that he didn't like them because they were store- bought and not my homemade cookies), and Jack and Susan looking at him like "hey, can we have some?"

Jack, Susan, and Ryan (and at times, Lilly) played Guitar Hero most of the night. I told everyone to give me their best rock star look, but they mostly just look like they're in pain.