Sunday Lunch At The Hawthornes'.

Do you ever just want something different for lunch

but you don't know what?

Do you ever go to the grocery store

and wish there was some new animal you could eat?

Sunday lunch was like that for me.

I wanted something different

but was limited to the leftovers in my fridge.

But let's face it -

my leftovers aren't something to be sneezed at.

I had some leftover red pepper sauce

from when I made scallops the other day. (And I've made this sauce before with slight variations.) I also had some shrimp in the fridge.

And some baby bella mushrooms

which had seen better days.

What to do? What to do?

I wanted a nice lunch using these ingredients, plus whatever else might be lying in wait in my fridge. I came up with fettuccini with a roasted red pepper cream,

mushroom, and shrimp sauce with tomatoes and fresh herbs.

First stop was my garden to pick parsley, chives, and basil.

I minced 2 cloves of garlic and chopped the herbs.

I peeled, de-veined, and chopped my shrimp and got out my roasted red pepper sauce and the fettuccini.

Enter two hungry Hawthorne boys, so Mr. Hawthorne chopped the shrimp a bit finer so we'd have what would look like more to go around.

My ingredients for the sauce: shrimp roasted red pepper sauce

minced garlic parsley chives basil tomatoes from my garden sliced baby bellas And pretend there's some milk, cream, and Sherry.

I heated my pan, added butter and olive oil, and tossed in my shrooms, sauteeing until nicely browned. Rosie Tip #75: Do not salt your shrooms until after they've cooked. If you salt at the beginning, the salt brings out the moisture in the shrooms and they steam not brown.

I started my fettuccini in a big pot of salted, boiling water.

Next I poured the red pepper sauce in with the mushrooms.

Added a little milk.

And a little cream.

Don't forget the sherry.

Dang. I almost forgot the garlic. This is not a bad thing - to put the garlic in at the end. I wouldn't want to put the garlic in at the beginning. If the garlic goes in at the beginning with the butter and oil, there is a tendency to over cook the garlic, which renders it extremely bitter. And I like the tang of fresh garlic- an undertone which immediately bursts through the surface when you bite into it.

Finally I added in the shrimp to just heat through.

The sauce needed a bit of thickening to adhere to the pasta, so I made a beurre manie (equal parts of flour and butter kneaded together so the butter completely encases each grain of flour) added that, cooked a bit more. and my sauce thickened right up.

I plated the fettuccini, spooned on the sauce, grated some parmesan cheese, sprinkled fresh herbs over top, and added sliced cherry tomatoes.

Besides being a pretty and colorful dish , the flavors all popped. Oceany Shrimp? Check. Smoky Roasted Red Pepper? Check. Earthy Baby Portabella Mushroom? Check. Sweet, Alcoholic Sherry? Check. Piquant Parmesan cheese? Check. Fresh Green Herbaciousness? Check. Juicy Fresh-Out-Of-The-Garden Tomato? Check. And all that creamy goodness enveloped and delicately caressed the fettuccini. The flavors eventually settled in my mouth, and made my taste buds smile from ear to ear. It was a partay on my tongue.