Ginger-Lime Grilled Shrimp

It was my birthday this week and we were just coming off of FIVE. DAYS. STRAIGHT. at the ball park. Needless to say, no one offered to take me out to dinner. And had he offered, I probably would have said, "No, thank you." What we needed was a family dinner at home followed be a quiet evening of contented ordinary-ness.

I wasn't feeling like the menu should be ordinary, however. After all, this is my last birthday meal in my 30's... I've been really hankering to prepare shrimp at home ever since our trip to South Carolina/Georgia. I'd like to do a proper shrimp boil, but for some reason, that didn't seem exactly what I wanted on that day. I looked at some recipes for grilled shrimp and those seemed closer to my desires, but not quite. I decided to make my own recipe.

While I say I've always been creative in my cooking, others might say I've always been sloppy in my cooking. I offer the following scenarios and you can be the judge: I often don't plan far enough ahead to check the ingredient list against my pantry, so I do a lot of substituting of ingredients. If a recipe doesn't seem large enough for my family of five or I want to stretch the dish to two meals, I'll increase it, not by double, but just by some vague ammount. Also, I just don't measure.

But for this momentous day, I attempted to truly create a marinade for my shrimp, and keep precise track of what I did so that I could recreate it if it turned out well and pass it on to you. I prepared half of our shrimp with this recipe and the other half with the vinegar/Old Bay seasoning. I'm so proud to tell you that it was my recipe we all preferred. Here it is:

DB's Ginger-Lime Grilled Shrimp

1-1/2 lbs. shrimp, uncooked
1/2 c. lime juice
1/4 c. honey
2 T fresh grated ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced

I mixed all but the first ingredient in a medium bowl until blended. To this, I added the shrimp, covered the dish and put it in the fridge to marinate for about 45 minutes. I left it to Michael to grill it. We'd never grilled shrimp before, so he did some research on the internet before firing up the grill. He determined that they should be grilled over medium heat for 3-5 minutes. We know that overcooked shrimp looks and tastes like your grammar school "Pink Pet" eraser, so we were cautious about that. The result was perfectly done shrimp that was sweet and spicy. Michael said that, but for the lack of some curry, it reminded him of Caribbean food he'd learned to love on several work trips to Barbados.

I will definitely prepare this dish again.... if there are any shrimp left to be had once BP gets its shit together...

... and if we can afford it.