Island Time Shrimp and Salad

Ahhhh island time. It’s definitely something this high-strung girl can get used to. . . after a day or so! Our trip to Sanibel Island was schedule-free with just the way felt to guide us. One day we spent hours and hours on the beach, forgetting it was dinner time until we wandered back to the condo after 7:00. We ate some great meals out in Sanibel and Captiva, and as always, I found one I wanted to bring home with me.

Our first day back was busy; my husband had a work crisis, and I had to wrap up a report for a client. To keep us just a little bit on island time, I recreated a dish we had at Doc Ford’s Rum Bar & Grille, putting a healthier twist on it to help us ease back into real life.

Doc Ford’s Yucatan shrimp appetizer combines steamed shrimp with butter, lime juice, cilantro, and chili peppers for a spicy, tangy treat that is good to the very last drop of sauce.

I know that the Doc Ford’s version contained a LOT of butter (which is why it was better than my version), so when I went to make the dish, I used about 1/4 stick of butter and 1/4 cup of Chile olive oil from the Olives reopening event.

To get started, I boiled about 20 medium shrimp, knowing we would have some leftover for my husband’s lunch the next day. While the shrimp were boiling, I chopped the chili peppers and cilantro and juiced the lime. I quickly melted the butter with the chilis. When the shrimp were done, I tossed them in, shells and all, and mixed in the cilantro and lime juice.

I prepared simple beds of arugula and grape and sungold tomatoes and topped the salads with the shrimp.

Dinner took less than 20 minutes to whip up; the peel and eat aspect of the shrimp really makes it speedy. If I was making this as a pasta dish or something else where I wanted the shrimp to be coated in the sauce, I would definitely peel them. The flavors were very similar to the shrimp we had at Doc Ford’s, and it made for a healthy, filling dinner and lunch.