Maddening, Soothing Shrimp Pasta

Over the past couple of weeks I've plugged away at my Pioneer Woman recipes and tried a few more.  I must say they are quite good.  I can see why she is pretty much a millionaire now.  

The first was Penne alla Betsy--named for her sister's famous shrimp pasta dish.   I made this on a Friday night after our home school co-op group.  We needed some cozy comfort food as we settled in for a rainy weekend and this fit the bill.  Penne alla Betsy calls for a pound of uncooked shrimp with tails on, etc.  I've no idea why those tails were so important because we had to remove them--almost immediately.  And furthermore, she asks us to cook the shrimp!  Next time I would most definitely buy the already cooked shrimp and shave a whole buncha time off of the prep. I don't want to know how much of the deveining they miss either.   But Pioneer Woman likes to do things the hard way for some reason.   Since I'm trying to follow her recipes the way she intended, I bought the raw and spent a good portion of my life peeling and deveining.    If you are impatient this is probably not the job for you--it is tedious work.  If you are easily grossed out, this is definitely not the job for you.  The good news is that if you are the type of person who finds peeling sunburns (or other such mom things) therapeutic, than it's not so bad--maybe even soothing.

The rest of the dish called for garlic, onions, butter, tomato sauce, cream and of course, penne pasta with a handful of parsley and a bit of basil tossed in.  The final product was just what I was hoping.   It was creamy, savory and satisfying.  I give it 5 out of 5 stars--especially if you cut down on the shrimp hassle.  I would definitely make it again.  Served up with garlic bread and a nice salad, it could pass for a fancy-shmancy meal and a nice change from more cliche' pasta dishes.