On a Saturday.

I don't have a picture of the final product because I accidentally deleted it. Damn. I've posted a cute picture of Henry instead. He got very excited during cooking.

We went to Maymont Park on Saturday to run. We hadn't been before. Maybe people don't normally go to Maymont to run or work out. There were hundreds and hundreds of people there, but no one was exercising. There were tons of families and groups of friends walking around, having picnics, lounging on the grass... We dodged a lot of people as we ran- maybe it was just that it was Easter weekend, but it was sort of strange.

It's a huge city park and includes a nature center/zoo, Italian and Japanese gardens, a waterfall, mansions, a view of the river, lots of interesting little paths and nooks and crannies, trails through bamboo... and that's just what we could cover in the hour I had to spare since I had to work that day. On the outskirts of the park there seemed to be an Easter egg hunt. There was also an Arbor Day Festival where I watched tree maintenance guys up in a HUGE tree trimming branches and stuff. They had safety ropes on and were climbing all over the place. I couldn't walk away, I was enthralled with this job and honestly feel like I could put this on the list of career change interests.

After the park, we were, of course, starving. Scott said he wanted citrus something. I wanted shrimp something. Luckily these two things are easy to put together.

I made a marinade from the zest of a Navel orange and a lemon, the chopped up fruit and juice from each, about 2-3 tablespoons of evoo, a few good shakes of extra hot crushed red pepper, a large minced garlic clove, ground black pepper, and salt. I added about half a pound of shrimp and let it hang out on the counter soaking up the spicy citrus goodness for about a half hour while i got ready for work.

I roasted some asparagus simply with evoo, salt, and pepper. I made some whole wheat couscous then added chopped toasted walnuts, evoo, pepper, and shallot salt to the finished product. The shrimp cooked in no time- I threw the marinade and shrimp all in the pan and allowed them to cook in the juices. When the shrimp were done, I removed them and reduced the remaining marinade down until it was a saucy consistency. Spicy sweet sour goodness...

A nice pile of the couscous, a few asparagus spears balanced across, and the shrimp and sauce on top. It was pretty and if I knew how to work my camera by now, I could share.