Couchella: Shrimp and Zoodles

Now a lot of our weekend adventures are to make up for things we were going to do, but couldn't because of the pandemic.  This is a little bit of a stretch.  Yes, Thatboy and I had a bunch of concerts we were supposed to be attending that were cancelled, but going to a music festival wasn't really in the cards.  And hasn't been since we've had kids.  Nonetheless, we thought that hosting our own music festival in  the backyard would be a fun way to make the weekend special. 

So last weekend, I put together a playlist and we turned our backyard into a music oasis.  

The loungers were a big hit, but the unexpected favorite was the canopy tent.  Which was stocked with various types of sparkling water and coconut water.

First things first, we got into the festival mood by putting on metallic temporary tattoos and going a bit radical with our hair.

The playlist consisted of almost 10 hours of music - combinations of the boys' favorites along with bands we were supposed to see this summer.  Each band got a 10 song set and while we listened, we pulled out some of our lawn games.

And making some lawn art.

But for a lot of it, we ended up just chilling under the canopy.

For our food, I tried to go "uber Californian" and did some twists on the typical.  So for lunch, we had mushroom and green bean tacos.  "We" being the adults.  Because I knew my kids wouldn't go anywhere near mushrooms, they got cheese quesadillas, and jicama.

I also laid out a snack table with grapes, strawberry cereal squares, truffle potato chips, kettle corn, and five-cheese potato chips.

After nap we had some tie-dye popsicles that Thatbaby and I had made the day before. 

And then we made dream catchers.

After dinner I passed out the glowsticks and jewelry even though it wasn't dark, because kids don't care, and we had a dance party as Lady Gaga's set started.

Our dinner followed a similar trend to lunch, something typical with a twist.  Growing up our quintessential summer meal with shrimp with saffron rice.  My mom would make it in a pyrex (because this was before the days of sheet pan meals), drizzling the shrimp with garlic, wine, and olive oil and then pouring the whole thing over the rice.  So this comes from that, except subbing in zucchini noodles for saffron rice, because zucchini noodles seems like it's so much more the festival scene, no?  And because you don't REALLY need to cook the noodles ahead of time, you can throw them all together on the same pan.

Shrimp and Zoodles

1/2 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined

4 cloves garlic, sliced

2 Tbsp chardonnay

1 Tbsp lemon juice

24 oz zucchini noodles (I use the prepackaged/frozen - defrosted, drained, and then squeezed in a paper towel to remove excess moisture)

2 Tbsp olive oil, divided

4 oz feta cheese, crumbled

1. Heat oven to 475. Toss shrimp with garlic, chardonnay and lemon juice.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Set aside.
2. Toss the zucchini with 1 Tbsp olive oil, then season with salt and pepper to taste.  Place on a large baking sheet and cook for 6 minutes.
3.  Scatter the shrimp over the zucchini noodles and drizzle with the rest of the olive oil.  
4. Sprinkle with feta and cook for another 6 minutes.