I love to BBQ. Up until last year when we moved into our condo with a small balcony, I was a gas grill gal. However, space is at a premium here and I made the decision to switch to a Webber charcoal grill. Amazing how circumstances can often force a decision that ends up being the absolute best course to follow. Cooking with charcoal is amazing. I wish I would have made this change years ago.

On Wednesday of this week I went to the local farmer’s market and purchased organic basil and spinach. Tonight while trying to decide what to pair with the london broil I was going to bbq, I had a thought. Shrimp and greens. Specifically, bbq’d shrimp and greens.

Several years back I purchased a handy dandy bbq roaster pan for my gas grill. I’ve used this to make kabobs without the actual kabob skewers. And it’s an excellent way to roast veggies over the flame/briquets. Tonight I used it to “saute” greens and shrimp over the charcoal.

I had on hand the deliciously fresh spinach, a few small bunches of basil, and a good amount of fresh parsley. After removing the stems and washing everything, I quickly ran them through my food processor – just enough to break them into smaller pieces. A few pulses was all it took.

These were then tossed with a few tablespoons of olive oil, the juice from 1/2 lemon, and a sprinkling of pink himalayan salt If you’ve never tried this salt you are truly missing out. It’s flat-out amazing. Next on my shopping list is a himalayan salt block. We purchased one of these for my father for Christmas and he loves it – uses it constantly.

After a quick thaw under cold water, I peeled the raw shrimp and tossed them with the greens before dumping the entire mess into my bbq roaster pan and set it on the grill with the lid on. This took 5-7 minutes to cook (my coals were cooled off a bit by this point) with a quick stir every few minutes so the shrimp could cook evenly.

Once the shrimp was just done, I served it. Delicious. The faint smoky aroma of the bbq came through and combined with the greens created quite the taste symphony. The shrimp was quite mellow and not as “shrimpy” as it’s capable of being. All in all, a pretty tasty experiment and one I’ll definitely repeat in the future. The perfect accompaniment to the london broil and baked potato. Yum.

If you’re going to make this, there really is no master recipe to follow. Use greens/herbs as desired and toss with oil/lemon/salt enough to provide some flavor without drowning everything in an oil slick. This would be great even without the shrimp and would likely be fabulous with scallops (I’m allergic to these so I’m just taking a wild guess) as well.

Enjoy!