Lemon - Thyme Shrimp

I wanted something a bit different for dinner last night, so I  wandered around in my daughter's Pinterest accounts.  I found a recipe in Carianne's that I liked but knew I had to fix to fit Clyde's and my tastes.  Here is what I came up with.  It is really good.
Lemon-Thyme Shrimp
1/3 cup olive oil
1 lemon zested, then halved
3-4 fresh thyme sprigs
Pasta, couscous or rice
2 Tablespoons butter
1 pound medium uncooked shrimp, deveined with the tails off


Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  In an 8x8 glass baking dish, combine the olive oil, lemon zest and thyme sprigs.  (The olive oil should generously cover the bottom of the dish).  Season with salt and pepper.  Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes, checking every few minutes.  If it looks like it is getting too brown, remove from the oven and proceed to the next step.  Meanwhile cook the rice, pasta or couscous.


The next step after you remove the pan of oil from the oven is to add the 2 Tablespoons of butter to the oil.  Mix it in well.  Add the shrimp and bake it for 6-8 minutes or until the shrimp turns pink and begins to curl.  Don't overcook.  


To serve, remove the shrimp from the oil and drizzle with the juice of 1/2 lemon. Serve with the starch of choice.  Clyde love it with couscous. 
So good!


Note:  I didn't add the extra butter to mine and didn't miss it.  I just gave this recipe to a friend and she used the leftover olive oil as a dipping sauce for French bread that she served with her meal.  Sounds heavenly.  What I eliminated from the original recipe Carianne had found was 5 cloves of garlic, finely minced in the oil. Clyde and I do not do well with garlic or onion so it just seemed prudent to eliminate that.  My friend added it to her oil and it burned - so she started over and eliminated it too.  I think if you were doing this that whole cloves of garlic would be the way to go. It also said to strip the stems of thyme of all of the leaves.  I didn't.