One skillet shrimp, tomato & garbanzo beans dinner

There is a bit of a story to this simple meal. You see, last night I came home with the full intention of going to a spinning class at the gym and then making a quick dinner of tomatoes, garbanzo beans and shrimp: ingredients I had in my cupboard and freezer. Unfortunately, I felt light-headed and was afraid of passing out at the spinning class. So instead, I made this meal and then went to the gym.

There is no exact recipe for this dish. I simply chopped some onions, sauteed them in oil, then added a bit of Spanish paprika. In went a large can of tomatoes and its juices, a drained can of garbanzo beans and a few large spoons of canned jalapeno peppers.

After all of the ingredients had some time to hang out in the skillet and get to know each other, I added a few dollops of cream cheese to make the sauce creamier and to take the edge off the heat that jalapenos brought with them. I then nestled defrosted shrimp into the tomato/beans sauce and let them simmer till they were heated through. Be careful not to overcook your shrimp.

This is such a perfect one pan/skillet meal. You can have it for lunch or dinner. You can have it by itself or serve it with French bread or over some rice, pasta or even potatoes. I added some fresh arugula on top.

See, healthy and filling meals don't have to start with a recipe from a cookbook and don't need to take an hour worth of chopping, stirring and a zillion steps. No, they can be simply prepared from just a few ingredients, flavorful and satisfying.

In other happy little news: I now own www.mangotomato.com domain! So you no longer have to type blogspot in the address. I feel so grown up now.

Question: what are your quick and easy no-recipe weeknight meals?