Bright, fast, and endlessly customizable — plump shrimp seared in garlic and citrus, piled over fluffy jasmine rice with avocado, crisp slaw, and a cool lime drizzle. Built as separate components, it's the smartest kind of weeknight dinner: assemble ten bowls to order, exactly the way each guest likes them.
Featured Recipe
Citrus-Garlic Shrimp Rice Bowls — Serves 10
Large shrimp marinated in garlic, lime, and smoked paprika, seared just until sweet and tender, then layered over jasmine rice with avocado, edamame, slaw, and a lime-sriracha yogurt drizzle.
Mise en Place — Ingredients
Between morning trains to Manhattan, after-school carpools, and the standing tennis match at the club, the dinner hour is where good intentions quietly unravel. Weekly meal prep restores it. With a thoughtful plan in place, your refrigerator becomes a private pantry of ready, restaurant-caliber meals — portioned, balanced, and built around how your household actually eats. No 6 p.m. scramble, no repetitive takeout, no compromise on quality. Just nourishing food on demand, the rhythm of your week made calmer, and the reassuring knowledge that what your family eats is fresh, intentional, and genuinely good for them.
To live in Fairfield County is to live by the water. From the marinas of Stamford Harbor to the scattered Norwalk Islands and the quiet coves of Westport and Southport, the Long Island Sound has shaped how this county gathers, celebrates, and eats. For generations, summer here has meant boats slipping out at dawn, docks stacked with the day's catch, and long tables set within sight of the shimmering water. That maritime rhythm bred a genuine reverence for seafood at its freshest — a regional instinct to let a perfect shrimp or just-shucked oyster speak for itself, dressed simply and served bright. Even today, the county's most discerning hosts plan their warm-weather menus around the Sound, and the local fish markets remain neighborhood institutions. There is a clean, sunlit confidence to coastal Connecticut cooking. This week's bowl carries every bit of it.
Begin the rice first so it can cook while you work. Rinse 3 cups of jasmine rice until the water runs clear, then cook it to fluffy, separate grains and keep it covered and warm. Meanwhile, make the marinade: whisk 8 cloves of minced garlic with the juice and zest of three limes, the juice of two lemons, ⅓ cup of good olive oil, smoked paprika, cumin, a pinch of chili flakes, and a tablespoon of honey to round the edges. Toss 4 pounds of peeled, deveined large shrimp in the marinade and let them sit just 15 to 20 minutes — any longer and the citrus begins to "cook" them.
Sear the shrimp in a screaming-hot pan in a single layer, working in batches so they char rather than steam — about two minutes per side, until they curl, turn coral-pink, and smell of toasted garlic. Pull them the instant they're opaque; carryover heat finishes the job and keeps them sweet and snappy rather than rubbery. Now build: a bed of warm jasmine rice, a generous portion of shrimp, fanned avocado, bright edamame, crunchy cabbage-and-carrot slaw, and cool cucumber. Finish each bowl with scallions, a shower of cilantro, toasted sesame seeds, and a confident zigzag of the lime-sriracha yogurt drizzle. Ten bowls, each one vivid, balanced, and built to taste.
With seafood, freshness is everything, so the shrimp is non-negotiable: I source plump, never-frozen 16/20 shrimp from Fjord Fish Market in Fairfield, whose premium counter is exactly where a coastal-Connecticut bowl like this should begin. The supporting cast comes from Stew Leonard's in Norwalk — ripe avocados, limes and lemons, crisp cucumbers, edamame, and the cabbage and carrots for the slaw, all farm-fresh. A quick stop at the local Fairfield County farmers markets rounds things out with fragrant cilantro and scallions at their peak. Good jasmine rice and a bottle of sriracha from the pantry, and you're ready.
Bowls reward a tidy station. Prep every component into its own vessel and assembly becomes a quick, joyful finish.
A fine-mesh strainer for rinsing rice, a lidded saucepan, a large stainless or cast-iron skillet for a proper sear, tongs, a microplane for citrus zest, and small prep bowls to hold each topping.
Use wide, shallow bowls. Spoon rice to one side, nestle the shrimp at center, and arrange each topping in its own neat quadrant so the bowl reads composed and colorful, never tossed together.
Chopsticks alongside a fork and a deep spoon, linen napkins, and a finishing flourish: lime wedges, torn cilantro, sliced scallions, toasted sesame seeds, and the drizzle bottle set on the table to pass.
For a Fairfield County household, this means your home becomes the best table in town. I build menus around your preferences and your family's tastes first — then source the local ingredients, provision the kitchen, handle every step of prep, execute dinner, and leave the counters spotless. Unlike a catering company arriving with trays of someone else's standard menu, a private chef cooks for you, in your kitchen, to your exact wishes.
The deeper payoff is the week itself made simpler. Healthy, balanced meals appear without the planning, shopping, or cleanup — hours handed back to you for work, family, and rest. Weekly meal prep turns good eating from a daily decision into a quiet, dependable rhythm, so wellness becomes the path of least resistance rather than another thing on the list.
No menus to plan, no dishes to clear — just exceptional food and the people you love. Chef Robert brings healthy weekly meal prep, dinner parties, wedding and engagement dinners, holiday events, family gatherings, and corporate entertaining to your table, crafted entirely around you.
Reserve Your Date — Contact Chef Robert TodayWeekly-Meal-Prep.com | Robert@RobertLGorman.com | 602-370-5255