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St. George • Shawn Syphus skewered shrimp and sliced zucchini as she prepared dinner for her family.

She poured apple cider on the zucchini in a bowl and placed the shrimp on her barbecue outside. She grated Parmesan cheese atop the zucchini.

Syphus was preparing grilled pancetta-wrapped shrimp with zucchini ribbon salad, one of 80 recipes in her new cookbook, "Express Lane Cooking" (Page Street Publishing Co., $19.99). The 192-page, large-format full-color cookbook features "quick-shop" dinner recipes that use five or fewer ingredients.

"My goal is that you'll become more confident in the kitchen and be able to look at the ingredients you have on hand and make something amazing with them," Syphus writes in the introduction.

The publishing company, based in Salem, Mass., approached Syphus because its staff were "big fans" of her food blog, "I Wash … You Dry" (http://www.Iwashyoudry.com), publicist Martin Sanchez said in an email.

"Express Lane Cooking" took a year and two months from start to publication and features all-new recipes, said Syphus, 31, who began blogging about five years ago.

Publication over the summer came two months after Syphus achieved another milestone. Sunny Anderson, co-host of "The Kitchen" on the Food Network, picked Syphus' recipe for honey Dijon grilled chicken as her favorite recipe for "Grilling for Heroes" in a contest sponsored by the Propane Education & Research Council in Washington, D.C. The TV food host also selected Syphus' account of military service in her family.

Anderson, an Air Force veteran who wrote the foreword for the downloadable book, selected Syphus' recipe because it had the best "taste, creativity/originality and ease of preparation," propane council publicist Laura Hirschman said in an email.

Contest officials received hundreds of submissions this past summer on GrillingforHeroes.com. The cookbook, which benefits Hope For The Warriors, features recipes from Syphus and 49 others along with their military accounts, and contains tips for safe grilling.

Syphus, a native of Anaheim, Calif., who grew up in a Phoenix suburb, had no formal culinary training, not even a home economics class. She worked for about a year and a half as a server at a chain restaurant in the Phoenix suburb of Surprise about six years ago.

"I'm self-taught," she said. "I started making a lot of recipes. And I have lots of friends and family."

Friends and family inspired Syphus, a stay-at-home mom to four children ranging in age from 4 to 11, to start her blog. She said inspiration for recipes comes from restaurants, cookbooks, magazines and other blogs. She focuses her blog on "the quick and easy" and illustrates it with photos of each food item she has created for breakfast, lunch, dinner or dessert.

Syphus acknowledged testing the recipes on her family members before posting them on her blog.

She was "not always good" at cooking, said Chris Syphus, her husband of 11 years.

"Just her desire to be a good cook changed things," said Chris Syphus, who grew up in St. George. "It is something that is a passion of Shawn, not only making the food but sharing the recipes." —

Grilled pancetta-wrapped shrimp with a zucchini ribbon salad

24 medium shrimp, peeled and deveined

3 tablespoons olive oil, divided

½ teaspoon black pepper, divided

6 pieces pancetta-style bacon, cut into 24 thin strips*

2 large zucchini

2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar

¼ teaspoon salt

½ cup Parmesan cheese, shredded

1 package Uncle Ben's Bistro Express Tomato & Herb Risotto, prepared

Wooden skewers for grilling (optional)

If you're going to use wooden skewers, be sure to soak them in water for at least 20 minutes before grilling.

Toss the shrimp in 1 tablespoon olive oil to coat, and then season with ¼ teaspoon black pepper. Wrap each shrimp with a strip of pancetta-style bacon and then thread onto the skewers. Grill the shrimp for 5 to 7 minutes, turning halfway, until it's cooked through and the pancetta has crisped slightly.

Meanwhile, make the zucchini ribbon salad. Hold the zucchini in one hand and the vegetable peeler in the other. Make long, even strokes going down the length of the zucchini to create thin and wide ribbons. Keep slicing until you reach the seeds, then rotate the zucchini and continue making more slices until you reach the seeds.

Place the zucchini strips in a bowl, and prepare the quick vinaigrette by whisking together 2 tablespoons olive oil, the apple cider vinegar, salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper. Drizzle the dressing over the zucchini ribbons and toss to coat. Sprinkle the Parmesan cheese over the top. Serve the grilled shrimp skewers with the prepared risotto and cool zucchini ribbon salad.

Makes • 4 servings

* Instead of pancetta, try wrapping the shrimp in thin-cut bacon.

Source: "Express Lane Cooking" by Shawn Syphus