Cottage Dinner with Seafood

My apologies, i've been super busy doing a summer stats class, so i have been cooking and photographing, but i just haven't really been posting. I'm going to put up a couple with minimal text and will try and write a few entries as soon as i have a minute to breathe!

Grilled some veggies and ended up blending them for a roasted veggie dip which was nothing special.

Got this shrimp recipe out of the Sunday NY Times and it is amazing. You make a sauce out of butter and Sarachi, and boil the shrimp - shells on - then toss them with the sauce and some diced jalepeno and corriander. Kinda like my popcorn guilty pleasure.

Scallops in a white wine, butter and garlic sauce

Potatoes that i boiled then tossed in a shallot butter.

Seafood Poached Eggs with Sweet Potaot Rostis

This was a kinda slapped together meal that turned out quite well. There were a couple of influences behind this meal - one was that i had some left over cooked scallops from the ...... of saturday night and i wanted to use them up. Earlier last week i bought some of that fake crab that is really Pollock - i think its a pretty good snack as its low in cals and has protein, so i often snack on it. I thought i would combine the two for either a seafood salad thing or something else.

When i was preparing the meal i remembered a lobster poached eggs dish i had in New York, and thought maybe i could do something along those lines. I thought instead of an english muffins (and mainly because i didn't have one) I would make the sweet potato rosti that i did for my New Years Day Brunch. Who can deny shredded and pan fried sweet potatoes????

I thought i would keep two elements sort of traditional, and i wilted some spinach, but added shallots and garlic. I also poached the egg - i used the silicone ones, since i was preparing so many elements at the same time and didn't need to be stressing about poaching eggs - but they do give them a very uniformed shape.

When contemplating a sauce i realized that i already had a whole lot going on in the dish as i had mixed the chopped scallops and "crab" with green onions, dijon, lemon juice and a little may to help bind it. This along with the sweet potatoes, spinach and the yolk of the egg would be enough, so i left it plain. I think i made the right choice.

Above:

Sunday Brunch
Shredded Sweet Potatoes
Ingredients

Scallops with Rapini and Asparagus

I really like scallops, but i actually don't cook with them often, for some reason i'm a little intimidated by them. A few weeks before i had bought some quality frozen ones, and in order to force myself to use them i put them out saturday morning in the sink before i went out to run errands. These were a little pricey so there was no way i would have wasted them. Sometimes you've got to trick yourself.

I'm sure you have noticed that i really haven't been cooking lately, i have only myself to blame, and i really haven't been doing anything in particular, so lets call it April blahs. I've been a little more of a homebody the last few days as i've been watching the second round of the NBA playoffs, hence more cooking. I also am planning an upcoming Mother's Day Brunch which i'm pretty excited about.

When i finally got home after helping my friend Melanie moving saturday evening, i still didn't have a real plan for the scallops - i was hoping seeing them thawed would somehow trigger a recipe.... It didn't.

I ended up just tossing them in some olive oil, lemon juice and salt and pepper and sauteeing them. I was going to add saffron, but i couldn't find mine, and i had decided it might be too delicate with the Rapini which is quite a bitter and powerful flavour. I also had to cook them quickly because the lemon juice was starting to cook the raw scallops.

For the rapini sauteed some shallots and garlic in butter and olive oil, once they were turning brown i added some lemon zest and quickly tossed it, adding the Rapini to soften. While it was wilting i added some sake - i didn't have any white or vermouth, and a little bit of lemon juice to finish it.

The asparagus i just tossed in olive oil and baked, topping it with Parmesan. And i actually was able to make the rice without burning it or any other tragedy. (it was basmati)

When i was putting all together i realized that the scallops really needed some sort of sauce. I was about to make a yogurt sauce when i realized that the yogurt i had was vanilla, not plain - which would have made for nasty sauce. So instead i ended up mixing mayo, whole grain dijon, olive oil and lemon juice for the sauce.

Above:

Scallops
Wilting the rapini
Rapini ingredients
The meal
Ingredients
Asparagus ready for the oven