Spicy Scallop Stir-Fry

11/30/07
More leftover magic.

She Said:

This has been a weird week for us. "She" doesn't normally do the cooking but has been seen quite a bit in the kitchen this week.

I can't tell you the last time I cooked five dinners in a row. Suffice it to say that my 20-something kids were very young the last time it happened.

Tonight was supposed to be the traditional Friday night "Pizza, Wine & a Movie" night. But neither of us was hungry on the way home so we didn't pick up a pizza. In fact, we didn't get hungry until much later in the night. That's when I started scrounging around the kitchen.

I found a pound of frozen scallops in the freezer and thawed them in cold water. I found a box of brown rice pilaf mix in the pantry and got that going. I chopped up half an onion I found in the fridge, along with one carrot, one stalk of celery and two cloves of garlic - all on hand. "He" was in the kitchen by then, too, so he grated some fresh ginger root (when I say "fresh", I mean that it was in the freezer) on top of the veggies and set them aside. I mixed a sauce of:

2 T. dry sherry
1 T. soy sauce
1 T. dark sesame oil
1 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. Sriracha sauce (go buy this NOW if you don't have it in your house!!)

And I set the sauce aside.

I found a handful of frozen broccoli florets in the freezer and blanched that to get rid of the freezy crystals; then He heated up some oil in the wok. A blend (see? that blend thing is pervasive!) of olive oil and sesame oil (about 2-to-1) until it was smoking hot. He threw the veggies in (carrot, celery, onion and garlic first - broccoli at the very end, since it was already blanched) and started to stir-fry. They cooked for a few minutes. I tend to like my veggies on the soft side so I let them cook longer than most people would, I think.

Once the veggies were done, I threw in the scallops and let them cook. After about 3 minutes or so, I threw in the sauce and mixed it all up and let that cook for 6 or 7 minutes. The mixture was wetter than I normally like, but the brown rice pilaf was drier than a white sticky rice, so it balanced out.

Folks, this was a good meal. Healthy, delicious, fast, and it used up a lot of leftovers! Perfect!!

I actually sort of liked this week of cooking. I didn't do any heavy-duty stuff, but it was fun to flex my cooking muscles again. And it was also nice to get a few "free" meals out of things we already had in the house! I have no problem if I accidentally save a buck here or there!

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He Said:

What a week we had! I was super busy and She ended up doing all of the cooking, a chore I'm sure she just loved. Right. Well, last night, after announcing that there was nothing to eat in the house, She came up with, incredibly, a scallop stir fry. What the....?? It's a mighty big leap from "nothing to eat" to a full blown scallop stir fry but, seriously, who am I to complain?

Turns out, this was a mighty tasty meal complete with scallops (my favorite!), nice soft veggies and some rice pilaf. Yumm! I added a few (read: a bunch) of dashes of soy sauce and it was a meal fit for a king. Ok, maybe a duke. The only downside to this meal was the aforementioned soy sauce. It's really got me drinking a lot of water. No, I mean A Lot. I can't seem to get un-thirsty and since I have a bladder the size of an Altoid, I'm enjoying way too much bathroom-time.

So my recommendation here is, try the recipe. It's ding-dang delicious. But maybe hold back a little on the soy sauce. Just sayin'.