Day Thirty-Three

She Said:

We're both on vacation for a few days, so dinner was a little fancier last night. We did manage to include another recipe from Serving Up the Harvest by Andrea Chesman that counts toward our own Julie/Julia Project, but there was more!

We started out with a very yummy cocktail (or two!). This recipe (and the next) come from Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics cookbook.

Pomegranate Cosmopolitans

2 cups good vodka, such as Grey Goose or Finlandia (we had Absolut on hand and that's good enough, I think)
1 cup Cointreau (we only had a ½ cup so we also used a ½ cup of Grand Marnier - poor us!)
1 cup cranberry juice cocktail, such as Ocean Spray (interestingly, we only had pure cranberry juice, so that's what we used)
½ cup Pom Wonderful bottled pomegranate juice (yes, we had this and that's what we used)
½ cup freshly squeezed lime juice (4 limes)
Thinly sliced limes, for garnish

Combine the vodka, Cointreau, cranberry juice, pomegranate juice, and lime juice in a large pitcher. Fill a cocktail shaker half full with ice, pour the cocktail mixture in, and shake for a full 30 seconds. Pour into martini glasses, garnish with a slice of lime, and serve immediately.

These were so good. I love the addition of pomegranate juice to the cosmo. Nice sweet difference! The fresh lime juice is key, too. We sat down and relaxed with our first one and then, feeling it a little already, we decided to make dinner. However, we needed room temperature butter, which we didn't have, so I took out a stick and, since it was almost 90℉ outside (and, logically then inside as well since the air conditioner wasn't on), figured it would soften up soon enough. So we had another cocktail! And we were still fine to cook later on.

Here's what we cooked.

Bay Scallop Gratins

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 large garlic cloves, minced
1 medium shallot, minced
1 ounce thinly sliced prosciutto di Parma, minced (we actually found this - I was very pleased)
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley, plus extra for garnish
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tablespoon Pernod (we didn't have Pernod, so we used a ½ tablespoon of Sambuca and a ½ tablespoon of water)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons good olive oil
¼ cup panko (Japanese dried bread flakes)
3 tablespoons dry white wine
1 pound fresh bay scallops
Lemon, for garnish

Preheat the oven to 425℉. Place 3 (6-inch round) gratin dishes on a sheet pan. (We had JUST bought four gratin dishes at Crate and Barrel that same day - yay!)
To make the topping, place the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (you can also use a hand mixer). With the mixer on low speed, add the garlic, shallot, prosciutto, parsley, lemon juice, Pernod, salt, and pepper and mix until combined. With the mixer still on low, add the olive oil slowly as though making mayonnaise, until combined. Fold the panko in with a rubber spatula and set aside.
Preheat the broiler, if it's separate from your oven.
Place 1 tablespoon of the wine in the bottom of each gratin dish. With a small sharp knife, remove the white muscle and membrane from the side of each scallop and discard. Pat the scallops dry with paper towels and distribute them among the 3 dishes. Spoon the garlic butter evenly over the top of the scallops. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until the topping is golden and sizzling and the scallops are barely done. If you want the top crustier, place the dishes under the broiler for 2 minutes, until browned. Finish with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and a sprinkling of chopped parsley and serve immediately with crusty French bread.

We actually found small French rolls and had two each with this meal. I think you have to have the bread to soak up the sauce. It's quite a sophisticated flavor, in my opinion. Quite delicious, but not something I would want every day. I think my palate is simpler than that. But this was really delicious!

And to give us our veggies, here's what we made on the side from Serving Up the Harvest.

Sauteéd Spinach with Garlic and Pine Nuts

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
¼ cup pine nuts
1½-2 pounds spinach, tough stems removed and large leaves chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Heat the olive oil over medium-high heat in a large wok or Dutch oven. Add the garlic and pine nuts and sauté until the garlic begins to smell fragrant and color, about 1 minute.

2. Add the spinach, cover, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the spinach is wilted, about 3 minutes. Uncover, season with the salt and pepper to taste, stir well, and continue to cook until the liquid evaporates, 2 to 3 minutes. Serve hot.

OK, we purchased our spinach and it's already prewashed so we didn't have to wash it. One of the things that is mentioned in the notes of this recipe is that "the water clinging to the leaves of the freshly washed spinach is all the liquid necessary." That's crucial. We didn't see that note right away and didn't know how this spinach was going to wilt. So once we saw the note, we threw in a little water and all was right with the world.

I really like the spinach prepared this way, but I am a really big fan of garlic and pine nuts, so it really couldn't lose!

Day 33/365:Recipe 23/175

Scallop Stir-Fry, Take 2

She Said:

Hey - long time, no see! Well, we have been very busy over the last few months but now things are finally starting to settle down a bit.

This is about a meal that we made last night. Our priorities have shifted since the economic woes of this country made us stop to think about our wild and crazy spending habits. So now, we are stretching that food dollar just as far as it can go! This is difficult to do when entertaining, which we did for the last two weekends, but it netted us some nifty little leftover situations. Last night's dinner was pretty much the end of the leftovers but I think it may have been the best meal we've made in a long time.

Last weekend, I went to the store and bought a pound of petite sea scallops, which were on sale. I popped them in the freezer until yesterday. Then I started to scrounge around for stir-fry ingredients and found a huge number of veggies to use. Here's how it all ended up.

Scallop Stir-Fry

1 cup uncooked brown rice
1 lb. petite sea or bay scallops
1 medium onion, sliced
2 Italian frying peppers, seeded (from our garden!)
1 small red bell pepper, seeded (from our garden!)
1 small broccoli crown
2 stalks celery
10 baby carrots
1 pint yellow wax beans, parboiled (from our garden!)
2 cloves of garlic, sliced
2 tablespoons sesame seeds
2 tablespoons dry sherry
1 tablespoon low-sodium tamari (soy sauce)
1 teaspoon corn starch
Fresh ginger
Canola oil
Sesame oil

Cook the brown rice according to package directions. That usually takes 45 minutes or so, so you have some time to do the rest of the prep work.

Chop up the peppers, broccoli, celery and carrots into the size you prefer. I usually go for smallish bite-size. Throw all of the chopped up veggies into a bowl and grate a couple of teaspoons of fresh ginger onto the top. Set aside.

Rinse the scallops and pat them dry. Grate about a teaspoon of fresh ginger over the top of the scallops. Heat a couple of tablespoons of canola oil and about two teaspoons of sesame oil in a large wok over high heat. When the oil is hot, add the scallops and cook them for about three or four minutes, stirring constantly. When the scallops are cooked, remove them from the wok and set aside.

Add more oil, if necessary. Add the garlic to the wok and cook until golden. Add the vegetables to the wok and cook, stirring constantly, until the veggies are as tender as you want them. I like them soft so I let them go for a while. Add the scallops back in and mix well until scallops are heated through.

In a small bowl, combine the sherry, tamari, and cornstarch. Add to the wok and mix well. Toast the sesame seeds in a dry pan until golden.

Serve over rice, sprinked with the toasted sesame seeds, and enjoy! We sure did!

P.S. I would have thrown some mushrooms into this mix but ours were past their prime, to put it lightly. Ew!

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He Said:

There are certain words that just get my culinary juices excited.  "Scallops" and "Stir-Fry" are most definitely right up there at the top of that list.  So when She said "Hey, would you be interested in a scallop stir-fry tonight?" my heart (ok, my belly) just went all a-flutter.  

This is such a great meal.  It's easy and, dare I say, fun to make (lots of action, noise and smells).  And best of all, it is so ding-dang delicious!   In my opinion, this is a great weekday, after work meal that you can whip up in almost no time.  Plus, have I mentioned the leftovers?  Mmmmm......leftovers..........

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'.