Seared Alaskan Scallops with Seashell Pasta

I'd had a bag of jumbo Alaskan sea scallops sitting in my freezer for about a week (thank you, Costco). I'd just not yet had the chance to make them. Yesterday left me starving by evening, because I'd eaten my new favorite breakfast of pineapple cottage cheese, sliced apple banana, handful of blueberries, plain yogurt, and quaker oats granola. It beats the Jamba Juice Acai Bowl as far as ingredient quality and taste are concerned. I love it to snack on, too. Anyway, I had just the bowl and one piece of fried chicken snuck ravenously from Safeway around noon. In between, I'd had a 3-hour business meeting, run errands, went shopping, and went to my turbo kickboxing class. It was 8 p.m. and my Guy wasn't going to be home until 9 or 9:30.

Great! Time to make myself even more starving by wafting delicous cooking smells all over myself! I took two very well-reviewed recipes for scallops and edited them a little to my liking. What turned out was surprsingly simple to make, and dare I say restaurant quality. The pasta was my first experience concocting a non-tomato-sauce-based pasta, ever. My mother always, always made pasta as "spaghetti," and it always, always, involved stretching a store-brought can of tomato sauce with her own ingredients. Never had I known that you could make tomato sauce from scratch with ease, and never had I known that you could eat pasta with something other than marinara! My first attempt turned out so well I ate it for breakfast this morning :)

This meal is very impressive and deceptively easy to make. Try it!

Seared Alaskan Scallops
Deceptively delicious for something so easy to make

8 jumbo alaskan sea scallops, thawed
3 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons lemon juice
garlic salt

1. Preheat oven broiler. melt butter and mix with lemon juice. Drench scallops in mixture.
   
2. Place in shallow baking dish. Sprinkle liberally with garlic salt. Broil for 7 minutes or so. Do not overcook! Scallops become rubbery and unappetizing when overcooked!
3. 

Seashell Pasta

1/2 box Barilla Medium Shells (or pasta of your choice)
olive oil
1 or 2 onions, chopped (I used a jumbo costco-sized onion that must've been 3 lbs by itself)
4 mushrooms, sliced
8 cloves garlic, minced fine
1 tomato, diced
1 teaspoon Parsley flakes
Black pepper and/or cayenne pepper to taste
grated parmesan cheese (Optional)

1. Boil a big pot of water. When it comes to a rolling boil, add seashells and a dash of olive oil and some salt, if desired. Stir occassionally to prevent sticking. When almost done, drain in colander.
2. Meanwhile, heat enough olive oil to cover the bottom of your widest pan. Remember that this will be the sauce for the pasta, for use more oil than usual. Fry onions on medium until translucent. Add mushrooms and garlic.
3. Turn off heat and stir in tomatoes, parsley flakes, and pepper. Stir in seashells. Top with parmesan.
   

Accompanying Salad

organic spring greens
sundried tomatoes
italian herb dressing

tear greens, finely dice sundried tomato, and toss all in a large bowl with a drizzle of dressing.

Mole Chili Portuguese Bean Soup Conglomeration

My first ever attempt to make chili from scratch wasn't very guided. I made it on the principles of spaghetti sauce, soup, and Indian food, coupled with all the lore I'd heard from the frequent chili cookoff contests in the media. I get the idea that chili elitists hate beans, and use only meat. Then there's the meatless vegetarian chili enthusiasts. I hear the latest chili contest winner made pumpkin chili, which sounds like something up my alley. Another cook swears by chocolate as the secret ingredient. Many believe you need to let the chili "rest" for a day or two in the fridge for perfect flavor. I made a combination of all these floating ideas through a very complex process spanning several days. It began with a trip to the store to get all the vegetables on sale. I used:

A whole head of garlic (10 cloves?)
1 yellow onion
2 ears fresh corn kernels
2 packets mushrooms (shiitake and that flatter flowery one...?)
cilantro (5 stems)
1 carrot
1 bag (about 4 cups?) dried kidney beans, soaked overnight
297yen worth of lean ground beef (maybe a cup?)
1 can crushed tomatoes
1 can whole stewed tomatoes
1 can Japanese spaghetti sauce base

I believe I added these spices at various intervals throughout the cooking process:
3 cubes bullion (chicken and beef)
2 cups chicken soup (from yesterday)
4 cups water
4+ tablespoon salt
4+ tablespoon maple syrup
1/2 cup (maybe more?) sugar
2 t. cumin
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (it scared me at first because it made the whole place smell like dessert)
whole red hot chili pepper
1 teaspoon red chili powder
2 teaspoon paprika

At least a teaspoon each of:
cinnamon
coriander
nutmeg
clove
allspice
parsley
black pepper
white pepper
tumeric

I honestly probably don't remember everything I put in the pot. My basic method:

1. sweat minced garlic in olive oil on lowest flame. Add diced onions. Add lots of cumin, paprika, less coriander, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, clove. Add meat. Brown meat on medium heat. Add tomato products. Add sugar. Cut carrots into small pieces, add. Add quartered mushrooms. Add beans. Add everything else, tasting as you go. Next time I will probably use a more even meat to bean ratio. It's harder to make things tasty when you have SO many beans and not so much meat, especially since chili kind of lacks the strong spice base of Indian food...I didn't want my chili to taste Indian. Still pretty tasty, but I did have to keep adding salty seasonings at the end like bullion and salt. I didn't know I would end up with so many beans! Add cilantro near the end.
   

Serve over white rice with plenty of grated cheese.


To concentrate the flavor, next time I will not add as much water or broth. I will use more tomato product, and also real tomatoes. as well as cannned corn, which I believe is sweeter than fresh corn, which really is best eaten as buttery corn on the cob. I might not add the chocolate in as great a quantity. I will use more onion if I'm going to make so much. Perhaps some bacon. Cooking is still a big experiment, and I need experience. I'm glad it came out tasting good, but it was missing something. That something was satisfied by a sprinkle of grated cheese (the only type of cheese they sell in Japan, I might add). With cheese, perfectly acceptable, even good enough to be eaten very slowly, savored, and enjoyed. Tried it out on a few friends tonight because I made so much. They ate it, so it must be all right!