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.

Scallop & Shiitake Stir-Fry

Whole scallops, shiitake mushrooms, baby bok choy, translucent onions and fragrant garlic. Served with yellow sweet potato (which I recently learned is a very different thing from a Yam), and brown rice with grains, made haole style.

I've had the bok choy sitting in my refridgerator for over a week. Most of it was rotting, but I salvaged the good pieces. I am a bit disappointed with the scallops. They are much fishier than expected, but the texture is wonderful. I'm also quite pleased with the rice. The whole thing feels very healthy, and just salty enough.
The Rice

Ingredients:
oil
1 cup brown rice and grains (I believe there are kidney beans, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, black/purple beans, oats, barley, and a package of what basically looks like bird food)
1 cup water
1/2 an onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 package dashi
black pepper
parsley
1 small sweet potato

How:

1. Soak grains in water, at least 30 minutes. This makes them softer and more palatable later. Drain.
   
2. Fry garlic on very low heat until fragrant. Add onions. Add sugar if desired. Cook until translucent, about 10 minutes. Add pepper to taste.
   
3. Turn heat up to high. Add drained grains. Stir until crackling and translucent. Add 1 cup water. Add dashi.
   
4. Add whole sweet potato to the pot. Cover and cook until done, about 20 minutes.

And the scallops, mushrooms, and bok choy were made in pretty much the same way. My favorite stir-fry sauce is as follows:

Favorite Stir-Fry Sauce
Approximately equal parts of:

• light soy sauce
• sesame oil
• oyster sauce
• sugar

You can also add the following:

• miso
• chinese 5-spice
  
• white pepper
• black pepper
• dark (regular) soy sauce

Mix ingredients in a cup, then add to your stir-fry at the end. Use a wok and a real flame for best results.