Cooking with Eowyn - Week 2

[next_to_normal]

I tend to do most of my cooking on the weekends, when I'm less tired and have more free time. Then, during the week, I've been reheating leftovers or making new dishes from the already-cooked stuff in the fridge. So here are my adventures from this weekend:

On Saturday, I made Pan-Seared Scallops topped with the Scallion Beurre Blanc sauce from this recipe (maybe next time I'll actually try it with the chicken, but I wanted to do something different since a lot of my recipes include chicken). The scallops were sort of a challenge to myself - I love seafood, but I very rarely make it at home, and when I do, it's usually just cooked frozen shrimp or canned crab meat. Scallops can seem intimidating, because there's a very fine line between undercooked and overcooked, but mine came out really well. I also got to try out the fresh seafood shop down the street. Anyway, I seasoned the scallops with just salt and pepper, and then dredged them in flour. The trick to a good pan sear is to make sure the oil is really hot, and once you put the scallops in, don't move them around. Just let them sit and get that nice golden-brown crust. They only need 1-2 minutes on each side, and will continue to cook once you take them out of the pan, so you want to cook them to just almost done, but not quite.

The beurre blanc sauce was delicious, of course (it's basically butter, how could it not be delicious?), but a little thin - which I notice was a complaint from some of the commenters on the website. It was just fine for the scallops, but it definitely didn't look like Rachael Ray's picture there. I really liked the flavor the scallions added - I've become something of a scallion fan, I think. (I even added them to my eggs the next morning!) The recipe made way more sauce than I needed, so I stuck the rest in the fridge. No idea whether or not it'll reheat (it has a tendency to separate, because of the butter), but maybe I can use it over pasta later this week.

Sunday, I made Chicken Fettuccine Rigatoni with Pesto Cream Sauce. I'm Italian, which means I currently have five different types of pasta in my kitchen, but none of them is fettuccine, so I just used whatever I had. It's all the same stuff, really, just in different shapes. I did not make my own pesto (what do I look like, Martha Stewart?), but my supermarket has freshly made pesto in their fresh foods section, and it worked just fine (and tasted good, too). I also added some toasted pine nuts to the dish - just spread the pine nuts out on a baking sheet and pop them in a 350-degree oven until they turn golden brown. Incidentally, my cookbook said to toast them for 6-8 minutes, so I set the timer and let them go - and they were completely burned in about 5 minutes. Maybe it's because I was using a toaster oven instead of the full oven? I don't know, but the second batch I watched more carefully and took them out when they were the right color, which was maybe 3 minutes or so. Anyway, the pesto cream sauce was delish, and it doesn't use a lot of cream, so it wasn't terribly rich or heavy.

I heated up the leftover pasta last night, but instead of the usual garlic bread, I made some Pesto-Mozzarella Crostini to go with it. (I was inspired by the crostini on the last episode of "Worst Cooks in America.") I sliced up a French baguette and, since I don't have a grill pan, toasted it about halfway in the toaster oven. Then I spread the leftover pesto on the toast and topped with a slice of fresh mozzarella cheese, and put it back in the toaster oven until the cheese was melted.

Tonight I'm making myself chicken parmagiana, but it's pre-cooked chicken and jar sauce, so it hardly counts as cooking. All I have to do is layer the ingredients and bake it until the cheese melts. It practically seems lazy after all the cooking I've been doing, lol.

Comments

[manoah.livejournal.com]

OMG! That all sounds so delicious and I have another hour before lunch!

I love scallops and may have to give those a try. I don't think I could get The Princelings (my sons) to eat them, but I bet their father would like them.

[next_to_normal]

Heh, I loved all kinds of seafood as a kid, but I may have been a bit unusual. :)

[shinybaum.livejournal.com]

I'm not leaving till I get some crostini.

[next_to_normal]

*passes you the platter*

Here you go - fresh out of the toaster oven!

[brunettepet.livejournal.com]

Both meals sound scrumptious. Scallops are intimidating, so good on you for diving in there.

[manoah.livejournal.com]

"Diving" in there....bwahahhaha

[next_to_normal]

I don't think I could eat like this all the time, but after months of food deprivation, I figured I'd earned a week off the leash. :)

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

I usually just cook the scallops without any flour, just into a hot pan for a few minutes and they're ready to eat.

I usually find that toasting nuts is a lot easier on top of the stove in a dry pan. That way you can watch them easier because they burn very quickly.

Good job trying different things, I always find it fun to experiment.

[next_to_normal]

Hmm, maybe I will try toasting in the pan next time. Experimenting is a lot of fun - especially since I've been mostly successful, lol! I'd probably be less excited about it if I ended up throwing most of it in the trash.

[rahirah]

I made a variation on that apricot pork chop recipe you posted last time (made it with crackers, chopped onion, and chopped dried apricots and stuffed the chops instead of coating them) and it was tres yum!

[next_to_normal]

Glad you liked it! Oddly enough, the original recipe I wanted to make was chicken stuffed with dried apricots, but the chicken my mom had bought wasn't big enough for stuffing, so I kept looking until I found the pork chop recipe.