What is with these sports metaphors? Anyway. Wow, three recipes in one day! We're picking up the pace. I actually only made two of them and George made the Shortbread Cookies. I'm counting it anyway, since I was there.
Harris-Teeter had sea scallops on sale for only half-a-fortune per pound. Good time to try the Caramelized Scallops. The recipe was pretty simple and the photo won my heart. I did take issue with the brining. The recipe called for 2 cups of kosher salt in 8 cups of water. That seemed excessive to me. Unless they were going to absorb all that liquid and blow up to the size of basketballs, I could not see why a dozen or so scallops would need that big a pool. They only brine for 10 minutes anyway or they get too salty. Maybe they get too salty because of the 2 cups of salt. I put them in a gallon size zipper bag and poured in about 2 cups of water with a couple tablespoons of kosher salt dissolved in it. I did drain them at exactly 10 minutes, though, because of my Cinderella complex. Patted them dry and seared them in clarified butter. They were delicious. They were tender and sweet and had a nice crunch from the sear. Three of us devoured the whole pound and a half along with roasted asparagus and wild rice and French rolls. The plates even looked beautiful.
I bought a pre-peeled and cored pineapple to try the Pineapple Upside Down Cake. I also bought a bottle of dark rum, because I remembered that the topping needed it. I couldn't remember how much I needed, so I bought a regular-sized bottle for $11.95. Good thing I erred on the side of caution. Turns out, I needed 1/2 teaspoon. An airline bottle would have sufficed. We'll figure out what to do with the rest of the rum, I'm sure. The topping recipe makes about 3 cakes worth of topping. So I have topping in the freezer for 2 more attempts. I artfully arranged the pineapple in the pan on top of the topping and then poured the batter on top. Actually the cake batter is pretty thick, so it was more smushing than pouring. It looked so pretty when it was done and inverted on the serving plate. After our scallops settled a bit, we each had a slab of cake with generous squirts of Redi-Whip. It was so good. Not too heavy and enough fruit to convince yourself that it wasn't all that bad for you. I mean, it's fruit. I will make it with canned from now on, though. The fresh was good, but not good enough to justify the extra expense. Also because of the large pieces, the fruit wasn't as uniform on the pieces of cake. Like with pizza, if you're not the server, somebody is getting some of your good stuff. I'm going to make the next one with canned pineapple tidbits.
George has become obsessed with finding a way to duplicate Lorna Doones. They are very overpriced, but we really like them with our tea. I pointed out the Shortbread Cookie recipe to him and he decided to give it a try. It's a pretty easy recipe. It's just got flour, sugar, butter, and vanilla in it. I admit I wasn't really thrilled with the idea, because I figured I would end up doing most of it. I was expecting lots of, "What do I do now?" I am very happy to report that he just ran with it. A question here and there, but no hands on participation required. I thought they were so delicious. Tender, crispy, buttery. George is not convinced they are close enough to Lorna Doones. So he wants to work on them some more. He's right, they aren't exactly like Lorna Doones. They have butter instead of God only knows what kind of shortening. They don't have chemicals and preservatives. Maybe I'll show him the ingredient label next time we're in the store and remind him that if we can't pronounce it, we shouldn't be eating it.
Harris-Teeter had sea scallops on sale for only half-a-fortune per pound. Good time to try the Caramelized Scallops. The recipe was pretty simple and the photo won my heart. I did take issue with the brining. The recipe called for 2 cups of kosher salt in 8 cups of water. That seemed excessive to me. Unless they were going to absorb all that liquid and blow up to the size of basketballs, I could not see why a dozen or so scallops would need that big a pool. They only brine for 10 minutes anyway or they get too salty. Maybe they get too salty because of the 2 cups of salt. I put them in a gallon size zipper bag and poured in about 2 cups of water with a couple tablespoons of kosher salt dissolved in it. I did drain them at exactly 10 minutes, though, because of my Cinderella complex. Patted them dry and seared them in clarified butter. They were delicious. They were tender and sweet and had a nice crunch from the sear. Three of us devoured the whole pound and a half along with roasted asparagus and wild rice and French rolls. The plates even looked beautiful.
I bought a pre-peeled and cored pineapple to try the Pineapple Upside Down Cake. I also bought a bottle of dark rum, because I remembered that the topping needed it. I couldn't remember how much I needed, so I bought a regular-sized bottle for $11.95. Good thing I erred on the side of caution. Turns out, I needed 1/2 teaspoon. An airline bottle would have sufficed. We'll figure out what to do with the rest of the rum, I'm sure. The topping recipe makes about 3 cakes worth of topping. So I have topping in the freezer for 2 more attempts. I artfully arranged the pineapple in the pan on top of the topping and then poured the batter on top. Actually the cake batter is pretty thick, so it was more smushing than pouring. It looked so pretty when it was done and inverted on the serving plate. After our scallops settled a bit, we each had a slab of cake with generous squirts of Redi-Whip. It was so good. Not too heavy and enough fruit to convince yourself that it wasn't all that bad for you. I mean, it's fruit. I will make it with canned from now on, though. The fresh was good, but not good enough to justify the extra expense. Also because of the large pieces, the fruit wasn't as uniform on the pieces of cake. Like with pizza, if you're not the server, somebody is getting some of your good stuff. I'm going to make the next one with canned pineapple tidbits.
George has become obsessed with finding a way to duplicate Lorna Doones. They are very overpriced, but we really like them with our tea. I pointed out the Shortbread Cookie recipe to him and he decided to give it a try. It's a pretty easy recipe. It's just got flour, sugar, butter, and vanilla in it. I admit I wasn't really thrilled with the idea, because I figured I would end up doing most of it. I was expecting lots of, "What do I do now?" I am very happy to report that he just ran with it. A question here and there, but no hands on participation required. I thought they were so delicious. Tender, crispy, buttery. George is not convinced they are close enough to Lorna Doones. So he wants to work on them some more. He's right, they aren't exactly like Lorna Doones. They have butter instead of God only knows what kind of shortening. They don't have chemicals and preservatives. Maybe I'll show him the ingredient label next time we're in the store and remind him that if we can't pronounce it, we shouldn't be eating it.
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