Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Jacki’s Review of Scallops, Roasted Squash and Salad with Strawberry-Sherry Vinaigrette

For those of you who have not made these dishes – you have something to look forward to!  We liked all three.   Starting off with the Bacon Wrapped Scallops with Jalapeno-Papaya Salsa – The cooking of this dish wasn’t so easy for me as it took longer than stated for the bacon and scallops to cook, especially the bacon.  The bacon shrunk so I just ended up unwrapping the bacon and laying it in the pan amongst the scallops to cook and when it was mostly done I put both the scallops and bacon in an ovenproof dish and finished cooking it in the oven.  (I don’t have an ovenproof skillet).  I just tried to wrap the bacon back around the scallops when I put them in the ovenproof dish.  The salsa was  delicious over the scallops.  I had to use mango instead of papaya because I went to two stores and neither had fresh or frozen papaya and I forgot to check for canned but I just picked up a couple of ripe mangos and it was very tasty.  This salsa was the perfect accompaniment for seafood.  Now on to the Roasted Butternut Squash with Cumin and Coriander – I bought already peeled and cubed fresh butternut since that squash is so hard you practically need a chainsaw to cut it!  A little pricy but worth it.  I used only about 1/2 tsp each of the cumin and coriander and omitted the cilantro at the end.  It had a really good flavor to it and went well with the scallops.  This was easy to prepare ahead.  And now for the final dish – Baby Spinach Salad with Strawberry-Sherry Vinaigrette.  I substituted another type of lettuce instead of the spinach since I had some I needed to use (bought it at the farmers market and not sure of the name).  I splurged and bought some nice sherry vinegar at whole foods (aged up to 15 years:) – it was worth it – so good!  The combination of the strawberries and the fresh lettuce and the Vinaigrette was REALLY good.  I also added some cucumber for crunch.  These recipes made for a good meal.  Hope some of you get a chance to try them.

Mango Salsa ready to serve.

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Butternut squash roasting in oven

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Plated meal before mango salsa so you can see bacon wrapped scallops. (well, kind of wrapped)

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Final plated meal with the salsa – delicious and can’t get much more colorful than that unless you had some beets!

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2 comments:

Leslee said...

I need to get to the store to try some of these tasty recipes! I learned on rachael ray that if you don't have an oven proof skillet you can wrap foil around the handle of you rubber one. I have tried this before and it has worked.

didi said...

I am making this tomorrow, wow everything looks so goog!!! I have looked everywhere for the cut up/peeled squash but can't find it and I don't have time to go to Trader Joes in Portland I guess I better get my chainsaw out =;) Wish me luck hahahaha