Spicy Scallops

Last night my husband bought some scallops but we didn’t get around to cooking them for dinner, so tonight it’s scallops. I browsed online for an inspiring scallop recipe, but couldn’t find any that caught my eye. Remembering the Firecracker Shrimp that Pioneer Woman made for the 4th of July, I became inspired to adapt that recipe to the scallops.

Ingredients:
1.3 lbs fresh water sea scallops
2 tbs El Pato sauce (selected for it low sodium level)
3 tbs olive oil
1 tea sugar
5 cloves pressed garlic
Black pepper

Directions:
1. In a bowl (with a cover) combine the sauce, olive oil, sugar, garlic, and pepper to taste.
2. Add the scallops and stir to coat. They will not be dripping with the mixture, it will be just enough to add flavor.
3. Cover and marinate in the refrigerator until ready to use (at least 20 min)
4. When ready to cook, heat some olive oil in a sauté pan
5. Place scallops in a single layer and cook for 5-10 minutes until opaque
6. Serve immediately


The scallops had a nice flavor, not too spicy, but with enough heat to notice. We served them over a salad with our homemade tomato salsa. Not wanting to waste the flavorful liquid in the sauté pan, we cooked some pasta and mixed it in. This gave the pasta hint of spice and went well with the scallops and salsa.

4th of July Tomato

Happy 4th of July!

This morning I spent a few hours tending the garden. There have been some signs on red on a few of the tomatoes, but nothing was ripe. I came across this little beauty nestled up between a bunch of tomatoes. Yes, our first red tomato. I brought it inside and sliced it in half - it was ripe. The first taste of summer arrived today - the juicy, tangy, flesh of homegrown tomato.

Early Summer Heat

Today is hot. At 9:00 am it was already 87 degrees F. Now a mere hour later, it is over 90 with a high of 108 expected. After letting the chickens out earlier, they roamed around their run as usual. But after a short while, they found the cool spot. We left a sprinkler on overnight and it watered the inside edge of the run. The chickens found it an piled up in the moist dirt trying to cool off.

Now, if I could only find a cool patch of dirt of my own...

Introducing Our Peppers

Our Purple Beauty. This is purely a guess based on the purple color of the skin. It was part of a mixed pack of seeds, so I have a 1/5 chance of being correct. Seven of the bell pepper plants survived the rough ride from seedlings to transplants. The other possible varieties that may emerge are Orange Sun, Autumn Bell, Canary Bell, and California Wonder.

This is our Bella Hot pepper. It was also started as a seedling. I am hoping that we like this pepper because we have 8 plants of this variety.

Saving the strangest for last, the wax pepper. I was surprised to find that these peppers grow upward then will fall downward when they get bigger. They have a much different growth habit then the Bella Hots. We only have 4 of this variety (yeah, only 4).

Seeing Orange

It seems too soon for the pumpkins to be turning orange. Just the other day they were a nice spring green, now they are showing signs of orange. I have strong suspicion that I may have started them a tad too early (I was just too eager to get things planted!). Now, instead of Halloween pumpkins, looks like we will have Labor Day pumpkins. I guess I could always plant some more so we will have some for Halloween too! According to Pumpkin Nook (a cool site with lots of info about pumpkins), I have another week to get the miniature pumpkins in the ground for a Fall harvest. Now, I just need to find a place to plant them.