Comfort Food

I had a rough week.  It definitely had some high points like going to dinner with the Peds Rheum Family (well, at least that's how I like to think of them!) on Thursday night at Blossom downtown.  Yep, I drug Rick downtown after work for dinner.  It's a miracle that either one of us made it back over the Bridge, but it was for a good cause.  Dinner was delicious (of course).  I had the shrimp and grits as my entree, and at the urging of Dr. Silver, Rick and I split the most delicious dessert I have ever had that wasn't chocolate.  We had red velvet bread pudding!  Words cannot describe how wonderful it was.  I was totally stuffed, but I still managed to eat almost half of it!  Definitely a perfect comfort food.  I would KILL for that recipe!  

In my own kitchen, I made one of my favorite comfort food dishes after a rather stressful day at work on Tuesday.  I wasn't sure what I wanted to make for dinner that night or even if I really wanted to cook.  Rick had suggested pizza, but I wasn't in the mood for that either.  After searching the local grocery store fliers, I realized that sea scallops were on sale, and I immediately thought of one of my favorite comfort food recipes from epicurious.com for Sea Scallops with Mashed Potatoes.  The original recipe calls for tarragon, and I'm not a huge tarragon fan.  In the past, I've subbed rosemary, but Rick's not a big rosemary fan.  This time around, I decided to add garlic to the sauce to give it a little something extra.  As always, it was delicious!!!


Here's what I did....


Sea Scallops with Mashed Potatoes
Ingredients

• 2 pounds Yukon potatoes, peeled, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick), room temperature
• 2/3 cup (or more) low fat milk
• 12 sea scallops, side muscles trimmed
• 1/3 cup dry white wine
• 2 tablespoons chopped shallot
• 2 tablespoons half and half
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

Directions

Place potatoes in a pot and cover with water.  Add salt and bring to water to a boil over high heat.  Boil until the potato pieces break easily when pierced with a fork.  Drain water.  Add 1/2 stick of butter and milk to the potatoes in the pot and whip using a hand mixer.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Set aside.  Before serving the scallops, heat over medium heat (you may need to add more milk if they start to dry out).

Sprinkle scallops with salt and pepper.  Heat olive oil in a large pan/skillet over medium high heat.  Add scallops to the pan.  Sauté until just opaque in center, about 2 minutes per side. Transfer to plate; tent with foil. Reserve juices in skillet.   

Place garlic and shallots in small saucepan. After garlic starts to brown, add wine and simmer over medium heat until reduced to glaze, about 3 minutes. Stir in half and half and simmer 1 minute. Gradually whisk in remaining 1/2 stick butter. Stir in reserved pan juices.

Divide potatoes into 4 bowls, top with 4 scallops, and then drizzle sauce over the scallops.

Enjoy!