Scallops with Zucchini Fritters

This is one of those meals that I created as I cooked, no recipes in my head to start with. I had decided to make scallops. I was going to incorporate tomatoes as my wife is going out of town this week and I will be living the bachelor life. Our garden has been producing tomatoes, so we had a bunch I was going to have to use or I would have to eat them everyday while she was gone.
My wife decided that she was going to bake zucchini bread. Instead of making a large loaf she decided to make little loafs. While she ended up with 2 cups of shredded zucchini left over. So she tells me figure out something to make for dinner that uses shredded zucchini. I was Iron Chef'd, a mystery ingredient was added to my meal. Here is what I made.
Scallops with Zucchini Fritters
Fritter
2 cups Zucchini, shredded
2 green onions, finely chopped

1/4 cup parmesan cheese, grated

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

2 eggs
Salt and pepper to taste
olive oil, enough to cover bottom of pan to fry fritters

Scallops
2 slices of bacon, fried crisp and crumbled
8 scallops
10 roma tomatoes, cubed into thick pieces
2 green onions, finely chopped, reserve a couple of tablespoons for garnish
2 tbs olive oil
2 tbs white wine
1/2 lemon, juiced

Fritter
I have never made fritters before this. You will have to eye this and maybe add more flour or only 1 egg. It will depend on how wet your zucchini is. Eggs act as the liquid and flour and parmesan as the thickener. Mix everything together but the olive oil and one egg. If mixture is dry add the second egg. If it is to wet add more flour. Take some of the mixture and make a pancake if it holds together you are ok. Heat oil in medium pan and cook the fritters. You should get 4 fritters, keep them kind of thin. Cook until golden brown on one side then flip and cook until second side browns.

Scallops
Heat pan over medium high heat. Add the bacon and cook until crisp, set aside. If there is enough bacon fat add scallops if not add 1 tsp of olive oil. Remove from pan and add the scallops. Cook until they brown on one side and flip over and remove when second side starts to  take on color. Add oil if needed then add the tomatoes and onions. When tomatoes start to get soft add wine and lemon juice. Cook until wine and lemon juice reduce.

Plating
Put fritters on plate, spoon tomato and onion mixture over fritters. Top with the scallops. Sprinkle bacon and reserved green onion over the top.

Breakfast in Bread

With Mother's Day upon us here is a simple breakfast that looks very special. You can use a heart cookie cutter instead of the round biscuit cutter mentioned in the recipe.

Breakfast in Bread

1 egg, fried or poached
1 tsp olive oil
1 stalk of asparagus
1 piece Canadian Bacon or about 1 oz of ham chopped
3 cherry tomatoes, 1/2 or 1 tbs of diced tomato
2 tsp parmesan cheese, finely grated
1 slice of toast
Non-stick spray

This recipe is for 1 egg, you can multiple by however many eggs you are making. You will need a biscuit cutter (or cookie cutter, I used round but any shape will do) a little less than the width of a piece of toast. If you have 2 biscuit cutters the same size and shape it will be even easier.

In a pan put 1 tsp of olive oil and heat to a shimmer add the asparagus and ham. Cook for 1 to 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes. cook for another 2 minutes, until ham starts to brown. Set aside.

Start making your egg, if you are frying spray the cutter with the non-stick spray and place with the non-cutting side down in the pan. Crack the egg into the cutter. This will keep the egg shape the same size as the hole in the toast. Start the toast. Cook egg to desired doneness. When egg is done carefully remove egg from cutter. Then use cutter to cut a whole in the toast. Remove the piece of toast that you cut out and put toast on plate. Put egg in the hole in the toast. Now top with ham, asparagus, tomato mixture. Sprinkle the parmesan over the whole toast.

Risotto With Chianti and Mushrooms

 A while back I ordered some new cookbooks, none of them were released yet. Last week they started arriving. It's fun coming home from work and finding a new treasure in the mail. This last one was the best. I got The Italian Country Table by Maxine Clark. I admit I ordered this book so I could get free shipping and a bigger discount on my order. Turns out every page has a recipe that I want to cook. I could not decide what to make first. I finally handed the book to my wife and said pick something for dinner. She selected the Risotto with red wine mushrooms and pancetta (Risotto al chianti, funghi e pancetta). The book gives the American name and then the Italian name like I wrote it. I shortened the name to make it easier for titles and tweeting. I did make a couple of changes because I did not have the exact ingredients on hand and I will explain them below.

Risotto With Chianti and Mushrooms
1/4 cup olive oil
3 oz pancetta or other smoke cured bacon, finely chopped (I used regular bacon)
1 red onion, finely chopped
7 oz cremini or porcini mushrooms, finely chopped (I used white mushrooms because I just bought a pound)
1 oz dried mushrooms, (I added this to make up for the flavor I lost by using the white mushrooms) let them soak in the chicken broth
2 1/2 cups risotto rice (I used arborio)
1 cup Chianti
6 cups hot chicken stock
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan
Sea Salt and Pepper to taste
For Garnish:
A couple of large mushrooms sliced
2 tbs parsley, finely chopped

Heat the chicken broth and add the dried mushrooms if using.

Heat 1/2 the olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Add the bacon, when it starts to crisp add the onion and mushrooms. Cook until soft and translucent.

Add the rice and cook until it smells toasty, it will start becoming opaque. Add the wine and cook until it disappears.

Add 1 cup of the stock and cook until absorbed. Add another cup and cook until it is absorbed. Continue the process for about 20 minutes until you are down to 1 cup of broth, only cut back and add only 1/2 cup of broth at a time. When you are down to 1/2 cup of broth and the rice is getting tender, but has a little bit of bite to it. Add the remaining olive oil and Parmesan. Salt and Pepper to taste.

Add the remaining broth and cover pot with lid. Let it stand for 5 minutes. Put into bowls and garnish with mushroom slices and parsley.

Shirred Eggs

These are the genuine thing, Frodo made them for Samwise, Merry and I. After breakfast he showed me how to make the eggs and then muttered something about returning a ring. I didn't want to go to the mall so I stayed back and did the dishes. My apologies to J.R.R. Tolkien.

For those that have never had shirred eggs, they are simply baked eggs. This is a recipe I have thought about making for a while, but because it takes more time than fried or scrambled I haven't got around to making it. Today, it is rainy and I couldn't go for morning run so I decided the time had come to give shirred eggs a shot.

Shirred Eggs

No stick cooking spray
1 slice Canadian Bacon per person
1 egg per person
1 tsp of half and half per person
1 tsp grated parmesan cheese, per person

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Spray ramekin(s) with no stick spray. Put Canadian bacon on bottom of ramekin. Crack egg into ramekin. Put half and half on top of egg. Sprinkle grated cheese on top. Tip: I put ramekins on cookie sheet and assembled the eggs, then put cookie sheet in oven rather than trying to put individual ramekins in oven.
Bake for about 15 minutes, eggs should be a little jiggly, if you cook until eggs are set, they will be overdone. I cut up a chive and sprinkled on top for some color.

Breakfast in Bread

Every Sunday morning while my wife is getting ready for church I make eggs for breakfast. I try to come up with something besides fried, scrambled and poached. This was my idea for last Sunday, it certainly isn't a new idea, but I haven't tried it in years. If you have ever made eggs in a hole, eggs in a basket or whatever you want to call it you will know that the toast and the eggs don't always cook at the same rate., so you end up with burnt toast and raw eggs. So I cheated.

Breakfast on Bread or the Toastest with the Mostest


1 egg, fried or poached
1 tsp olive oil
1 stalk of asparagus
1 piece Canadian Bacon or about 1 oz of ham chopped
3 cherry tomatoes, 1/2 or 1 tbs of diced tomato
2 tsp parmesan cheese, finely grated
1 slice of toast
Non-stick spray

This recipe is for 1 egg, you can multiple by however many eggs you are making. You will need a biscuit cutter (or cookie cutter, I used round but any shape will do) a little less than the width of a piece of toast. If you have 2 biscuit cutters the same size and shape it will be even easier.

In a pan put 1 tsp of olive oil and heat to a shimmer add the asparagus and ham. Cook for 1 to 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes. cook for another 2 minutes, until ham starts to brown. Set aside.

Start making your egg, if you are frying spray the cutter with the non-stick spray and place with the non-cutting side down in the pan. Crack the egg into the cutter. This will keep the egg shape the same size as the hole in the toast. Start the toast. Cook egg to desired doneness. When egg is done carefully remove egg from cutter. Then use cutter to cut a whole in the toast. Remove the piece of toast that you cut out and put toast on plate. Put egg in the hole in the toast. Now top with ham, asparagus, tomato mixture. Sprinkle the parmesan over the whole toast.

Roasted Pork Tenderloin

I remember talking to a guy in an Italian cooking class who told me his mom used to make tenderloin stuffed with prosciutto and parmesan cheese. I decided to try and recreate this dish, only making it a little healthier. I switched to pork tenderloin and cut the amount of parmesan in 1/2. I should have left the cheese with the original amount as 1/4 cup for pound tenderloin was not enough, in fact it seemed to disappear completely. When it was time to add the prosciutto, I was out, so I substituted thin slices of ham. Pork Tenderloins usually come 2 to a package, I just used one of these as it was enough for my wife and I. I served roasted veggies with this so I tossed potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, onion and garlic cloves with salt, pepper and olive oil and spread out on the bottom of the roasting pan.

Roast Pork Tenderloin

1 pork tenderloin, around 1 pound, butterflied so it opens flat

1/2 cup o parmesan cheese, grated

2-3 slices of prosciutto, to cover the butterflied pork tenderloin

1 tbs olive oil

1 tbs Italian dried herb mixture (if you don't have mix basil, oregano, marjoram, hot pepper flakes)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Take the butterflied tenderloin and lay the pieces of prosciutto on it. Then cover the prosciutto with the grated parmesan cheese. Roll this up tightly, I didn't tie this but you could. Rub the olive oil over the tenderloin and then cover with the dried herbs. I laid the the tenderloin on top of the vegetables I was roasting. Cover the pan with aluminum foil and put it in the oven. Uncover the pan after 20 minutes. Roast for 15 to 20 minutes until tenderloin is at desired doneness.