Exciting News! Also, a New Scallops Recipe!

Thanks to everyone who gave their opinions on the Reynolds Parchment Paper! Daniel wrote and said that he will pass along the comments to Reynolds.. so maybe, just maybe, they'll listen and our parchment paper blues will end! heee! Has been a pretty busy week.. and I haven't cooked much new and exciting, but I do have some new and exciting news! Tuesday was "Lung Day 2008". Yeah, not a national holiday but a very important date to my mom and myself. Tuesday we went to 2 doctors and they both agreed.. "IT'S NOT A TUMAH!" (Did I sound even remotely like Arnold?) WOOOO HOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! What a fakkin relief. Talk about being scared out of your mind for 2 months. But it's all good now. :) (Whoops! For those of you who are lost at this point.. they found "something" on my mom's left lung 2 months ago.. but it was too small to tell exactly what it was.. finally after a very long wait a 2nd CT scan showed it was NOT a tumor) Anyhoo.. from new and exciting news to a new and exciting recipe that both Hubbs and I loved. Again with the scallops.. his favorite seafood. I was craving pasta like you would not believe so I went in search for a scallops-y pasta-y recipe packed full of deliciousness. It didn't take long.. I went to Cooking Light's website and found a recipe that sounded pretty good and included ingredients that I had on hand. Bonus! This dish ended up being really, really good. A creamy red pepper and cheese sauce that has outstanding flavor, wrapped around tender scallops and al dente linguine. Superb! It was super easy to make.. well.. it would be super easy to make for any other person on the face of the planet. All that was required was pulsing the sauce ingredients in the food processor, sautéing the scallops, cooking the pasta until almost done and then baking the whole kit-n-caboodle in my Ohhh so sexy dutch oven. Easy peasy, right? No. Not right. Not even close. If you are me. With the bad juju. Fakk no it was NOT EASY. There's a lesson here, kids.. now pay attention to what I'm about to say.. I've got one of those food processors that has a lid with a shooter tunnel thingie on the side.. you know, it kind of resembles your pet hamster's playground but you'd never let your preshus hamster play in this playground because the hamsters in this neighborhood play with spinning blades. Anyway.. this shooter thingie, I suppose it's got a purpose. I just don't know what it is. Well another little feature that my food processor has is a slit in the lid. And in this slit is a removable plastic blade-like thingie. I never really gave much thought to this removable plastic blade-like thingie other than to wash it once I was finished processing. So, did it even occur to me that I was headed for a rude awakening when I noticed the lil plastic blade-like thingie wasn't in the slit on the lid? Did I even give it a second thought? No. No I did not. I didn't think about it after I threw in the roasted red peppers, the fat-free cream cheese, the salt and the hot water.. I didn't even think about it when my hand pushed the pulse button down.. HELLO! It was at that particular point, when the contents of my processor bowl shot out of the shooter thingie covering my legs, feet, floor, dog dishes, butcher block table and assorted small appliances in a curtain of warm, chunky, liquidy, pink gobble-dee-gook. ewwwwwwwwww! GOD DAMMMMMITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT! MOTHER F*CKER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU SON OF A MOTHERLESS GOAT!!!!!!!!!!! It was squishy between my toes. That's not such a very good squish. Me no likey. Thankfully, my sweet male counter-part, heard my "alarm" and came running. After he stopped laughing, he grabbed a bunch of paper towels and started cleaning up the floor so the dogs couldn't OD on pureed cheesy peppers. I waddled on my heels to go hose down my legs and feet. Gah. And the lesson learned? If you own one of these instruments of Satan, go bury it in the back yard. No, that's too close.. go find a field somewhere and bury it. It probably wouldn't hurt to douse the site in holy water as well. To extreme for you? Then right now.. before you read another word - go find the duct tape and close that side shooter tunnel thingie for good! (and it probably wouldn't hurt to douse the tape in holy water as well) Luckily, I had another jar of peppers and more fat-free cream cheese, so I started over, only this time I made sure the f*ckin' plastic blade-like thingie was in the f*ckin' lid of the f*ckin' processor. God. I have to say.. although I really don't think any recipe is worth what I went through, this one was pretty darned good. Creamy, cheesy, sweet and smokey bell peppery with the bite of the just-done linguine and those scallops were super tender and didn't lose their flavor under the sauce. I recommend this low-fat / low-cal but doesn't taste low-fat / low-cal recipe! Give it a shot! My only change would be to thin the sauce a little bit.. maybe adding a little of the pepper "juice" next time. Even if you aren't a scallops fan, try it with shrimps (the original recipe actually called for scallops and shrimp - as well as ziti instead of linguine).. or leave the seafood out completely. The sauce would be completely delish over some cheesie ravioli or tortellini. You can find the recipe here. Here's my take on the recipe in photographs! And for those of you wondering.. sorry! the camera didn't come out until after my kitchen AND MY TOES were clean.. :) First you slather up your sexy dutch oven with a lil olive oil and you slip some linguine in a nice salty bath until it's almost done. Then you toss in a lil garlic, finely chopped.. Finally the scallops go in for a quick sear on each side. Once you've seared in the flavor of the scallops, pour that crazy roasted pepper sauce over them. Don't forget the linguine! What's a lil pasta without some parsley, eh? And who would think of putting all that goodness in the oven half-nekked like that?? There's ALWAYS room for an Asiago blanket to keep our scallops toasty warm in that 400º oven! Mmmm.. melty cheesie goodness! Voila! Slightly blurry, but ohhhh so luscious Baked Sea Scallops and Linguine in Roasted Pepper Sauce! *slurp* xoxo

Stuffed Peppers ala Hubbs

When we saw that the bell peppers were really taking off in our garden, I mentioned to Hubbs that stuffed peppers sounded so good. That was a week or so ago. Yesterday, when I got home from the dungeon, what did I see?? 8 beautifully stuffed peppers sitting in a baking dish ready to go into the oven! I couldn't believe my eyes.. dinner - done! (almost) And I didn't have to lift a finger! Don't get me wrong, Hubbs treats me well.. but dinner being made for me in the summer was truly a treat and completely shocking. heheee He does cook, actually stuffed peppers is one of his specialties, but never in the summer. Well, I thanked my lucky star (and him!) and relaxed the rest of the evening. I'm totally hooked on Rescue Me. Anyone watch that show? Denis Leary and an equally hysterical cast in a show about New York Firemen. I've wanted to watch it since it first came on a few seasons ago, but never managed to remember what night it was aired. So I've been renting the complete past seasons on DVD and catching up so I can watch this season repeated this fall. It is an excellent show. Rather raunchy (which I love) and very addicting. Thank gawd for Blockbuster. Anyhoo.. while peppers baked, I started to watch the first disk of season 2 while lounging on the loveseat. After work.. on a week day.. I thought I had died and went to heaven! heheee When the peppers were done, we took them outside and ate on the deck. They were fabulous. The peppers were tender and you could really taste the difference between these peppers and peppers bought from the store. Nothing like veggies right from the garden. We had garlic bread and a salad of fresh cucumbers from the garden, as well. Yum! The stuffing was made up of part ground round and part pork sausage with sage. He then added a few more ingredients, covered them with the last of my marinara and additional tomato sauce and voila.. stuffed peppers. =) Wayne's Stuffed Peppers 1/2 lb. ground round 1/2 lb. pork sausage seasoned with sage 1 med. onion, diced fine 3 cloves garlic, minced 1/4-1/3 c. Minute Rice, uncooked 3 to 4 C. your favorite marinara sauce or seasoned tomato sauce Salt & Pepper to taste 8 bell peppers (Ours were kinda of long and narrow - so if you use bigger peppers, probably only 6) Preheat oven to 350º F. In a large bowl, combine meats, onion, garlic, rice and S&P well with your hands. Slice the tops of the peppers off, reserving them, and clean the inside of the peppers free of membrane and seeds. Stuff meat mixture evenly in peppers and slap the tops back on. Place a layer of tomato sauce or your favorite marinara in a 9 x 13 x 2 inch Pyrex baking dish and then add the stuffed peppers. If they won't stand up straight you can either cut off a bit of the bottoms to steady them or simply cook them on their sides. Top off peppers with more tomato sauce/marinara and cover loosely with foil. Bake 1 hour and 15 minutes or until the peppers are fork tender and the filling is cooked through.