February 16, 2024 Brunch - Fried eggs on Salmon cake. Dinner - Scallops Provencal with Asparagus and Wheat Spaghetti

February 16, 2024 Brunch - Fried eggs on Salmon cake. Dinner - Scallops Provencal with Asparagus and Wheat Spaghetti

We woke up around 8:00 and watched the Market slope int loss at the open.

Then at 11:00 Suzette made breakfast of a salmon cake with fried eggs.

We then drove to two consignment stores and finally around 1:30 the Red Barn market where I was pleasantly surprised to find the Nautilus seashell store. I bought about six shells that might fill in additional sub-species if II picked well and Suzette found a package of ten turtles made from shells and small rocks. As we drove around the back of the market we saw Meany’s Mini-donuts, so we stopped and split an order of warm powder sugar dusted, Bavarian Creme and chocolate decorated donuts with an iced coffees.  I discovered that the mini donut is almost the same puffed confection as the beignet we ate at Cafe Marquesa; soft, spongey, and delicate.

We then drove west on Manatee until we reached the last bridge before crossing from the mainland to Anna Marie island. We stopped because we feared the traffic coming back into Bradenton would be terrible.

We were in bumper to bumper traffic most of the way back to Don and Bex’s for 1 1/2 hours, arriving a few minutes after 5:00.

We settled in as Don and Bev were getting to go to play Bingo at the community center but spent a couple minutes discussing  preparing the 1.25 lb. of  fresh scallops for dinner with the PPI whole wheat spaghetti and some of the fresh asparagus.

So while they were gone until 8:30 I diced 1/2 onion and 1 shallot and 1/3 bunch of baby asparagus and cross cut the 26 fresh sea scallops into 52 flat round disks., which Suzette then dried on paper towels.

When Don and Bev returned with two bottles of Chloe Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough, New Zealand Beverly and I started to cook dinner.

We sautéed the onion, shallot and two tsp. of chopped garlic in butter and olive oil and after a few minutes added the diced asparagus and a few dashes of chopped parsley.

Then I put about two cups of flour with ground thyme, salt, pepper, and a crushed bay leaf into a quart freezer bag with the scallop medallions and shuck the bag to coat each scallop with flour and then removed the flour coated scallops from the bag to a paper plate, carefully removing most of the excess flour.

We then heated butter and olive oil in a skillet large enough to hold all the scallops and sautéed them until they began to show some golden brown color, about three minutes. Then we flipped the scallops and cooked the other sides about two minutes and then poured the sautéd onion, shallot , and asparagus mixture on top of the scallops and added about. 1/3 cup of dry white vermouth and 2 cups of dry white wine and stirred the entire mixture until it thickened.  We then added the PPI spaghetti and added a bit more vermouth and wine to keep the sauce creamy and served the dish in bowls with glasses of a Chloe Sauvignon Blanc.

We all loved the dish.

I fetched B & B and Courvoisier VS cognac after dinner and made after dinner drinks by mixing the two.

Bon Appetit