Lemon Scallop Fiasco

I have come to accept the fact that an occasional fiasco is just a part of the process of cooking! I have had a couple of duds recently, hence the blog silence!

I decided to write anyway this evening because I gave my Lemon Scallops a valiant effort!

I really enjoy an occasional dinner at P.F. Chang's restaurant. My favorite dish there, hands down, is the Lemon Scallops. Scallops are one of those foods that I love to order in restaurants precisely because I never cook them for myself. However, on our last office order at Coleson Foods, I got brave and ordered myself a pound of Scallops. I spent a little time online and found another blogger who came up with a copy-cat recipe for the P.F. Changs dish that I love. Her recipe is here:

Lemon Scallops

Lets just say that as simple as that sounds, I was just not meant to fry things. I have NEVER had a successful meal that included any form of frying. My oil got too hot and started splattering and burning me and making a greasy mess of my kitchen. The outside of the scallops was mushy and not crispy. I got impatient and after doing the first 1/2 of the scallops in little batches, I gave up, didn't dip them in the egg or flour and just put them all in the pan. But they didn't brown because they were too "crowded". So I got slimy little Scallop balls. Ugh!

Sigh... It makes me laugh to write this out. My kitchen was not a pretty sight tonight!

Of the whole deal, the sauce was actually decent. I got side-tracked trying to wash up a few dishes while it simmered and the green onions overcooked and turned limp and stringy and ugly green-gray. BUT, the flavor of the sauce was actually pretty good. I might try it again sometime and just drizzle it over some kind of broiled fish.

I am convinced that the problems here were "me-related" and not recipe-related. Someone with a better knack for frying things could probably pull this off. For the future, I will allow the talented people at P.F. Changs to give me my Lemon Scallop fix!

On a side note though, I did make some yummy Gluten-Free Pumpkin Chocolate Chip cookies last night. Most of you who read this are not gluten-free people so I'm not planning on putting the recipe here. But let me know if you want it and I'll be happy to share. Off I go to comfort myself with a cookie and clean up my very messy kitchen...