Sunday 14th June '09

Today I had a few of the guys come over to help me put together some IKEA furniture I recently bought. In return, I was going to prepare a seafood lunch. Ivy and Benoit couldn't make it, but Meng and Dau showed up at noon.

The first thing I did was to make my Provolone Potato Gratin. It went into the oven to bake while I prepared the seafood.


I thawed out the 2kg of scallops (still in their shells) last night. We bought them on the way back from Mandurah on our last trip down there. I haven't prepared scallops from the shell before, so I quickly googled it to see if there were any specific instructions. Nope, looked like a straight forward split the shells, remove the yucky bits and rinse the scallop meat procedure. I was a bit disappointed to see that there weren't any plump, juicy roe on the scallops. Some of them had alot of sand encased in the membranes surrounding the scallop, but this was easily rinsed away with water.

I just realised the job ahead of me

the scallop enclosed in the shell

the shell has been pried open

scallop exposed!

cleaned scallops

I did the scallops two ways.

I put a tiny smidgen of crushed garlic beneath each scallop, drizzled a bit of olive oil over the scallop and sprinkled some dried thyme over each one.

For these scallops, I tried to replicate the ones that we had during our recent trip to Melbourne. In a pan, I sauteed some finely diced onion, chicken thigh and crushed garlic in olive oil. I spooned some of this mixture onto each shell and put a scallop amidst it. I then sprinkled some grated mozarella cheese (I would have preferred Tasty cheese but we ran out) and then poured a spoonful of cream onto each.

The scallops went into the oven until the cheese had melted and turned a golden brown.

Dau the builder...can he fix it!?

Err...something doesn't look quite right guys...

Saz: "You'd better do a good job!"

I also defrosted some oysters overnight and decided they weren't fresh enough to enjoy as they were. So, I made a little dressing for them using some whole egg mayonnaise and wasabi paste. I also added a bit of fresh lemon juice, whisked it all together and poured some on each oyster to serve.

Prawns - there was nothing to think about - I was going to do them with garlic! I sauteed a generous amount of crushed garlic in olive oil in a pan and then added some white wine. I threw the prawns in and cooked them, turning them over to cook them all the way through. The aromas of garlic were filling the house and the boys were getting hungry.

I managed to get through to Kong on his phone and asked him to come over to eat. A good thing he was able to come because he was able to get my IKEA cupboard finished quickly. Meng regards him highly as a handyman he he.

With one cupboard out of the way, we all sat down to eat.

Lunch
Garlic & Thyme Scallops
Creamy Chicken & Onion Scallops
Garlic Prawns
Oysters with Wasabi Mayo Dressing

I also panfried some scotch steaks for Dau and Kong. We had the potato gratin and some fresh baby rocket to go with all the protein.

After lunch, it took Kong and Meng about ten minutes to put together my other IKEA cupboard. Yay! I plan to make this my wine cupboard.

Dinner
Mushroom Soup

Mum's Lasagne
Provolone Potato Gratin
Rocket with Balsamic Dressing

It was so cold, I spent all night eating. I went back about three times and ended up polishing off the whole baking dish of potato gratin. So much for taking some to work tomorrow.