Status Update – Experimental Cooking

I don’t know how you do things, but I’ve discovered that in the winter, I have about 4 suppers that I cook in rotation: turkey burgers, poached salmon, baked chicken with pesto, and … Okay, so I have 3 suppers that I cook in rotation. Well, the meats. My side rotations are pretty much limited too. And they’re all good meals, mind you, but I’ve been feeling like I need to cook more.

So last night I tried my hand at bacon-wrapped scallops! I went online and found a recipe that looked relatively easy. I mean, “Wrap the bacon around the scallop, skewer it, and broil it for 5 minutes on each side” is about as easy as you can get. Except that it turned out at the last minute that I didn’t have toothpicks to do the skewering. So what did I use? Double-pointed sock knitting needles, of course!

Can you see the tiny, blue knitting needles in there?

They actually worked very well, all things considered. I’ve never tried to cook scallops before, but I’ve had them at restaurants and liked them okay. My theory was that maybe I could add this new protein into my supper rotation. So here’s what the whole dinner looked like:

Voila!

And it wasn’t bad, all things considered. I’m terrible at seasoning food, though, so it was a little bland. Actually, I’m clueless when it comes to seasoning food. I put melted butter and crushed garlic on the scallops as per the recipe, but there was so much butter that it made everything else on the plate soggy. But hey, melted butter soggy is better than normal on most days! But back to the seasoning thing, I can never really get my food—other than the stuff I already know—seasoned enough to suit my palate. I think I just need to experiment more.

I should add that the other day I tried one of those stir-fry kits and threw in a little of my stash of chicken. That was really good. I didn’t take a pic of it, but it was quick, easy, tasty, and adequately seasoned. Probably because the seasoning pack came with the veggies. I definitely think I’ll try that again, although I may get a much better kit from Whole Foods instead of the one I got at Target.

So help me out here. What are your favorite meals to cook, and what seasoning do you use to get it to your taste?