Our Anniversary Weekend Away – Part Two

It’s all about the food….. 🙂

One of the first things I look for when we go away for something special, is a place where I can cook!! It truly is something I really enjoy, and I love experimenting.

Now I’m no expert…..not by a long shot! One of my dream vacations would be to travel around the world and learn to cook all the dishes native to each place. So many different flavours and interesting ingredients to discover!!

However, this could be a little tricky for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that I HATE to fly!!!

So, if I ever get rich, I am going to build a cooking school and offer classes where the cooks come HERE and teach me/us!!

Until then, I hack around in the kitchen and cross my fingers!! So far, there have been no human casualties, and everyone here seems to still like to eat!

On the menu tonight would be a shrimp and scallop dish – something we’ve never made before. We thought since it was just the two of us (when does that ever happen?) this would be perfect opportunity. When we paid the cashier at the grocery store check-out, I knew why we don’t do this often and certainly not for the whole household.

I like to cook with wine……..sometimes it goes in the food…..but usually not. I actually prefer drinking wine while I’m cooking over having it with my meal.

So, I cracked open a bottle of red, put out some cheese and olives to snack on, and turned on some music.

This is my element!

Glenn, still not feeling well, took a well-deserved rest while I began the prep.

I really had no recipe, just an idea….and I had NONE of my usual herbs and spices on hand. So this was going to be somewhat of a challenge. But after half a glass of wine, I was feeling brave!!

Vegetables all prepped and ready to go…..

Beans went into the pan first, then I added butter for sautéing as well as a bit of water to create some steam. Then the garlic…….always the garlic.

Once the colour began to change and the beans started to get tender, I added the peppers and green onion, then about half a cup of half and half cream.

I wasn’t sure how long it would take to cook the shrimp and scallops and knew that overcooked wouldn’t be good. So I waited until the cream sauce had started to thicken and then add the seafood.

I plated the greens in anticipation of the finished dish…

Once the sauce began to coat the ingredients nicely, I added salt and pepper and a few red Chile flakes. Then, we filled our plates and enjoyed.

I will add the recipe below and modifications I would have made in my own kitchen with a greater selection of ingredients. But we really enjoyed it…and the leftovers next day were even better!!!

If you try the recipe, let me know how it turned out.