As I mentioned over on my Facebook page, I’ve been feeling a bit uninspired lately. This is mainly due to the fact that we’re trying to lose a bit of weight – eating lots of vegetables, avoiding starch and alcohol, and getting more serious about running (we’re looking at another 5K in April, then our first 8K in May). We’re eating simple preparations of food for the most part: roasted vegetables, sauteed greens, lean protein, fizzy water and tea. Not much to talk about, really.

But yesterday was Brigid, also known as Imbolc, and we always have a little private celebration to observe the return of the light and what tends to feel much more like the start of a new year than “normal” New Year. I wanted a dinner that was light, non-starchy, but a little fancy and evocative of spring, and I found one in Nigella Lawson’s new book (I love Nigella, reading her is like eating potato chips for me). It’s a very simple supper for two consisting of pan-seared sea scallops and a puree of peas flavored with creme fraiche and Thai green curry paste (a take-off of British mushy peas, I assume). I added a side of roasted asparagus, which was perfect with the other flavors, and opened a bottle of rich, buttery California chardonnay.

The peas turned out really, really well – the texture was silky, and the curry paste came through very lightly, with the occasional hit of lemongrass or hot chile. If we make it again, we’ll either leave out the creme fraiche or go much lighter on it, as it was richer than it needed to be, I think. And apart from the creme fraiche, it’s an incredibly quick pantry meal – frozen peas, jarred curry paste? Easy. It could also easily be mixed with a little broth and served as a soup, or as a sauce over white fish.

The scallops were also lovely, and very simple – I mixed a little butter and oil in a pan, seared the scallops  until barely done, then deglazed the pan with lime juice and poured the resulting lime butter over the scallops, dusting them with a bit of chopped cilantro. I’ve never tried this flavor approach with scallops before, but it was fantastic. I’m definitely doing this one again.

We lit all the candles in the house, turned on the fire, and felt that spring might be here soon.

Peas with Thai Curry

From Nigella Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home by Nigella Lawson

• 1 lb frozen peas
• 1/3 cup creme fraiche or sour cream
• 1-2 Tbsp Thai green curry paste, or to taste
• salt

Cook the peas in boiling salted water until done. Put them in a blender with the other ingredients and puree until smooth. Taste for seasoning, adjust as necessary. Serve warm.

Caramel-coated seafood sounds unlikely, I realize, but keep in mind this is Vietnamese caramel sauce: savory and bitter, it’s not at all like candy. Thankfully.

This wasn’t entirely my favorite way of eating scallops (panfried, wrapped in bacon, holds that honor), but we’d been looking for ways to use the caramel sauce Jon made awhile back, and it made for a very quick and interesting dinner. The sauce was made from a recipe in Andrea Nguyen’s Vietnamese cookbook, and the braised scallops were done more or less according to Molly Stevens’ book - basically, heating the caramel, adding fish sauce and shallots, putting in sea scallops and covering until just cooked through, mixing in chopped scallions, then dumping it all over white rice. The flavor was rich, and not nearly as salty as you’d think from looking at it. A plate of paper-thin slices of cucumber was a nice accompaniment, along with a sparkling low-alcohol Riesling.

I might consider making the sauce again, but maybe with halibut instead of scallops. Or if I did use scallops, I think I’d pan-sear them instead of braising. It’s hard to resist a seared scallop. Even if it doesn’t have bacon on it.

It was midmorning on Saturday that we realized there was nothing in the house for lunch. Well, apart from peanut butter and sardines. So I volunteered to trot down the hill to the co-op and see what looked edible. It was snowing, but not too hard, and it’s not a bad walk as long as I don’t try to carry anything too heavy back up the hill.

So I peeked into the meat case and saw these gorgeous dry-pack sea scallops – they were enormous and very fresh, so I snagged a package. Then, on my way to cruise the cheese case, my eye was caught by a pack of prosciutto. Lunch seemed to be taking shape rapidly. When I checked out, the cashier commented that I was the second person that morning who was obviously going to be having prosciutto-wrapped scallops, based on the groceries that had passed down her belt. Great minds think alike?

When I got home, I patted the scallops dry and pulled the muscle off, then wrapped a single sheet of prosciutto around each one. Unlike bacon, it clung to itself beautifully and didn’t need to be pinned in place. I tossed them into a nonstick skillet and seared until the prosciutto was crispy, just a minute or two.

We had some leftover redleaf lettuce from a previous night, and I shook up a dressing of olive oil, balsamic vinegar and mustard, then tossed it all up well and plated the salad. The hot scallops went on top. Quick, delicious and festive for lunch on a snowy March day.

This past month we’ve been trying something new – Bikram yoga. Two or three times a week we voluntarily put ourselves in a very hot room and twist ourselves into postures that leave us unbelievably sore, with a tendency to sleep ten hours a night (not that we generally get to). The drawback (for those of us obsessed with food) is that you can’t come home after nine hours of work and 90 minutes of hot yoga and expect to have time or digestive power for an exciting, complex or heavy dinner. Or alcohol. As a result, we’ve been expanding our repertoire of fried rices and other things that can be processed in the morning, then dumped in a hot wok and promptly inhaled alongside a pot of green tea. A few pounds have been lost, let me tell you.

This dish is a nice alternative to a straight stir fry or fried rice. I first got the idea from Nigella Lawson’s How to Eat, in which she admits her fondness for an enormous plate of buckwheat soba mixed with wilted beet greens. I don’t think I would have ever tried it, except that we often seem to have leftover beet greens in the house and I was feeling desperate one day for something besides bean soup to use them in. We discovered that we absolutely love the combination – the earthy greens with the equally earthy buckwheat noodles are amazingly good together – and we also discovered that sea scallops make a great topping. Now it’s one of our favorite quick lunches when we’ve bought beets at the farmer’s market. And it makes a great after-yoga meal: fast, fun and actually good for you!

Buckwheat soba with beet greens and scallops

serves two

• two bundles buckwheat soba
• canola oil
• one bunch beet greens, well washed and roughly chopped
• a spoonful of soy sauce
• a drizzle of rice vinegar
• 1/2 pound sea scallops, patted dry and lightly salted

Bring a large saucepan full of water to the boil; add the soba and cook until just done, about 5 minutes (check the cooking instructions on the package, they vary a lot). Drain, rinse with cold water and set aside.

Heat a wok over the highest possible heat. Swirl some oil into the wok, then add the beet greens. Make sure nobody in the room has a cat on their lap – they tend to panic at the resulting explosion. Stirfry the greens until completely wilted, then add the noodles. Season with the soy sauce and rice vinegar, toss thoroughly, and turn off the heat.

In a medium nonstick skillet, heat a drizzle of oil over med-high heat. Add the scallops and leave alone for a minute, then flip with tongs to brown the reverse side. I like my scallops a bit rare, but follow your own taste.

Pile noodles and greens on plates, top with scallops, eat.

I love scallops, and I love crêpes. When I saw a recipe in the April 2007 issue of Saveur magazine for buckwheat crêpes with scallops and scallop cream sauce, I knew I would have to make it at some point. We got around to it last week, on a rare sunny evening. We sat by the stove drinking white wine, frying scallops and eating them rolled in hot crêpes as they came out of the pan. Bliss!

We never remember which buckwheat crêpe recipe we like best, so this time J used Mark Bittman’s version from The Best Recipes in the World. The scallop sauce recipe was written to feed a vast number of people, so I edited it heavily to suit myself. The result was delicious, to say the least, but I’m not sure I would make it quite this way again. I’d rather eat my scallops whole and make a shallot-cream sauce to go on them, instead of using any of them in the actual sauce. But that’s just me – the pureed scallop did have a wonderful sweet flavor, and it’s definitely worth trying.

Scallops with Scallop Cream Sauce
adapted from Saveur magazine

• 3/4 pound large sea scallops
• 1/4 cup cream
• 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 1/2 cup white wine

Select a third of the scallops (I picked out the ugliest ones for this part). Pat them dry and season with salt and pepper. Fry them in a bit of butter until golden brown, then puree them in a heatproof container with the broth, wine and cream. Pour back into the pan and simmer until thickened. Salt to taste.

Cut the remaining scallops in half and fry as you go – two pieces per crêpe works well. Cook a crêpe, lay it on a plate and arrange the scallops on it, then spoon a good glop of the sauce on top. Asparagus is a good addition; leeks might be tasty as well. Roll up the crepe and eat.