Not your auntie's scallops, I'm afraid.

So... this is a lesson in how to screw up a scallop dinner. In my humble opinion, scallops should be eaten in a nice heavy cream sauce, full of calories and yumminess. What you DON'T want to do is overcook them. *sigh*

I marinated them for about ten minutes in a balsamic vinegar/lemon juice/olive oil/orange zest kind of concoction, adapted from an epicurious.com recipe, then sauteed them in the marinade. They were supposed to cook for like 2 minutes, but I was also keeping an eye on the roasting Brussels sprouts and the quinoa, so time May or may not have slipped away from me. In any case, the succulent little nuggets were just not as ... succulent as they should have been. Taste wasn't bad, just underwhelming when all my taste buds could think of was the amazing scallop casserole that my ex-husband's aunt used to make for Thanksgiving dinner (it was Maine; it's obligatory to have some sort of sea creature at all festive occasions). That sucker was LOADED with creamy goodness. *wistful sigh*

Anywayy, I also cooked some quinoa, just plain; I wasn't really prepared to do anything more creative, but it was a mixture of a few different varieties, so it was actually very tasty by itself. The plate looked really rather boring, so I sliced up some cucumber to lighten things up a bit. The plate is still fairly monochromatic, but the Brussels sprouts were SO good, I saved them for last. They were just oven-roasted with a little olive oil, and a LITTLE salt (that's for my daughters, who literally hide the salt shaker from me; I have a little addiction problem, OK? I'm working on it).

Watermelon for dessert, and I would say that I have had a pretty successful day of food. Yayy!