no. 109: seared scallop pasta with bacon, corn, and tomatoes

Plus, my afternoon fixation beverage.

I’ve catered 4 events in the last 2 weeks (intentional brag AND big slay!!!!!!), which means my fridge is currently stuffed with all of the leftover ingredients that I over purchased. I do my best to buy only what I’ll use, but you know, it’s better to have too much than too little.

I always get a ton of citrus before events, which means I’m currently working through a surplus of lemons, limes, and oranges. A lot of them are already zested, too, which means they’re juuuuuicy and ready for use. So, every afternoon this week, I’ve made a little citrus concoction, and it has brought me a profound sense of joy.

To make this little beverage, I juice a variety of citrus, then add coconut water (has to be Harmless Harvest), and sparkling water. There’s no real recipe to this, but if I had to guess, it’d be a 2:1:1 ratio of sparkling water to fresh squeezed citrus juice to coconut water. It’s TART and FIZZY and HYDRATING. I drink it out of a quart container (because I’m a chef).*

In lieu of product recommendations this week, we do need to go over some HOUSEKEEPING (dun dun DUNNN).

You guys aren’t in trouble, I promise. You are, however, going to have to start paying for recipes (but only if you want to!). The recipes in this newsletter, in addition to ROCKING, also take time, money, and resources to develop and shoot. Trust me, I would love to be able to offer free recipe content, but at the end of the day, this is my work. As it turns out, the secret sauce to these recipes is your support (mostly financial, but emotional doesn’t hurt, either).

Moving forward, my recipes will be for paid subscribers only ($5/month or $50/year). I will occasionally keep some recipes free for everyone, but the best way to guarantee that you have access to each and every weekly recipe is by upgrading to a paid subscription. Not to mention, paid subscribers will also have access to the full archive of recipes.

All subscribers (paid and free) will continue to have access to product recommendations as well as my weird intros (god forbid you all didn’t know about whatever’s happening in my life that week).

As a little encouragement to get you on board, I’m currently offering 20% off annual subscriptions. That’s $40 for a year of weekly recipes! Less than $1 for each recipe! I’m running this offer for the next week, so get it while it’s hot!

This newsletter would not be anything without you, my dear, tasteful readers, so thank you so much for your support! YOU ROCK.

OKAY, glad we got that out of the way.

*Yes, I’ve seen The Bear!

Seared Scallop Pasta with Bacon, Corn, and Tomatoes

Serves: 4-6

Active time: 25 minutes

Total time: 45 minutes

I made this dinner when I was back home in Colorado last month, and it’s such a banger that I decided to make it again. Scallops hit extra hard in the summer. I can’t explain it, but they just do.

To me, this is everything I want in a summer dinner. It’s loaded with corn and tomatoes and basil and it’s topped with dreamy, butter-basted scallops.

I bought these scallops at McCall’s Meat & Fish Co. here in LA, and I must say, these mollusks were quite special. My girls are PLUMP and JUICY and DRIPPING in butter!!! The key to getting that nice sear is pulling out as much moisture from the scallops as you can, which means salting them ahead of time, letting them sit uncovered in the fridge, and then patting them dry with paper towels.

Dijon mustard may seem like a random ingredient but I really feel strongly that it brings the whole thing together. IDK man, I just really love me some DIJON!