Happy Friendsgiving!

Friendsgiving came and went, but the memories will last forever yet again. I'd like to start by giving Sara and Rachel a heartfelt shout out for hosting such a fine evening of wine and Thanksgiving-style cuisine. Our third annual Friendsgiving took place this past Wednesday and certainly lived up to all the hype and anticipation!  I brought scallops topped with bacon and a home made pear and bourbon reduction chutney for an appetizer as well as a side of asparagus for the feasting.  In addition, I also threw in a bottle of Suisun Valley's Scholium Project Syrah, which is quite tasty!

Sara and Rachel set up a couple old Third Row tables in their living room to give us enough dining space for the 16+ guests that showed up for Friendsgiving.  They did a fabulous job setting the table to dazzle the diners both before we sat down and after!

Friendsgiving Dinner Table Before and After We Were Seated

We served the food buffet style and then took our seats at the table.  I was fortunate enough to grab the end of the table with a little extra elbow room!  Our end of the table was certainly the "classy side" as I was joined by Eric, Teal, Hunter, Rachel Smith, and Chris. 

My First Plate at the Freindsgiving Feast of 2009

I'm going to attempt to go around the plate in order and give credit where I can and where it is due.  Starting on the bottom center we have Teal's cornbread dressing with shrimp and crab meat.  It is a great place to start because it was delicious!  I'm not sure I'lve ever had cornbread dressing that had such a perfect combination of moistness and flavor.  Well done, Teal!  Moving clockwise to the left sits the sweet potato casserole topped with candied pecans.  Money!  Next is a special tradition from Hunter Brown: mashed potatoes and gravy from Popeyes Famous Chicken and Biscuits!  It is hard to do better, so why try, right HB?  To the far left there is part of a roll.  Above that there is a great green bean casserole that was made by my sister, Dana.  The beans were moist and tender and covered in crispy onion strings.  The casserole impressed me, but not as much as Dana's other dish, the macaroni and cheese.  All the way at the top of the plate sits Dana's mac 'n' cheese which used multiple cheese varieties and some penne pasta noodles.  Way to go, sister!  Next, we have the turkey.  Eric made the turkey again this year and did another marvelous job with the large bird.  It came out of the oven about as tender and moist as one could ask for with plenty of flavor.  I'm a big fan of the dark meat, so my plate contained mostly leg and thigh meat with some home made cranberry sauce.  There is some ham that Rachel Stich cooked under there somewhere too.  To finish the plate off there are a couple asparagus spears that I cooked under there somewhere and another cornbread dressing at the bottom right of the picture.  Whew!  I got through all that.  How did I go back for another round?  I must be a machine.  Just call me Jaybert Dujols,  the Albert "The Machine" Pujols of feasting. 

Three Home Made Ice Cream Flavors from Sara

There were plenty of desserts at Friendsgiving but ice cream was the only thing I still had room for.  Fortunately Sara had three flavors of home made ice cream to choose from.  On the right is the brown sugar and bacon ice cream!  The bacon flavor shined in the cream while not leaving too much of the taste in your mouth afterwards.  My only complaint would be that there were actually chunks of bacon mixed in the ice cream that tasted fine but messed up the texture of the creamy goodness.  On the top left there is a coffee flavored ice cream which had a good taste that was not overpowering.  Beneath the darker brown coffee ice cream is the orange pumpkin ice cream.  It won my award for best ice cream of the night and I could definitely eat it again.  The ice cream had a smooth, rich flavor with the pumpkin and spices that make pumpkin pie so good... but in an ice cream.  Thanks Sara! How cool would it be to serve coffee ice cream in photo mugs with our favorite group pictures?

Happy Friendsgiving, everyone!  Eat, drink, and be merry!  'Tis the season, afterall.

Sea Scallops Topped with Bacon and a Pear and Bourbon Reduction Chutney

Friendsgiving is a pot-luck, family-style dining event brought to our group of friends by the organizers of our weekly dinner club, Sara and Rachel. The hosts instructed each attendee to bring at least one dish and a bottle of wine for the festivities. I graciously took the assignment of an appetizer because I felt like it gave me the most flexibility to shy away from traditional Thanksgiving fare and think outside the box a little bit.

I made a Pear and Bourbon Reduction Chutney the day before to pair with some sea scallops and bacon.  My idea was to make bacon wrapped scallops, but that didn't work out so well.  Fortunately, as you'll see, I was able to improvise!  The preparation on this day began with a couple pounds worth of fresh, thickly sliced bacon strips from a local butcher shop. 

Mmm... bacon!!

I first boiled the bacon because I wanted it to stay flexible in order for me to wrap it around the scallops.  It turned out that the thick bacon was really too large to properly wrap my smaller-sized scallops, so I abandoned that plan.  I removed the bacon from the water and fried it to a crisp in a cast iron skillet.  Crispy bacon is ways better anyway!
 
The next part of the appetizer involved me searing some sea scallops.  I cooked the scallops in the same skillet that I used for the bacon, leaving a little of the liquified bacon fat to give them a nice golden brown sear on the outside. 

Half of My Scallops Searing in a Cast Iron Skillet

The scallops finished their searing, the bacon remained crispy and warm, and the chutney chilled in the fridge, awaiting the dinner party and Friendsgiving!  Upon arrival at dinner club I set up shop on the table.  The scallops were spread out on a steel chaffing dish.  Each delightful scallop was then topped with the savory, crispy, meaty portion of a thick-cut bacon slice.  Using a spoon, I then placed a portion of pear and bourbon chutney on each strip of bacon to round out the flavors and wrap up the finger food dish. 

Seared Sea Scallops topped with Bacon and a Pear and Bourbon Reduction Chutney

My opinion probably shouldn't count as much because I made the appetizer and in my experience the chef or creator will be the harshest critic of his/her own work. The bacon and chutney stood out to me as being really delicious, but this was the first time I've ever seared scallops and they didn't come out all that great to me. I thought they were okay, but nothing exceptional. I can do better. In all reality, I think if they were a little fresher and would have been eaten when they were hotter off the skillet, everything would have been fine.  Everybody at the party sure seemed to enjoy them though, and that is what really counts!  I got quite a few compliments about the creativity, presentation, and taste of the dish as whole.

If I may take a step back to the drawing board for a second, Chrystal and Amir with The Duo Dishes asked that I incorporate asparagus into the dish when I pitched the idea of scallops and a pear-bourbon sauce.  Thinking that maybe I could spear the scallops with asparagus, I purchased some of the green stalks during my trip to Southside Produce when I bought the pears.  Unfortunately, the scallops were too small and the asparagus was too giant to actually do any spearing, so once again I was forced to improvise. 

Fresh Asparagus Stalks Awaiting an Olive Oil and Slap Ya Mama Bath

I generously coated the asparagus in olive oil and sprinkled in some Slap Ya Mama white pepper blend since it was my popular seasoning choice of the night.  The asparagus was then covered in foil and placed in a 400 degree oven for a while.  I can't actually tell you how long because I never set a timer or watched a clock.  I base my cooking on judgement, texture, and taste rather than measurement and time.  Good thing I don't try to bake too often!  I checked the vegetables a couple times before I decided the texture was right for consumption, then pulled it out of the oven and brought it over to Friendsgiving along with the scallop, bacon, and chutney appetizer.

Italian Olive Oil and Slap Ya Mama Cajun Seasoning used for the Asparagus

My dishes were ready and so was I!  Friendsgiving had finally arrived.  All that was left to do now was eat, drink, and be merry!  I'll make sure to tell you all about the wine, dinner, and homemade ice cream on the next edition of Bite and Booze!