I cook quite often but this is the first time I ever thought to take pictures of everything and share it with you guys.
Tonight's menu is scallops in a garlic butter with yellow rice. For dessert, we have chocolate chip muffins! Yum.
Since the chocolate chip muffins will take the longest, we'll go ahead and start on that first.
Assemble the ingredients:
We will need:
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cups sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 stick butter (melted)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cups milk
3/4 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
Here is a picture of the flour in the beaker. Thanks Alton!
Also, please use REAL vanilla extract in your baking. Imitation is disgusting. It's really worth the extra money (bonus if you buy it during the holidays when spices go on sale, I got mine for half off). Sorry for the blurry pic:
Now at this point you put all the ingredients into your mixer and turn it on a moderate speed. Be sure to stop along the way and scrape the sides of the bowl!!
Once the dry and the wet ingredients are completely combined, toss in your chocolate chips (you can certainly substitute anything in its place like blueberries, cranberries, etc.):
When completed, the mix should look like this:
BTW, you did preheat your oven to 400 degrees, didn't you? (Also, bring two cups of water to a boil in a medium saucepan.) Now put the little muffin tins into your muffin pan. As you can see here I only ended up with 11 (recipe says it makes 12) muffins because I probably put too much mix into each tin. Oh well.
Now, about that water we have boiling. Add a pat of butter (this is optional, you could also use olive oil instead or completely do away with the butter altogether) to the water. Add the rice. I'm using Goya yellow rice because with all this cooking I didn't feel like making rice from scratch.
Grab a frying pan and add one tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil and put it over moderate heat. Take about six or seven cloves of garlic and crush them. No need to chop them up unless you actually wanted to eat them. Add a tablespoon of butter and get to work!
While the garlic is infusing with the oil and butter, let's get to work on the scallops. A scallop has a muscle on it that you need to cut off before cooking as it's very tough. I had some wonderful pictures of me cutting them but they didn't turn out. If you look in this picture, you'll see the white bits on each scallop. That's the muscle. It's easy to find and remove.
Once the oil, butter, and garlic have been going for a few minutes, add the scallops. As you can see, I also tossed on some Old Bay because come on, what seafood doesn't taste better with some Old Bay?
At this point, check on your rice and give it a stir. You only want to cook until all the liquid is gone.
I also made some corn on the cob to go with everything. For a slightly different flavour, I used chili powder instead of salt. Lime juice would be excellent on this too (thanks Rachael Ray for the idea). I didn't bother taking pictures of the cooking process because everyone knows how to cook corn on the cob.
Now it's time for the muffins to come out of the oven. You may think they're a little overcooked but they're fine for me.
It's time to eat. This dinner was most excellent.
Tonight's menu is scallops in a garlic butter with yellow rice. For dessert, we have chocolate chip muffins! Yum.
Since the chocolate chip muffins will take the longest, we'll go ahead and start on that first.
Assemble the ingredients:
We will need:
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cups sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 stick butter (melted)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cups milk
3/4 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
Here is a picture of the flour in the beaker. Thanks Alton!
Also, please use REAL vanilla extract in your baking. Imitation is disgusting. It's really worth the extra money (bonus if you buy it during the holidays when spices go on sale, I got mine for half off). Sorry for the blurry pic:
Now at this point you put all the ingredients into your mixer and turn it on a moderate speed. Be sure to stop along the way and scrape the sides of the bowl!!
Once the dry and the wet ingredients are completely combined, toss in your chocolate chips (you can certainly substitute anything in its place like blueberries, cranberries, etc.):
When completed, the mix should look like this:
BTW, you did preheat your oven to 400 degrees, didn't you? (Also, bring two cups of water to a boil in a medium saucepan.) Now put the little muffin tins into your muffin pan. As you can see here I only ended up with 11 (recipe says it makes 12) muffins because I probably put too much mix into each tin. Oh well.
Now, about that water we have boiling. Add a pat of butter (this is optional, you could also use olive oil instead or completely do away with the butter altogether) to the water. Add the rice. I'm using Goya yellow rice because with all this cooking I didn't feel like making rice from scratch.
Grab a frying pan and add one tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil and put it over moderate heat. Take about six or seven cloves of garlic and crush them. No need to chop them up unless you actually wanted to eat them. Add a tablespoon of butter and get to work!
While the garlic is infusing with the oil and butter, let's get to work on the scallops. A scallop has a muscle on it that you need to cut off before cooking as it's very tough. I had some wonderful pictures of me cutting them but they didn't turn out. If you look in this picture, you'll see the white bits on each scallop. That's the muscle. It's easy to find and remove.
Once the oil, butter, and garlic have been going for a few minutes, add the scallops. As you can see, I also tossed on some Old Bay because come on, what seafood doesn't taste better with some Old Bay?
At this point, check on your rice and give it a stir. You only want to cook until all the liquid is gone.
I also made some corn on the cob to go with everything. For a slightly different flavour, I used chili powder instead of salt. Lime juice would be excellent on this too (thanks Rachael Ray for the idea). I didn't bother taking pictures of the cooking process because everyone knows how to cook corn on the cob.
Now it's time for the muffins to come out of the oven. You may think they're a little overcooked but they're fine for me.
It's time to eat. This dinner was most excellent.