Deconstructed spanakopita, with a picture

For dinner tonight I got a little more experimental than I normally do... I know I say I'm an "experimenter" on my profile, but by that I mean hunting down and tinkering with others' recipes as opposed to creating my own from scratch. Now that I've started this blog, though, I'm feeling a bit more pressure to do the real thing. So when I broke out the scallops that had been sitting in our freezer, I decided to make a new side dish to accompany them. I took the scallops recipe from Caprial and John's Kitchen, which by the way is a wonderful resource for couples who like to cook together. (This doesn't apply to BFFT and me anymore. I relegated him to cleaning and dishwasher-loading about 6 months after we started dating, once I was comfortable enough to tell him I'm too much of a kitchen alpha to do the joint cooking thing!) I didn't even like scallops until just a few months ago... shellfish, except for crabmeat and calamari, was #2 on my list of most-despised foods, with cilantro of course taking the grand prize. As my girlfriend Gabe likes to say, "I can't eat anything served in the position it died in!" Well, that all changed the day BFFT brought home a gigantic bag of scallops from Costco, claiming that if I was contemplating fishetarianism (nowadays I only eat non-fish meat when it's served at dinner parties), I needed to broaden my horizons. The first time I tried them I had to pretend they were chicken; they weren't bad objectively but I was still squeamish about eating little creepy-crawlies. The second time I made them, however, I used the current recipe and started to come around. BFFT rates it as one of his all-time favorites, and although I'm still not the biggest scallops fan, I can take them in small doses, especially if they're prepared as described below.

In the interest of sticking with a Mediterranean-themed dinner, I served the scallops atop cous-cous with my original spinach-herb-feta creation - a deconstructed spanakopita, if you will. This was perhaps inspired by the delicious spanakopita I had for dinner last Thursday at Happy Greek. BFFT loved it, and I was so proud of myself for finally taking the plunge into bona fide cookhood (why am I inventing so many new words? does this mean I'm a schizophrenic? or maybe I'm just paranoid... oh wait, that's a symptom of schizophrenia too! aahhh! must get more sleep) that I just had to take a picture. Here is the recipe!

1 bunch spinach
1/4 c onion
1 clove garlic
1/2 t dried dill weed
a pinch of nutmeg
1 T fresh parsley
2-3 T feta cheese
salt and pepper

Heat a small amount of oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and saute for 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook for 1 additional minute. Add spinach and dried herbs and saute until spinach is wilted, about 2-3 minutes. Garnish with parsley and feta cheese, and season with salt and pepper to taste.

And the scallops (to serve 2 you can make 1/3 to 1/2 this amount):

3/4 c whole-milk yogurt (I like to use Greek-style, and it can be 2% if you prefer)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 T chopped fresh mint
1/2 t ground coriander
1/4 t ground cumin
1 T freshly ground black pepper
18 sea scallops
Salt
1 T vegetable oil

To prepare the sauce, combine the yogurt, garlic, mint, coriander, and cumin in a bowl, and whisk together. Season to taste with salt. Refrigerate until you are ready to serve.

To prepare the scallops, place the pepper on a small plate. Season the scallops with salt, then dredge them lightly in the pepper. Heat the vegetable oil in a very large saute pan over high heat until smoking hot. Add the scallops and cook until just barely cooked through, about 1 minute per side.

For how easy this is to make, it tastes incredibly gourmet!