Getting My Irish On....

....for Foodie Friday! I never should of read that Irish cookbook especially while hungry! I think that I have found my niche though. The recipes I have used so far are so easy to make and delicious! I know which ones appealed to me too. I just have to look for the pages that are nibbled.

Anyways.... yesterday I made some seafood dishes that I just have to share.

I was planning on doing this for Friday since it is Lent. When I got home from the grocery store though, I goofed. I had to get dried chanterelles. You need to rehydrate these before using and I did just that. Oops!

First up is Broiled Scallops with Chanterelles in a brown butter sauce. Yummy!

Chanterelles are wild mushrooms. They have a nutty woody taste to them. If you get the dried ones, don't pitch that water!

You can use it as a base for soups. I am planning on making either mushroom soup or stew with it.

Great, now my tummy is growling!

Anyways, you need to peel and seed a tomato. Yeah, never seeded a tomato before. Peeling is easy. Bring a pot of water to boil and plop your tomato in for about 30 seconds.

Plunge it into cold water and peel. Easy peesy! Now the seeding is pretty easy too. Cut the tomato in half in between the two ends of it. Slice down the sides a bit and squeeze.

Gently squeeze. Forgot that part. It was alot easier than I thought. You want to open up those little pockets when cutting down the sides. Before chopping you remove the spot where the stem was attached.

Then chop. Sorry I just wanted to show off my new gadget. My lifter/chopper. I just love this thing!

The traditional way to serve this is to use sea scallops. I couldn't find sea scallops so I had to use bay scallops. Do you know the difference between the two? Personally I like the sea ones better. They seem to have more flavor and they are bigger. Each scallop can be over 2.5 ounces. Bay scallops are small. This dish is meant to be served as a first course. You take a mound of champ and put it on a plate, make a well in the middle of it and add melted butter. Then you arrange 3 sea scallops around the edge with the chanterelles and sauce spooned over the scallops.

Wait, you don't know what Champ is?

Mashed Potatoes with chives. Mmmm.... In the old days they used a wooden tool called a beetle to mash the potatoes. There is even a poem about it.

There was an old lady that lived in a lamp,

She had no room to beetle her champ,

She up'd with her beetle and broke her lamp,

Now she has room to beetle her champ.

Now I am on the hunt for a beetle. Dang cookbook! It's filled with all kinds of interesting stories like this though. I also had Poached Salmon.

I know I could of dressed it up some. I meant to. I had the lemon to garnish it. Had is the key word. Something about a boy and a bitty girl playing with it and 100 lbs of stupidity getting in the middle, grabbing it and running off with it. Yeah. It was definitely hers.

This recipe was great! I don't have a poacher but it told how to do without. How cool is that? I do have to say that a poacher is now on my to get gadget list now though.

Onto how to make a poacher! Take two sheets of tinfoil lay them on top of each other and butter.

Lay the fish on the tinfoil and pull up the sides to make a box.

Pour in the poaching liquid over the fish and crimp the edges together to make a packet. I put it all on a cookie sheet to bake. As much as I love spending the morning with my head stuck in an oven cleaning it, I was not in the mood for run off.

I also served it with a California blend of veggies.

Since Birdseye did a fine job putting the recipe on the back of the package, I won't bother.

I did bother to make dessert though. I mean who wouldn't?

Strawberry Cheesecake with a Chocolate Graham Cracker Crust. I didn't get a pic of the ones that I served with a strawberry garnish and whipped cream. I forgot.

The graham cracker crust was not meant to be chocolate either. I made this at the last minute. I thought I had enough cracker crumbs to make this and I was a 1/2 cup short. No graham crackers either. The boy is hooked on graham crackers with cream cheese. All I had was chocolate teddy grahams. So I switched to a chocolate crust.

Is it okay to have cheesecake for breakfast?

Hmmm....

Mmmm....

Anyways I am hoping to get my big butt out of the house so I can do something for Make it for Monday. In my head it looks great. We'll see what reality is though. Until then....

Much love and best dishes!

Yeah I stole that from Paula, but we are tight. I am sure that she won't mind a bit! If she gets mad I will just bribe her with a stick of butter!