Thursday Night Dinner: Seared Scallops With Crabmeat And Roasted Red Pepper Creme Fraiche And Asparagus.

Mr. Hawthorne stopped at Billy's Seafood on Colington Road Thursday and brought home SCALLOPS. Scallops are my favorites.

And here's what I was heading for: Seared scallops with a roasted red pepper creme fraiche and my leftover crabmeat mixture, the cold tomato mixture from last night's artichoke stuffing, and a cold tomato concoction from the other night when I thought I was going to do Chilies Rellenos for Cinco de Mayo, but that, unfortunately, tanked and bombed.

It's really too bad I do these dishes at night, because in the sobering light of day, my photographs would be spectacular. My white plates would be ... WHITE. But I do the best I can under the circumstances.

First I roasted my pepper ...

... until nicely charred.

Then I plunged the hot pepper into ice water and easily scraped off the skin.

I had some creme fraiche I'd made the other day.

I chopped my roasted pepper and added that to the creme fraiche in my Magic Bullet ...

... and I Magic Bulleted away until I had a nice pink-hued creme fraiche which I topped with crushed red pepper.

I liked this picture of my lemon.

Dixie played in the pool all day while I did yard work, so she's very tired and lazy - too tired to stand up to drink out of her bowl.

I rinsed and dried my scallops and seasoned them with freshly ground pepper and lemon zest.

I heated my pan, added butter and olive oil (light), and seared the scallops, maybe 2-3 minutes each side.

I heated up my leftover crabmeat mixture in a little butter.

Scallops are looking mighty fine.

Seared scallops with crabmeat mixture from the other night, tomato/pepper/onion mixture on the left between the aspargus, the tomato stuffing mixture from the artichokes at top right, and roasted red pepper creme fraiche on the scallops, and asparagus sauteed in butter.

This was excellent. The heat of the sweet scallops melted the creme fraiche a bit so that it kind of drizzled down the sides of the scallops.

Here's the tomato/onion/pepper salsa I originally made for my chilies rellenos, but that's a sore subject which I won't talk about again.

I used two roma tomatoes, half of an onion, and a slice of green pepper.

Diced all ingredients.

And sauteed in a bit of butter. Seasoned with salt and pepper. Now enjoy the close-ups of our meal:

Seared scallops with roasted red pepper creme fraiche.

Crabmeat atop seared scallop in front. Red pepper creme fraiche on scallop in back.

Oooh. More crabmeat.

Crabmeat on top scallop. Roasted red pepper creme fraiche melting on bottom scallop. I love scallops just by themselves, but these sauces added a new dimension of flavors and tastes, elevating this dining experience to a new level.