After you indulge in my non-cooking skills, be sure to click on over here and give your two cents to my article on In The Powder Room, RE: to parent or not to parent.

It takes a lot for me to even admit that I even *need* advice, so……..please? Help?

Now, on to the food.

I can’t believe this is actually happening. I’m writing about FOOD…FOOD THAT I CREATED.

And I’m showing you pictures.

What has the world come to?

The recipe I (kind of) followed can be found here on Food.com (first time I’ve used a recipe from here. I usually gravitate towards allrecipes).

However, allow me to copy and paste it for you…because it is one less clicky for you AND I didn’t totally follow directions (my additions or subtractions or notes are within the parenthesis. surprise, surprise)

I definitely plan on making a few revisions the next time. First, I think I’ll pay attention to the part that says something like, “allow wine to reduce.” I’m also going to cut back on the amount of red pepper flakes. It was S-P-I-C-Y!!!

I also want to cook the scallops in an entirely different pan to sear them on both sides so they are all brown and pretty. My scallops were not brown and they were not pretty.

Allow me to preface the images (in other words, make lots of excuses for them): All pictures are weird sizes and some probably aren’t even in focus because they were taken with my iphone because I was too lazy to go upstairs and get my camera.

The Beginning: In Which I try to Have My Pre-Prepared Ingredients Ready

I have my wine and my red pepper flakes and the garlic is a little fuzzy…but do you see the bowl? That is the best little bowl ever. It’s my Yum Yum Time is OVER bowl. I got it at a restaurant a few years ago in Asheville, NC (a restaurant that I recently learned went out of business! Sadface!). My dessert was served in this little bowl and since then, I still put my dessert inside…along with snacks and, well, sometimes, garlic. If you’re at all intrigued, I found out that the Yum Yum bowl has a website

AND – even better than just a website – they gave me a coupon code to share with YOU so you can have your very own Yum Yum bowl to fill with pudding and garlic (probably not at the same time)!

I don’t do a very good job of telling people or businesses how much I like their stuff, so I decided to try to change that and send Yum Yum a quick email just to say FYI, here is some positive feedback: I’m talking about you on my blog because I love your bowls (that can probably go downhill fast…)

And guess what?!

The Yum Yum Bowls Peeps responded to my gratitude by giving you a coupon! It’s like the gift that keeps on giving!

The coupon deets: If you order a set of Yum Yum Bowls any time between now and June 30, you’ll receive $5.00 off your very own set of Yum Yum bowls.! Use coupon code BOLD (and it is case-sensitive, so be sure you use all caps!)

This is a fantastic deal, if you ask me, because I had to order an entire dinner to get just ONE Yum Yum bowl and that dinner was WAY MORE EXPENSIVE than the price of the FOUR bowls that come in the set!

Thank you, Yum Yum Dishes!

Ok…moving on from my little bowl obsession (ha…punny) (I also have an obsession with baby spoons…you know, the kind you get when you ask to taste ice cream? I eat things, like pudding, with those. Sometimes, I eat pudding out of the Yum Yum bowl WITH a baby spoon…I have no idea what that even says about me…but there it is.).

Right…moving on…we also had roasted asparagus and shrimp cocktail to go along with the scallops.

The Vegetable: Asparagus (known in this household as As-Per-Gas)

I really don’t know why we call it that. It doesn’t really give you gas, per se…

This – by the way – is my favorite way to eat asparagus. Actually, it is the only way I eat asparagus.

First, I chop off the ends (that you can’t really even see in this picture…but I swear I chopped them off)

Then, throw them in a bag and add a little olive oil, salt and pepper and shake it up…

And finally, throw them on a pan to bake in the oven at 375 for…I think it was around 8-10 minutes? Tim was the timer…we should probably check with him.

I didn’t start baking the asparagus (you’re saying it, aren’t you? as-per-gas) until after I made these and stuck them into the fridge to chill (I crack myself up…I’m here all week, people):

A short story on me and shrimp.

My dad’s mom lived on a canal in Jacksonville, Florida that fed into the Atlantic Ocean. When we visited in the summer, we would always have fresh seafood (obviously). They had crab traps and fishing poles and the one sure bet that ALWAYS happened was this: At least once, if not every ingle day, during the afternoon, my dad would walk out onto the dock, throw shrimp bait (I remember it looked like cold hush puppies) into the water and then, once night fell, he’d go out with a cast net and catch BUCKETS – I’m talking five gallon buckets – of shrimp. Sometimes a flounder or crab or mullet was in the net, but it was mostly shrimp.

My job in all of this was, by the dim light of the moon, to pick up the shrimp – by their creepy little antennae – off of the dock and drop them into the bucket. Now, a little lesson in anatomy if you’ve never picked up a live shrimp – they’re springy little SOB’s with a sharp thing on their head that hurts like hell if it punctures your fingers.

Why didn’t you wear gloves, Jessica?

Excellent question. I have no idea. That thought just came to me…”Wow…it sure would’ve been brilliant to throw on a pair of gloves….”

Anyhow, I have a long history with shrimp that, due to this annual childhood experience, has sworn me off of dealing with the tiny little sea roaches in post-ocean form. I prefer the pre-picked up from the dock, peeled, deveined, cooked variety.

Thank you, Whole Foods.

Before you go all, COP OUT on me…those are our glasses. And I put the romaine in the bottom. AND I cut up a lemon AND placed the shrimp around the rim.

Confession: I also didn’t make the cocktail sauce…Whole Foods did that part, too. Do you know how hard it is to find a pre-prepared cocktail sauce without high fructose corn syrup?

Well, let me tell you: It’s impossible. Unless you go to Whole Foods.

Alllllrighty.

Step We Turn On The Oven: Sweat it Out

That’s my pink spatula. I have pink everything, almost. It’s a terrible habit that is entirely Tim’s fault.

Oh, right. In the pan….garlic, olive oil and the red pepper flakes, per the directions. They’re getting all aromatic together.

Then I was supposed to add the BUTTAH!

Step ADD THE BUTTAH!

I have no idea what is in focus in this picture? Nothing, I think. Trust me. There is the buttah! And it’s a-melting. I’m not a big fan of buttah…and I know I didn’t put in three tablespoons. BUT to my credit, at least I put in REAL BUTTAH.

Now, once that was all nice and melty, I added the Vino…which wasn’t really Vino…it was cooking Vino…we don’t have a lot of any white wine in the house. Tim isn’t a fan…

I did let this mixture come to a boil…I just didn’t let it REDUCE. Important step, apparently…don’t skip that step.

**Probably Important to Note** I think somewhere between the BUTTAH and the Vino, I started boiling the water for the noodles.

So, make sure you do that.

Step BOIL WATER FOR THE STARCHEY

There’s no picture for this part, obviously.

I’ve (finally) learned that Tim and I cannot eat an entire package of noodles – even if we just ran 20 miles – it won’t happen. I don’t really think it is possible…I think it’s kind of like drinking a gallon of milk… So, I cut the pasta in half.

Smarter.

The half not eaten (today) I put into a plastic bag and wrote the amount of time I needed to cook the noodles (I didn’t keep the packaging). I thought that was rather brilliant of me, Miss Never Time Anything Yet Feels Compelled To Write It Down Anyway.

At this point in the “cooking” exercise, entirely too many things were going on, so I had to recruit Tim to help me.

His job was to watch the asparagus and make the noodles.

My job was everything else.

Step ADD THE BIVALUES to the Vino Mix

Also, during the bivalue action, you are supposed add the lemon zest…OMG! ZEST!

Tim had to stop whatever important activity he was doing to quickly zest my lemon (Seriously, people. How do you not find me charmingly hysterical?).

I neglected to remember to do that in my pre-prepping steps. I missed the zesting action along with the reducing. Meh. At least I remembered…to…make dinner?

I flipped the little mollusks over a few times, turned the heat to LO (why not “Low?” It’s no wonder we’re challenged at…the metric system?…) and put a lid on the pan.

Whether or not any of that was necessary or the right thing to do, I have no idea.

But it happened. And the scallops were not over or under cooked. Score one in the seafood WIN column for me.

Once the noodles were finished, we drained them, put the limp starchys back into the pot and added my bivalue concoction:

In one of the reviews on this dish (or maybe it is in the instructions…I don’t remember where I saw it, exactly…maybe I invented it…but I don’t think I’m that smart) it says to let this mixture all get nice and happy for a little while before serving it.

So that’s exactly what we did. We threw a lid on it and let them marinate together and make all kinds of inappropriate conversation with each other (“How’s YOUR value?”….”Oh, noooo, you’re no limp noodle…”)

Then, we ate them.

No…then I tossed on my freeze dried – “as close to fresh as you can get!” (don’t thank me for the brilliant marketing – thank the jar of freeze dried herbs) parsley and THEN we ate them.

With the asparagus.

It was a soupy, spicy, delicious mess.

I know…you just can’t wait to make this. I made it look so easy…and appetizing!

Actually, you’ll probably make a much better version than me. I’m just the jumping off point, really.

So, what do you think? More food from Yours Truly or should I just stop at mollusk?

And, before I go, don’t forget about the coupon at Yum Yum Dishes!

The coupon deets: If you order a set of Yum Yum Bowls any time between now and June 30, you’ll receive $5.00 off of your order of a set of Yum Yum bowls. Just be sure to put in the coupon code BOLD (and it is case-sensitive, so be sure you use all caps!)