Happy Belated Cinco de Mayo everybody! I’m sure Sheila had the wildest celebrations of all but she seems to be missing in action so I’ll fill you in on my escapades instead.

On Sunday I hopped on the water taxi and went over to Fells Point, where I had a couple of Dos Equis lagers at the beer garden. Before you judge, my choices were Dos Equis or Tecate. Ole! Then we went to dinner where my friends ordered me a margarita that I refused to drink because tequila tastes like the worst thing in the world. In my opinion. Bleh.

They also all ordered quesadillas. In my three-beer-fuzzy brain, I decided that ordering the Cuban sandwich was “festive.” A little cultural confusion there, my apologies.

Anyway, flashback to Saturday when Kelly and I tag-teamed these salads. As mentioned previously, Aaron sometimes provides me with random and expensive food to cook, which works out well for me as a broke blogger. He works in the food-service industry so he gets these things for free. He told Kelly and I a somewhat disturbing story about one of these people he gets food from who placed a whole, skinned lamb in his passenger seat so that he could take the carpool lane on the highway. Just further encouragement to keep your eyes on the road.

These scallops, although they came in something strongly resembling a paint can, were extremely fresh and delicious. Kelly put together the salad (spring greens, cucumbers, grape tomatoes, craisins and walnuts) and I took care of the scallops.

I patted them dry on both sides, and then used my vintage sifter to sprinkle a light dusting of flour mixed with Old Bay seasoning on top.

Heat some oil- use something with a high smoke point like vegetable oil, NOT olive oil- on the stove. Sear the scallops for a few minutes on each side until you get a nice brown crust and the scallops are opaque. Depending on the size, they could take 2-4 minutes on each side.

You can see in the picture above if you look closely that the scallop on the bottom left is still a little pink in the middle. You want to cook it until JUST after that pink goes away.

Top salad with scallops and dressing! We used raspberry vinaigrette.

Another benefit to this meal is that scallops are really healthy. After inhaling this salad and a LARGE portion of strawberry shortcake, I looked up the nutritional facts out of curiosity. Two large or five small scallops is only 26 calories! And they have a lot of protein. So if you can afford them and are comfortable eating them in a way other than wrapped in bacon, this meal is for you.

Aaron said any other “weird” food that I want, he can get it. He suggested octopus. Any takers?