Pan Seared Scallops on Linguine with Tomato Cream Sauce Recipe

As promised I would pick our favorite dish for each month and share that recipe. The Pan Seared Scallops on Linguine with Tomato Cream Sauce recipe was Brian's favorite dish. Rachel liked the Baked Chicken with Lemon, Sean liked the Oven Fried Chicken Thighs with Mustard Buttermilk Sauce, and my favorite was the Blueberry Crisp a la Mode.

If you're enjoying these recipes, you can purchase the cookbook here.

And if you want to come and taste some of our cooking personally, we'd love to have you as our guest in our Colorado Springs Bed and Breakfast Inn, Rocky Mountain Lodge & Cabins where we'll serve you a gourmet 3-course breakfast each morning.

Enjoy our favorite recipe of the month from THE BEST OF COOKING LIGHT for January...

PAN SEARED SCALLOPS ON LINGUINE WITH TOMATO CREAM SAUCE

• 1 cup dry white wine
• 1/4 cup minced shallots
• 2 Tbsp. fresh lime juice
• 1 Tbsp. grated peeled fresh ginger
• 2 Tbsp. whipping cream
• 1 Tbsp. butter, cut into small pieces
• 2/3 cup chopped seeded plum tomatoes
• 2 Tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 1/2 cups hot cooked linguine
• 1/8 tsp. salt
• Chopped fresh cilantro, optional

1. Combine wine, shallots, lime juice, and ginger in a medium skillet; bring to a boil. Cook until reduced to 1/2 cup, about 5 minutes. Drain mixture through a fine sieve into a bowl, reserving liquid, discard solids.
2. Return wine mixture to skillet. Add cream, and cook over medium heat for 1 minute. Add butter, stirring until butter melts. Stir in chopped tomato, 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and pepper. Add linguine, and toss well. Cover and keep warm.
3. Heat a large nonstick skillet coated with cooking spray over medium-high heat. Sprinkle scallops with 1/8 teaspoon salt. Arrange scallops in pan, cook 2 minutes on each side or until done. Add scallops to pasta mixture; toss gently to combine. Garnish with chopped cilantro, if desired.

Yield: 2 servings (about 3/4 cup pasta mixture and about 5 ounces scallops)

Calories 426 (29% from fat)
Fat 13.5 g (sat 7.3g, mono 3.5g, poly 1.2g)
Protein 34.8 g
Carb 40.6 g
Fiber 2.6 g
Chol 92 mg
Iron 2.8 mg
Sodium 794 mg

Calc 75 mg

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls; Pumpkin Cinnamon Streusel Buns

Day 19 of cooking from THE BEST OF COOKING LIGHT and I made some Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls (Pumpkin Cinnamon Streusel Buns as they're called in the cookbook). I was a little unsure about these since I already have a Pumpkin Cinnamon Roll recipe that I've learned to master, and I make a regular cinnamon roll frequently that I've been making for years that my family think are the best ever (they're biased, however). Here's what we thought of these cinnamon rolls...

PUMPKIN-CINNAMON STREUSEL BUNS (Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls), good, but need just a tad of tweaking...

Surprisingly, these were actually pretty good cinnamon rolls. My hubby was convinced you could not make a "light" version of a cinnamon roll, but lo and behold, this recipe passed the test, even by him. He still prefers my cinnamon rolls, but these cinnamon rolls were acceptable, even to him.

Just a couple edits that should be noted...

The recipe tells you to cut the dough into 12 slices and place in a 9-inch square pan, however, 12 rolls don't fit proportionately in a 9" square pan so I used an 8-inch by 11-inch pan and had them 4x3 in the pan and it worked just fine.

The recipe says to cook them at 375 degrees for 20 minutes, but they needed to go longer. I cooked them at 375 degrees for 25 minutes, and they were still slightly doughy. 30 minutes would probably be more adequate. My usual cinnamon rolls get cooked at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

And the icing measurements were not appropriate. The book says to use 1 Tbsp water, but it was nowhere near a drizzle consistency, not even a spreadable consistency, it was still dry clumps. I had to add an extra tablespoon to get it to a thick drizzle. I didn't think it was going to be enough icing, but it was just the right amount.

I served these to our Bed and Breakfast guests this morning as well and they all disappeared, so they went over well with the guests also.

Overall, these were a good cinnamon roll and I would make them again if I needed to make a light version.

35 recipes down, 512 more to go.

Lemon Chicken, Layered Chocolate Pudding Dessert

Day 18 of cooking from THE BEST OF COOKING LIGHT and I made 2 dishes today... a Lemon Chicken, and a Layered Chocolate Pudding Dessert. Here's what we thought of them...

BAKED CHICKEN WITH LEMON, delicious all around (one of our favorites)...

Everyone loved this chicken. My hubby even said it's one of his top favorites so far, along with the Pan Seared Scallops on Linguine with Tomato-Cream Sauce. The recipe has you soak the chicken in a brine for 8 hours or overnight, saying the uniform salting produces a very moist bird. And we all agree, the chicken was extremely moist. I thought the chicken was slightly salty, which would make sense from it soaking in the brine, but the lemon flavor really was an interesting twist I wouldn't have thought of doing. We all enjoyed it very much, and loved how moist and juicy it was. A definite keeper that we'll make again. And it's really quite easy to make.

OUTRAGEOUS WARM DOUBLE-CHOCOLATE PUDDING, good, rich, chocolate dessert...

For this recipe being "light", which it truly was, at only 257 calories and 7 grams of fat per serving, it was really a good chocolate dessert, that really did seem rich and decadent.

I've made a couple things out of this cookbook that call for fat free evaporated milk, and the other 2 dishes weren't that great, especially the Lasagna Chicken Florentine (our least favorite so far), but it works great with this recipe, especially since you're adding chocolate to it. How can you go wrong with chocolate, and dark chocolate at that? And you use an egg substitute, but we couldn't tell at all. It really was rich and decadent. Not as good as the real thing (not light), but for a substitute when you need to cut calories and fat, this is a definite winner!

This dish has 2 layers to it, so it takes time to make, about 2 hours from start to finish (nearly 1 1/2 hours is baking time). I took a picture after we'd had a few bites so you can see the layers. And the fat free whipped topping is definitely missing the richness of real freshly whipped cream, but it was ok.

This recipe is supposed to be served hot from the oven. We ate it after it has set about 20 minutes because it was done about the same time our dinner was done. It was good "warm", not sure it would have made much difference being "hot". I have taken the extras and put them in the fridge and I'll serve those cold, like a chocolate creme brulee. I think they'll be good. We'll find out when I serve them tomorrow. Will post a follow up to this blog after we've tried them cold.

All in all, a good chocolate dessert, definitely worthy of making again.

34 recipes down, 513 more to go.

Macadamia Cranberry Cookies

Day 17 of cooking from THE BEST OF COOKING LIGHT and I made one of the cookies in the cookbook. I made some Macadamia Cranberry Cookies. Here's our thoughts on these cookies...

MACADAMIA BUTTER COOKIES WITH DRIED CRANBERRIES, good flavor, but dry...

These cookies had a wonderful flavor to them, but were dry. I could tell when I made the dough that there was no way it was going to stick together to roll into balls, so I added a few teaspoons of water. It still needed a bit more, or maybe a bit more macadamia butter.

It was interesting to use macadamia "butter". It was really easy to make, just put the macadamia nuts in a food processor and grind them until they're the consistency of butter. I think that's what made the flavor of these cookies so good. Maybe I'll add more macadamia nuts next time around.

I also needed to cook the cookies for an additional 1 1/2 minutes, which happens frequently with the high altitude where I live.

Also, instead of rolling the balls in sugar like you do for peanut butter cookies, you dip just the tops in sugar, and it was plenty sweet enough, but obviously much less sugar.

Overall, we liked these cookies, but they needed to be a little more moist. I will probably tweak on the recipe and make them again, the flavors were very good. I served them at our Bed and Breakfast Inn today. I'll know tomorrow when I chat with the guests how they liked them.

32 recipes down, 515 more to go (looking forward to getting below 500 in another week or two).

Spinach and Chicken Lasagna; Lasagna Chicken Florentine

Today was day 16 of cooking from THE BEST OF COOKING LIGHT. Since I'm cooking dinners for my daughter and her hubby as well as for us, I'm trying to keep the dishes simple in flavor this week, without much spice or acids, since she just had a baby and doesn't need that for her or the baby.

Tonight we made Lasagna Chicken Florentine (or Spinach and Chicken Lasagna as we called it). Here's our take on this dinner...

LASAGNA-CHICKEN FLORENTINE, not so good...

None of us really liked this recipe. The sauce was the culprit we're pretty sure, which was made from fat-free evaporated milk. No cheese was in the actual lasagna either, except for a small amount sprinkled on the top during the last 5 minutes of baking. Maybe a little cheese in the layers would have helped the flavor a bit.

One thing I've noticed about some of the recipes in this cookbook, they're not always accurate in their amounts. I had a hard time getting the sauce to thicken. The recipe said it would take about 3 minutes. After 15 minutes and it not getting thick, I added more flour to the sauce mixture, almost double what it called for (which isn't much, called for 3 Tbsp. and we had to use about 5 Tbsp.) to get it to thicken. In reality, it should have been a little thicker than it ended up being, but it was ok.

On a positive note, however, it was an easy recipe to make. Using oven-ready lasagna noodles was a treat and made it easy. And they weren't any more expensive than regular lasagna noodles since they were on sale.

Overall, we didn't care for this recipe and won't make it again :(

And if you're wondering about the brown spots on the salad, it's the balsamic vinaigrette dressing, not bad spinach ;)

31 recipes down, 516 more to go.

Oven Fried Chicken

Well, I haven't posted for the past several days. It's been a whirlwind week around here. My 50th birthday was on Friday and my husband and kids planned a surprise party for me. Most of my family flew in from around the country and surprised me. And the birthday party extended to a birthday weekend celebration. I couldn't have asked for a better present, having nearly all of my direct family here.

My dear hubby decided to make one of my favorite breakfasts for me... Scrambled Eggs Benedict in Puffed Pastry Shells, along with Creamy Hash Browns, Canadian Bacon, and cantaloupe, for my birthday celebration. Here's a picture of his fantastic job. You will notice that my meal is plated beautifully on a plate he heated and garnished with a rosemary sprig. Everyone else had to help themselves from the buffet table and use paper plates. I was definitely spoiled in many ways :)

Then, while most of the family family were still here, my 9 months pregnant daughter went into labor and had her baby Monday morning. It was the icing on the cake of a fabulous weekend! Being a proud Grandma, I just can't resist showing our new granddaughter off to you.

Now, back to our cookbook blog from THE BEST OF COOKING LIGHT (nothing compared to this beautiful little angel here). My Mom is still here enjoying her Great Granddaughter, so she and I made dinner together tonight. We made Oven Fried Chicken Thighs with Mustard-Buttermilk Sauce. Here's what we all thought of it...

OVEN-FRIED CHICKEN THIGHS WITH MUSTARD-BUTTERMILK SAUCE, a keeper (one of our favorites)!

This was a really easy dish to make, and it was really good as well. The chicken was really moist on the inside, and had a slight crisp on the outside. There was no oil used to cook it, so I was surprised it could crisp up even a little bit. And the mustard buttermilk sauce was excellent. You dipped the chicken in some of the sauce and then into bread crumbs with Parmesan cheese (wasn't enough though, we had to just about double the bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese mixture), and then baked it. The remaining sauce was warmed right before serving and drizzled over the chicken. The flavors were great. My hubby thought the sauce was honey mustard dressing we'd made and put it on his salad, which was really a good idea, though it would probably have been better cold. But, the sauce can also be doubled as salad dressing we found out.

Overall, a good recipe that everyone enjoyed and would love to eat again.

30 recipes down, 517 more to go.

Banana Pudding, Pork Tenderloin Medallions, Mozzarella Tomato & Basil Couscous

Today was day 14 of cooking from THE BEST OF COOKING LIGHT and I made Fresh Mozzarella, Tomato, and Basil Couscous Salad; Pork Medallions with Olive-Caper Sauce; and Banana Pudding. Overall good, but it's all relative to people's personal tastes, likes and dislikes. Read on for our thoughts...

FRESH MOZZARELLA, TOMATO, AND BASIL COUSCOUS SALAD, good, not sure that it was the appropriate side for the pork dish though...

I have never had couscous before, have been a little afraid of it for some reason, but my fears have been laid to rest. This was a good salad, and everyone liked it. I used the leftover buffalo mozzarella from last night's pizza in this, and would probably have liked more mozzarella in the salad. The flavors blended well together, and were mild, nothing was overpowering. This was a cold salad and would have been better served with something other than the pork medallions, but it was good, nonetheless.

PORK MEDALLIONS WITH OLIVE-CAPER SAUCE, excellent pork, the olives and capers were either hit or miss...

This dish I personally loved! However, if you don't like olives or capers, as some people in my family don't like, the dish may not be a favorite. The kalamata olives and capers were added in the last 4 minutes of simmering, so they didn't overpower the flavor of the pork. The pork tenderloin was delicious and very tender, everyone loved the pork, even if they scraped off the olives and capers ;) This was definitely a dish I would make again. Hubby's comment about it was it was good, but not one of his favorites, which is his polite way of saying "you don't have to make this one again". I think if it didn't have the olives and capers he would have been fine with it. As for me, and the rest of the family, we all loved it just the way it was. I recommend this recipe, and it was really easy to make :)

BANANA PUDDING, a winner for everyone...

This recipe was good, but I think it would have been better served cold. The recipe says it can be served warm or cold, and I ended up making it this afternoon so it was still warm when we served it. I made the mistake of buying mini vanilla wafers instead of regular sized vanilla wafers, and didn't realize it until I went to create this dish. I don't think I put enough vanilla wafers on the bottom and middle of the dish, and it could have used more. But other than that, everyone was as directed. When we scooped into the pudding to serve it, the pudding/custard was oozing water, but after we scooped out the first serving, it seemed to evaporate or get dissolved, but went away for some reason. Maybe if the pudding were cold it wouldn't have had the watery consistency to it. At any rate, it was still very good and everyone enjoyed it. And the meringue on top really gave it a nice flavor as well. My hubby even said we could make this in small individual dishes and serve it to our Bed and Breakfast guests, which I probably will, but cold, which will be nice because I can make the pudding itself the day before and just add the meringue and brown the top in the morning. Definitely a keeper recipe for sure.

29 recipes down, 518 more to go (it doesn't seem like the number to go is really moving much, this will be a long project, hope I can finish in a year!)