The other night I knew I wanted to make some spaghetti of some sort, but I wasnt sure what to do with it until I came across these beautiful little scallops. We haven’t had scallops in a while so I figured I’d just make a very simple tomato sauce with them and some vegetables.
Besides about 2/3 pound of scallops I chopped up 8 asparagus, 3 shiitake, 1/2 onion, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 yellow bell pepper, opened up 1 14oz can of diced tomatoes, and got out 1 tablespoon each of soy sauce and sake just to add a little umami.
This is about is simple as cooking gets. While I was boiling some salt water for the noodles, I used half angel hair and half wheat noodles, I heated up my pan and poured in about 2 tablespoons of olive oil. I sautéed the onion for about 5 minutes before adding the garlic, I let that go for another minute. After that I added the shiitake, pepper, and asparagus and let them go for another 5 minutes. I added the soy sauce and sake, let them boil off for about 1 minute, and then dumped in the tomatoes. Once the tomatoes were at a low boil I turned the heat down to medium and added the scallops. Scallops can be a little tricky here because if you overcook them they’ll become a bit rubbery. On the other hand, they do give off a lot of liquid so you need to boil some of that excess off. I let them go at a very low simmer for about 10 minutes and it worked out perfectly, but each stove top is different so you have to keep a close eye on it. At the very end of cooking I decided to add a little dried basil along with some salt and pepper.
Once I drained the noodles I just ladled the sauce on top. I had some wheat dinner rolls to eat with it.
Dan Bites 
What kind of pasta do you use?
I’ve found the textures of average whole wheat pastas are much too coarse for my taste, so I pretty much exclusively use Barilla standard enriched wheat pastas.
Do you use whole wheat or enriched? And do you have favorite brands?
I’m not brand loyal. I usually just pick up Trader Joe’s brand. It’s organic, cheap, and not too bad.