Dinner: Scallops in Parchment

When I left work yesterday, the temperature thingy in my car was reading 109 degrees. Good Lord. Needless to say, we needed something light for dinner. I decided on this:

Scallops in Parchment with Fennel, Tomatoes and Olives

(I need to warn you, if you're cheap like me, you'll want to wait for scallops to go on sale. I had a mini heart attack at the register...$18.90 for 10 scallops...dang homes!)  

You'll need:

• About 10 sea scallops
• 1 large head of fennel, cored and thinly sliced
• 1 pint grape tomatoes, halved
• 1/2 - 1 cup pitted kalamata olives, halved
• 1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 1/4 cup dry white wine
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

Preparation: 

• Preheat oven to 375°. 
• You'll need 2 large pieces of parchment paper. Lay each piece flat on a baking sheet. 
• Slice your fennel, garlic, tomatoes and olives. (I'm not gunna lie, I had to watch a YouTube instructional video about fennel and what the heck to do with it...)

• Once all is sliced and diced, arrange 5 scallops evenly on one half of each piece of parchment paper, leaving a 2 inch boarder at the edge. 
• Cover the scallops with the fennel, tomatoes, olive and garlic. 
• Season everything with salt and paper. Drizzle the olive oil and white wine over the pile of goodness.   

• Fold top half of each parchment piece over ingredients. Crimp edges in tight folds to seal. Bake until packets puff up and scallops are cooked through (about 17-20 minutes, depending on size of scallops). 

Be careful when you open the packets, the steam is hot! We enjoyed the scallops with a bottle of Clos du Bois Chardonnay. All in all, it was very tasty and worthy of a repeat. However, Mark and I both agreed that we like seared scallops better. Oh! It's a little on the light side. If you're really hungry, I'd recommend starting with a small salad and bread.

We were finishing our dinner just as the massive storm hit. All the thunder and lightening completely freaked Boags out. He spent the rest of the night snuggling with me on the couch under a blanket watching Real Housewives of New York.