Best Bay Scallops Ever & A Dinner Party

I've mentioned before that I'm from the North Fork of Long Island and that means that I'm occasionally blessed with awesome seafood. Remember this clammy feast? A few weekends ago my parents were in town and they brought me some peconic bay scallops that were so fresh and sweet that I couldn't stop popping raw ones in my mouth. I normally only get to eat them once a year - Christmas Eve when we deep fry them (yeah - yum) so this was a really special treat!

We had a few friends over for a dinner party - 8 people altogether including me and Ron and my parents. I wanted to make something that didn't require any last minute cooking - the star (besides the scallops - I'll tell you about those in a second) was a giant pork roast that I slow cooked in lots of white wine and herbs until it was fall apart tender.

While that cooked away in the oven I prepared the rest of the meal. Side dishes included white beans and greens:

I made these with dried beans, someone please tell me how to make them taste as good as the ones out of the can. They're always half undercooked, half overcooked. In spite of that these still game out pretty tasty. Amazing what salt, pepper, lots of tomato paste and a couple ladles of that pork cooking liquid will do!

I also made my absolute favorite salad - mixed greens with roasted butternut squash, paper thin red onions, goat cheese, pepitas and a maple vinaigrette. So good.

Oh, what's that in the bottom left you ask? That's the scallop dish I made - did you think I was gonna leave you hanging? Talk about how awesome it was and then not give you the recipe? Don't you worry. First thing you should know is that it's a Ina Garten recipe so you know it's gonna be awesome and second, just listen to the name "bay scallop gratin". GRATIN - I'm in. You puree delicious thing like butter and garlic and parsley and lemon juice all together and smear them on top of scallops that have been splashed with white wine (I didn't have the pernod that the recipe called for) and top them with panko bread crumbs (the recipe called for mixing them into the butter mixture, I thought that was weird so I threw them on top) and bake. What comes out of the oven is a dish that people will RAVE about. Take a look:

Oops! I almost forgot the last ingredient that puts this over the top - prosciutto! See it under the bread crumbs mixed in with the butter? Yup, PROSCIUTTO mixed with BUTTER.

And of course there was dessert - but that's for next time. Stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion!