Scallop and Mushroom Pasta

The development of this recipe started simply, with a "hey, scallops seem cool," while passing them in the grocery store. They're a little bit pricey so I thought they deserved a nice, well-rounded recipe. The scallops have a sweetness not found in a lot of seafood, and the portabellas bring a little saltiness to balance things out. A little bit of seasoning keeps things from being boring, but not enough to outshine our special guests scallops and mushrooms.

Operation Pinterest: 1st Edition

Today I am starting a new series of blog posts called Operation Pinterest. For this series, I will test recipes from Pinterest and relay to you what I think about them. I was inspired by the variety of experiences I've had when testing Pinterest recipes. It doesn't seem to matter how many people pin it, it can still suck, in my opinion. I don't mean this to be a critique of the recipe, or the author, because I don't think that's fair. For one, people's tastes are different: different strokes for different folks. But also, I can't stand it when people change a recipe and then complain about how bad it was. In this case, I did change some ingredients so it's not fair for me to judge the original recipe. I only want to give you my thoughts and advice on the recipe so you can get a better idea about the random recipe you found on Pinterest.
Today I have for you Tomato Basil Chicken from Menu Musings. This recipe is currently very popular on Pinterest. That was what first qualified it as a candidate. Also, it's naturally gluten-free (serving with pasta is optional) with accessible ingredients. Sounds good to me!

Gluten Free Sesame Chicken

Shortly after going gluten-free, I realized that my previous diet as a vegetarian wasn't going to work. Nearly all faux meats contain gluten, and nearly everything else I ate was gluten (bread, pasta, etc.) The transition to gluten free was already going to be tough enough, so I made the decision to eat meat again after 7 years of abstaining. I was instantly excited about eating the things I secretly missed again, until I realized.. They all contained gluten. One of those things was sesame chicken.

I was always a pretty good cook so I decided I would recreate it myself, gluten free. I started with an originally gluten free recipe and that didn't taste like what I remembered. So I moved on to well respected recipes that weren't intended to be gluten free. That was when I found something closer but not quite. So I adapted the recipe to make it my own.