"It's Top Chef, not Top Scallops"

After watching Julie & Julia with Greg and Laura yesterday, I went home craving to use all of the wonderful kitchen utensils that our friends and families blessed us with when we got married. I always laugh as we watch Top Chef and Iron Chef America since we can usually pinpoint quite a few kitchen tools on those shows that we also have in our tiny little apartment kitchen, yet we probably have no idea how to use them correctly and quite possible have never even used them. It's sad. I know. But, after the cute and wonderful movie yesterday, I went home, pulled out at least ten of the cookbooks on our shelf and started perusing for the perfect dinner. Our friend Keane came over as well and it became a gourmet night. And, since scallops seem to always be on Top Chef (hence the title of this post) we based our meal around the scallops and for some reason did more of an Asian mix rather than the French mix, but it sounded good. Here are a few of the photos of our delicious meal (I'm definitely not a food stylist...maybe someday I will be...)

Our first course was shrimp spring rolls with a lime-cilantro sauce. I really want to make them again with other sauces. Anybody have a good peanut sauce?

Here's our cilantro-lime shrimp with coconut rice. We also added mushrooms, snap peas and scallops...look at that perfect sear :)

(Both recipes are out of Food Made Fast cookbooks from Williams-Sonoma...they're my fave...)