Here’s how we’ll be making them tonight, as a first course. The salad has a sprightly soy-ginger dressing.

RECIPE: SEARED SCALLOP SALAD

Ingredients For 4 Main Servings

For The Scallops

Ingredients For The Salad

 
Preparation

1. SCORE 1 fresh pomegranate and place in a bowl of water. Break open the pomegranate under water, to free the arils (seed sacs). The arils will sink to the bottom of the bowl and the membrane will float to the top. Sieve and place the arils in a separate bowl. Reserve 1/4 cup of the arils for the salad; refrigerate or freeze the remaining arils for another use.

2. PREPARE soy-ginger dressing: Mix all of the dressing ingredients with a whisk or in a blender.

Soy-ginger salad dressing. Photo courtesy Pom Wonderful.

3. MIX 1 tablespoon olive or vegetable oil, salt, pepper, paprika, garlic and 1 teaspoon ginger in a bowl; toss with scallops.

4. HEAT 1 tablespoon olive or vegetable oil in a large skillet. Place scallops in the skillet in a single layer. Cook without turning until the underside is crispy brown and then turn. Sear in batches if necessary.

5. COVER scallops, set aside and keep warm while preparing the salad.

6. ARRANGE greens on 4 dinner plates, top with cucumbers and tomatoes. Divide the scallops onto each plate; garnish with arils. Serve with dressing.
 
FIND MORE OF OUR FAVORITE SALAD RECIPES.

Potato lovers: This recipe’s for you. Photo
courtesy PotatoGoodness.com.

This recipe, from PotatoGoodness.com, can be enjoyed as a first course, a side, a snack, or with a casual beer or glass of wine. Mini potatoes—meaning any variety that consists of one or two bites, like fingerlings—are roasted, then served with a ramekin of dip.

If you can’t find miniature potatoes, use the smallest you can find and cut them in half prior to roasting. Leave the skins on.

You can use just about anything for the dip (one Nibbler here would be just as happy dipping the potatoes into melted butter, as with lobster). There’s a list of options below, as well as a “skinny sauce” from Potato Goodness, the recipe site from the U.S. Potato Board. If it works for you, serve more than one type of dip.

RECIPE: Roasted Mini Potatoes With Dipping Sauce

Ingredients For 4-6 First Courses Or Sides

For The Potato Bites

Bite-size Russian Banana potatoes. Photo courtesy Idaho Potato Commission.

1. PREHEAT the oven 400°F. Scrub potatoes and dry thoroughly. Cut into 2-inch chunks if they are not bite-size or leave whole if they are small.

2. ADD potatoes to a bowl and coat with the oil; toss to coat all sides. Pour onto a baking sheet and spread potatoes out so they are not touching. Sprinkle the salt evenly over potatoes. Roast for 20 to 25 minutes, or until fork tender.

3. MAKE the Skinny Comeback Sauce: Combine ingredients in a medium bowl and whisk together until well combined. Pour the sauce into an airtight container and refrigerate until ready to serve. The sauce can be made a day ahead and will keep for 2 weeks in the refrigerator.

4. PLACE the sauce into a dipping bowl or individual ramekins and serve. We serve the sauce at the same temperature as the potatoes: room temperature or warmed for 15 seconds in the microwave.
 
SAUCE OPTIONS

 
On the less familiar side, we enjoy:

 
Have we left out one of your favorites? Let us know!

How demanding is your palate?

If the answer is “pretty demanding,” move on to the next questions.

Do you enjoy mixed drinks? Are the mixers big-brand sodas?

Well, we all know what’s in those sodas: artificial flavors, high fructose corn syrup and other ingredients that should not be shaking hands with top-shelf spirits.

The solution: Q Drinks, top-shelf mixers.

The first in the series, Q Tonic Water, is a revelation if you’re used to the HFCS/artificial quinine variety. All of the mixers—including Grapefruit, Ginger, Kola, Lemon, Orange—are made with organic agave sweetener.

All can be enjoyed as soft drinks as well: lightly sweet and elegant.

Read the full review.

As a bonus, it includes the history of carbonated beverages—an accidental scientific observation that now generates billions of dollars of sales worldwide.

FIND MORE OF OUR FAVORITE COCKTAIL MIXERS.

Here are some tips from Birds & Blooms, America’s leading bird and garden magazine, to help make your visit easy, stress-free and, dare we say it, fruitful!

Pillsbury’s new line of refrigerated Gluten Free Doughs aims to give back the freedom to bake, to those with gluten or wheat sensitivities. It includes:

 
The products are available at major retailers nationwide. Look in the refrigerator case; then, indulge your baking whims as often as you like, wherever you like.

The dough might be a tad sweet for some savory options, but it has a great crispiness and a satisfyingly rich texture—almost like a shortbread—that makes me excited to sample it in an apple hand pie or in a peach cobbler. Pillsbury suggests multiple other uses for the dough, including mini-quiches, pot pies, tarts and tartlets.

I was also pleased to notice that there was no bean-y or bitter aftertaste to the crust, an affliction that hobbles other gluten free flours that shall go un-named.

The dough is completely pre-prepared and comes in a 15.8-ounce tub, which makes two 9” pie crusts. The suggested retail price, $4.99, is comparable to other gluten free pie crusts and mixes.

While the product is gluten free, it is not calorie free: The dough contains 250 calories per serving. Ingredients include soybean oil, rice flour, whole sorghum flour and fructose. Additional corn and potato starches make the dough easy to handle and shape, with the help of a little wax paper.

Ultra-convenient and easily available, we love that it has restored our freedom to bake on impulse.

—Georgi Page