Yeah, I’m not sure scallop gelato is a winner, sorry John. It might be nice, and it might be different, but to me a winner has to have awesome deliciousness and I don’t think a weird dessert will scale those heights.

I think scallop would make a better sorbet.

Okay, yes, I did wretch about the cream. But I wouldn't like a scallop in cream sauce either. I wonder if you could slightly over churn it add lemon juice without curdling it, and call it scallop in lemon butter?

Earlier today, I was watching one of those shows and thinking that once could make a credible lox and cream cheese ice cream (okay, ewww, but it could work).

I think the problem is that the flavor of scallops is too delicate. The idea of shrimp sounds better to me. Like Japanese shrimp crackers--minus the salt and the crunch they're actually kind of sweet. And you could infuse the shells in the cream. I wouldn't think that scallop shells would work that way, and it's harder to find them in the shells.

John, I want to be supportive of your scallops idea but I just keep thinking what a waste of a good scallop!

I've had an oyster sorbet that was amazing, but it was an amuse bouche......not a bowlful. I would stick to the crème caramel, especially if you can cook the custard sous vide. The texture will be so special.

When you get away from your seafood jones, you can always go back to Amaretto with Toasted Almonds (or even bits of Amaretti cookies and a bit of salt) or Maple Bacon Brown Sugar. I'd socially distance in a line for either one of those!

Oooo, the Amaretto gelato sounds delish! I actually have three ice cream makers so I can make a few types. (SWMBO won ice cream makers two years in a row as prizes in a Oscar-guessing party.)

I was thinking that I might need to intensify and concentrate the scallop flavor, for this to work. Suppose I dehydrated the scallop, then ground to a fine powder to use in the gelato? Dried scallops are a thing in Asian stores and online.

Shrimp (or lobster?) gelato would be fun to try too. I imagine a process a little like lobster bisque.

The last time we used Ice Cream Boy, we made three kinds of cheese ice cream. D’Affinois, Blue Cheese, and Chevre. The first was divine, the others were okay, not retchable.

I will make the creme caramel too!

I predict that scallop gelato might not be a winner. If the tasting was held here, it might not even be sampled by the judges. lol!

DD and DS have been trained to try anything! This is from my childhood when you had to eat, or taste, whatever weird thing the Chinese grandmas made. DD is particularly good about this. Her first years were on the road when she couldn’t be fussy about food, because food was whatever we could find in the town or country we were in that week, and money meant it was usually inexpensive local street fare. DS had a more settled childhood, but eventually developed an adventurous palate. SWMBO is less cooperative and in fact we are engaged in a text debate now in which she is attempting to constrain my choice of entries in our competition, which I think is anti-competitive. She’s already trying to rig the contest :-(

Amuse bouche, YES. Dessert . . . I think more of a labeling problem than a taste problem . . . Coconut shrimp is good, so maybe some flavor elements from that?

I think the dried scallops would be better, but again, it’s scallops and cream that bugs me. If you can imagine a way to make that good, then a way to make it dessert, well okay. But it sounds like one of those annoy the pig kind of things.

I can only think of the New Year's Day dinner party I attended where the hostess put fish powder in nearly everything. :p

I think scallops in sherry cream sauce are wonderful....so I would think you could freeze it just fine. But because you lose flavor in frozen things, you might have to add some dry scallop powder.
And what wretch would retch over something quite so delicious?

" rig the contest :-( "...lol.

Daughter is adventurous. When she visited she was game to try anything.

I'm making right now, among all the prep ahead things, a salmon bisque for tonight....(we like seafood the night before always). Not a heavy bisque.

I could see my base seafood/white miso stock as a granita. Poke salmon salad with hijiki and bonito flake. A desert? Stretching that one. A starter or multi-plating course 2nd or third. During the meal. Or just before the prime plating. A heavy beef or duck serving.

Not much I would not try having had scallop ceviche. I draw the line at Balut gelato. 🤢

Thanks for the recap John!! You're so lucky to have a foodie family! I love eating other people's efforts! They all sound great and wonderful variety. On my "to do" list is to experiment with making Japanese tea treats. The photos I have seen online are so wonderful, although I am dough challenged so I don't think I will become a bean paste master any time soon . . . . DS's treat sound fab., I love ginger tea!! I love the idea of a sweet "dumpling" simmered in tea . . . the perfect pick me up!

The sesame balls sound wonderful! My kind of dessert. :) Agreed about fresh vs. canned pumpkin, I made canned this year and it's not pumpkinny, So glad Ms. Obeyed liked the scallop. The way you describe it sounds better than what I was imagining. Y'all must pay a lot less for scallops there.... Sorry about the creme caramel, but nice that the next generation are coming into their own!

Large sea scallops from Japan, frozen, a 1 lb bag in the Asian store was $9.99. This is the store that didn’t have dried scallops, or at least didn’t have them anywhere I could find, before I decided to get out because the store was pretty full of shoppers and I was getting Covid-paranoid.

I was wearing double DIY masks - no N95 in the car - and my glasses were getting fogged up. Man, I’ll be glad to put this pandemic behind us. Where do I line up for my vaccine shot?

"Cat poop on a spoon", I'm cracking up here. The gelato actually sounds pretty good, I'm wondering how it would be with a shot of espresso from your machine, a scallop tinged affogato!

I agree on the flavor of freshly roasted pumpkin, especially if you get a small, sweet and flavorful pumpkin. The problem I had was with texture, the fresh stuff was a bit stringy and I never got it to puree like the canned stuff, but it sure is good.

Too bad on the creme caramel, it sounds like it should be so delicious. If it helps at all I forgot to put the water in the bain marie for the cheesecake here too, but it still came out OK.

The sesame balls do sound interesting and I love ginger in anything, so I think I'd like that a lot.

The duck, though, that sounds amazing. I do like duck, yum.

Annie

The scallop flavor was so subtle, I think it would be undetectable in an affogato. We had affogatos after Thanksgiving, using plain old store bought French Vanilla ice cream. Yum!

I’m a big fan of duck too. If banished to a desert island with only one kind of poultry, I’d probably choose duck over chicken. Chicken is versatile, so if that was the only meat then I’d choose it, but if there was also fish and pigs and cows, then duck would be the poultry.

Good thing you got shipwrecked in a farm boat!

Ark you mean

I made pie from fresh pumpkin once. Did it taste good, yes. I also found it stringy in texture. And I said, "So not worth it . . . " But that's just me . . . I am a squash minimalist. I guess if I roasted up a bunch of squash or pumpkins or even sweet potatoes, and had some left over, I might think about making a pie . . . but I'd probably just mash them up and season with some butter, brown sugar and a dash of PP spice. And then get one of the pies on sale at the local grocery bakery for 6 bucks. If I wasn't doing a freezer deep clean right now I would be stocking up! I've gotten these pies before, they are delish.

Mr Cuisinart could probably smooth out the texture . . .

You could seive the pumpkin puree to get rid of the stringy bits!

Different pumpkin types have different textures. The fairytale pumpkin I last used turned into moosh without help once roasted, but was almost spaghetti squash like in it's round sting texture. Regular jack o!lantern pumpkins aren't as watery, unless they're super fresh from the vine and have some grain, but the flash isn't usually stringy, underneath the stringy seed pod layer. Pie pumpkins usually aren't stringy st all. Once they're cooked, if there's any question, you can lightly mash with a fork, without reducing it to watery pap.

Son deserves his smug grin. That's a big win. Ice Cream Boy has the age to get away with attitude. When my Vita-Mix smirks at me, I want to slap it!

Smug I can take, but disrespect from kitchen appliances, now that calls for slapping. When they start whispering about you, then it’s therapy time.

Yeah, I've got a couple of kitchen appliances that could use a good slapping around, the dishwasher is the ringleader, I think...

Your son does deserve to look smug, but he looks so.....grown up. (sigh) How does that happen so quickly?

Ice Cream Boy? I think he's been talking to my dishwasher. Or maybe the electric kettle.

Annie

Seems like just yesterday he was building Lego castles <sniff> and learning to skateboard. However, let’s look on the bright side. He’s cut his hair and is interested in dressing nicely again. In middle school he would skate to school in a three piece suit with wingtips and a perfect Windsor knot. The moment he went to high school, he started dressing like a, well, sartorially challenged person. In college he’s starting to pay attention to his clothes again. In fact, that’s what he wants from Santa. Mom Santa is going to see to that. Dad Santa scored him a 21” Wacom Cintiq pen tablet monitor which I think will be useful for his architectural sketching. And it was free!