Scallops with Summer Corn Hash

For Father's Day we were going to make scallops wrapped in bacon as a appetizer. We ended up at the Mexican Cafe and Aldo's and didn't do any cooking at all. So I ended up with lots of ingredients at my house that I hadn't planned on having. After looking at a few thing on the Internet, I came up with this recipe. This was my first time making the large sea scallops and I cut them in half to ensure more even cooking. This was also my first time using beet greens. They are related to swiss chard and cook similarly. My mom had some beets in the fridge and the greens were crisp and beautiful. I absconded with them (just the greens, she kept the beets) and a bunch of other goodies from the weekend.

Scallops with Summer Corn Hash

3 strips of bacon
1/2 red onion, chopped
2 carrots, diced
2 ribs of celery, diced
2 red potatoes, peeled and diced
4 ears of white corn, kernels removed
greens from 2 beets, stems chopped and leaves chiffonade
1 clove garlic, chopped
1/2 cup white wine
1 tbsp butter
scallops (I used 9 cut in half)
salt and pepper to taste (season throughout process)
a couple dashes of Tabasco sauce (I used chipotle flavored)-optional

1. Cook the bacon in a large skillet. Set aside bacon and heat 1 tbsp of bacon grease. Add potatoes to bacon grease and cook.
   
2. Add onion, carrots, celery, garlic and beet greens stems. Cook until potatoes are almost done.
3. Add beet leaves and wine and cook down until greens are wilted and wine has evaporated.
4. Add Tabasco and corn and cook until potatoes and corn are done. Crumble bacon and add back to hash.
   
5. Meanwhile heat butter in another skillet.
6. Season scallops with salt and pepper.
   
7. Sear scallops in butter, turning once.
   
8. Serve scallops with hash.

I found that the potatoes were a little bland unless I seasoned liberally with salt. FYI whenever I say salt in my blog. I am always referring to kosher salt. I don't use table salt unless I am baking and even then I don't always remember. All in all it was a really fun meal to plan and cook. As you can see the last few recipes haven't been adapted, they have been all my own. I'm sure that if I made this again I would change a few things. I think I would put the onion and garlic in with the potatoes because they didn't have enough flavor. I would also use salt and pepper more liberally and more often. The beet greens were very good. I have another two sets that I plan using on pizza later this week.