Black Beans and Rice With Vegan “Scallops.”

That’s right, friends – tonight we served up Old Faithful with a new twist!  Several, actually, if you count the Chesapeake Salsa we served alongside (which was spiced with Old Bay seasoning).

I’ve been dying to try the Sophie’s Kitchen vegan scallops, and tonight seemed like as good a time as any to infuse our dinner table with a Gulf Coast feel.  I prepared the rice and black beans as usual – with a Goya seasoning packet for the rice and a hearty helping of adobo seasoning in the beans – and then got to work on the scallops, which I’d neglected to thaw prior to baking and as a result had to partially thaw during the cooking process, at which time I pried them all apart and finished the cook time properly.

As usual, tonight’s Old Faithful came together in no time at all – about half an hour end-to-end.  But how would we like the vegan scallops?  Would they remind us of the Gulf Coast delicacies of yesteryear?

Well, I’ve got to be honest here about two things in particular.  First, I don’t really recall what scallops tasted like.  Like tofu – stick with me here! – scallops always tended to take on the flavor of whatever we cooked them with, so it’s really the texture that I remember.  Sophie’s Kitchen’s version did just fine on that score, though – here’s my second bit of honesty – LeeLee and I both felt like it would have been a more successful finished product had we seasoned them with something prior to serving.  Perhaps a garlic butter, or perhaps some Cajun spice or blackening rub.  Something of that nature.  But they were still very good as-is, and there wasn’t one scallop left when it came time to do the dishes, so there’s your proof.

The black beans and rice were, of course, as good as ever, and they mingled beautifully with the scallops, the Chesapeake salsa, the vegan sour cream, and, for me, the nutritional yeast (one of these days I’ll have to do a post to fully dedicate my love to nutritional yeast!).  Like the scallops, there wasn’t a single bean or grain of rice left in the pots when dinner was over – a sign of success, for sure!

:)