Cooking Scallops

So, I have, for a long time, wanted to cook scallops.  I'm a huge seafood fan and I'm trying to get better at cooking.   I discovered quite a few great recipes that I was excited about.

However, I ran into one major roadblock.  Scallops, apparently, only stay good for ONE DAY, even in the freezer.  And, they are, well, expensive.  So it certainly wouldn't be good to buy said scallops and end up not using them.  That'd be a travesty.

I am usually grocery shopping either a) after work on the weeknights, when, if I haven't already eaten before going shopping, well, by the time I get home from grocery shopping, I'm not in the mood to cook.  Or, 2) if I'm going grocery shopping on a Saturday, I either a) have dinner plans or b) have hopes of making some kind of plans.  It's a pretty big commitment to buy scallops and then have to tell one's friends 'Sorry, I can't meet up, I gotta cook some scallops'.

Anyhow.  Finally, an opportunity to make some scallops arose.  It was Sunday, I was at the grocery store.  I wasn't planning on it, but all of a sudden, I saw an opportunity and decided to 'carpe diem' if you will.  I was at the seafood counter.  I didn't have dinner plans.  I most likely wouldn't make dinner plans. I took the plunge.

Scallops can be incredibly challenging to cook.  All of the cooking sites I checked out expressed that it was really important to not overcook scallops, yet, for many obvious reasons, one doesn't want to undercook seafood.  And, all of the sites also expressed that based on varying scallop size/pan size/heat-level of the oil, it was almost impossible to pin down an exact cooking time.   Ok.....

After all the to-do, I somehow was able to get it pretty close to perfectly.  It was one of my personal best cooking adventures to date.  Here's some 'after' pics.  (I forgot to take 'before'.  Your loss, I guess.)

Anyone else cook scallops?  Anyone have any great recipes to recommend?  I'm very open to suggestions.