Tuesday night potluck thingy

If you really want the recipes you should ask Melissa. But she didn't make the naan.

Razor Clam Chowda

First things first.

"WARNING HIGH FAT"

Ok so here goes. This soup will start with a french Mirepoix, but I guess we should prep the ingredients first so more on that later.

Thaw 1 -2 # frozen razor clams from your trip to the coast overnight in the refridgerator. In the event you didn't have a trip like that, you can order yours online for about $20 per lb. Snip corner off bag and drain tasty clam juice into bowl and set aside.

Get a mallet and have a little fun tenderizing your clams. The key here is not to overwork them or you could end up with clam mush and that is just not tasty...

Chop your malleted clams to the size of your personal preference. Then refridgerate.

Chop 2 onions

Chop a bunch of carrots

Chop maybe 4 celery hearts.

Chop 8 washed potatoes.

Rub 1 bunch Thyme between your palms to remove stems and chop.
Revel in the amazing aroma of fresh herbs.

Now for the Mirepoix. Ok a french Mirepoix is the classic 2-1 combo of onions, carrots and celery sauted in butter providing a rich flavor. These are our base aromatics.

So, melt 1/2 stick butter.

Saute onions til transluscent. (maybe 10 min)

Add Carrots and Celery and continue to saute. (10 min) add potatoes, 1/2 the thyme, salt pepper and cook briefly.

Find 36oz all natural Clam juice sitting around the house somewhere and add to the pot along with the clam juice you retained back at step one.

Bring to a boil and simmer 20 minutes or until veg and potatoes are tender. Dont forget to taste for seasoning and adjust as necessary because potatoes can deaden most anything.

Get 1/2 cup gluten free all purpose flour ready.

Make Roux by melting 1 stick butter and adding flour cooking on low heat about 3 min or so just to remove the raw flour flavor. Remember we don't want our Chowder too dark. When ready take 1 cup of simmering stock and add to Roux mixing together and quickly adding back to the stockpot as this is our thickening agent. Add remaining Thyme and simmer til soup is thickened.

Find a nice pint of organic half and half

Stir it into the soup along with the chopped clams. Heat gently to cook the clams. remember over cooked clams are rubber bands...

Serve topped with a little Bacon, a drizzle of Malt Vinegar, Pilot Bread if you can find it and the beverage of your choice. Enjoy!

Peanut Butter Blossoms

We made peanut butter blossoms tonight since I wanted cookies and the gingerbread needed to be refrigerated overnight. We were going to make kleiners but forgot to buy some ingredients at the store.


First you mix up your ingredients and roll dough balls in sugar.


Place them on your cookie sheet while waiting for the oven to heat up.


Unwrap enough dark chocolate kisses to have one per cookie. Be careful, as unattended kisses disappear before they're in the cookies.


Once the cookies are baked, immediately press a kiss into the center of each. Then transfer to a wire rack and let cool.


Enjoy the chocolatey peanut buttery goodness, but try to wait until the chocolate isn't totally melted or it's messy.

Chicken Noodle Soup

I figured that since it's been so cold, and we've got leftover rotisserie chicken in the fridge, that we could use it up... and be warmer... by making some chicken noodle soup. Completely a comfort food.

Here's the recipe straight outta the cookbook:

1 4-5lb stewing chicken, cut up
6 cups of water
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 bay leaf
1 1/2 cup dried medium noodles
1 cup chopped carrots
1 cup chopped celery
2 Tablespoons fresh parsley

And that's cool, but y'know, sometimes recipe's are kind of like guidelines. They're just a starting point. Nothing ventured, nothing gained... at least when you're making soup. I wouldn't deviate if I was baking something, but with soup like this... pretty much anything goes. As long as you're not messing with the seasonings... like adding ground cloves or something like that.

So here's what I did.

I had a lot of chicken (4 thighs -raw, plus most of the breast meat from the rotisserie). So I upped the liquid. Pretty much I used the six cups of water the recipe called for, and then added some chicken stock that David had in the freezer, probably another three/four cups of stock.

And since the stock was already salted and seasoned, I didn't change any of the seasonings from the original recipe. Sure, a lot of salt is tasty, but the health effects negate anything good you can get from it. Anyway, then I added the raw chicken, bay leaf, and onion, and simmered it for about two hours. And I was generous with the onion. As any man should be.

While the chicken simmered, I was choppin' up other ingredients...
I personally like cooked veggies, especially carrots. So I doubled the amount of chopped carrots and celery. A good dose of vegetables have never hurt anybody.

After the chicken was done simmering, I removed the thighs and pulled the meat from the bones. I also chopped up the rotisserie. Then I skimmed whatever fat off the top of the broth that I could, and returned it to a boil.

Once again at a boil, I dumped in the carrots and celery. I'm only going to let this go for about 8 minutes, so after a minute or two I also dumped in the pasta since it'll only take about 6 to 7 minutes to cook.

Now, I had no idea what kind of noodle I was supposed to use in this soup. I don't really care for pasta much, so I'm not familiar with all of the different types of this or that... so I just walked up and down the noodle isle at the grocery and picked out a good thick, wide, whole wheat noodle that I thought would be noodle-ey enough. Yes, I just said noodle-ey. It worked great.

And since no soup is really complete without some sort of dipping bread, I grabbed some potato rosemary artisan bread. Rosemary? With chicken you say? Yes. Rosemary. It was good.

After the pasta and veggies cooked, I dumped in th chicken, let it heat through... and yes. We have dinner.

And not a bad dinner (soup) at that.

Kleiners!

yea mom and i made kleiners today.
but we didn't use grandpas recipe.
shhhhh don't tell

Fried Razor Clams

My two crazy brothers came to visit... They shanghai'd my husband and went to the beach. Here's a pic of the Three Bearded Yahoos over on the coast.

Low tide was around 8:30, so they were diggin' in the dark.

The mythical razor clam, this is what they went for.

Crazy? Maybe... but at least they're crazy AND successful. They brought home 15 clams apiece...

Since I insisted Maggie couldn't go with them, they were happy to introduce her to her first razor clam. See how delighted she is? Crazy uncles!

Once home they had to clean the clams. David didn't realize the clams would still move as you're cleaning them... so he had to be peeled off the ceiling a couple of times.

Razor Clam Steaks.

The Three Bearded Yahoo's and their Assembly Line. The clams were first patted down in an attempt to dry them, then they were dredged in flour, dipped in egg, and then rolled in crumbs. You can just call them Flower, Egg, and Crumbs... like Snow White's three big dwarfs...

The breaded clam.

Frying up the clams. The oil must be hot!

This is the freshly fried razor clam. Very, very good.

In fact, they were so good, I even had one... and I don't eat seafood!

Clam Chowder W/ Sourdough Bread Bowl

Take your favorite Clam Chowder then heat it up and dump it in a Extra Sour Sourdough Cannonball that has been hollowed out and toasted in the oven...