The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

Growing

After one of the usual clamming trips this summer, I asked the kids what they’d like me to make with the clams for dinner that night.  With so many clam dishes in our collective repertoire, I asked the kids to tell me their favorites.

Julia’s – clamcakes.

Alex’s – chowder AND clamcakes.

I think I’d picked Alex up after a baseball practice or something when I asked him.  I seem to remember having this conversation in the car.  Anyway, he thought about it some more and said it was too bad I couldn’t put chowder inside a clamcake.

And with that, the Chowdercake was born.

I thought that by combining the flavor components of our basic clam chowder with our clamcake batter, I’d get something pretty tasty.

I took some bacon trimmings out of the freezer, diced them up and rendered the fat.

I took the crispy bacon bits out of the fat and added some diced onion.

While the onions softened, I mixed flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. To that I added chopped fresh dill and thyme.

The kitchen smelled delicious, in case you were curious.

I took our freshly dug, freshly steamed clams…

and tossed them into the food processor along with the sautéed-in-bacon-fat onions, the onion fat, and a few of the crisped bacon bits.  I pulsed everything together until the clams were chopped. 

Scratchy summoned me from the living room.

He indicated that I hadn’t taken a picture of him lately and the world might be wondering if he was okay. 

Here’s Scratchy being okay:

Back to the kitchen….

Time to put the chowder in the clamcakes!

I added eggs, the clam mixture, and clam stock to the flour mixture and started heating the oil.

I used a small ice cream scoop to drop blobs of batter into the 360F oil…

And I fried them until they were brown.  I don’t have a time – it’ll depend on the size of your clamcakes, how many you’re cooking at a time, how hot your oil stays while cooking, and how light or dark on the outside you like them.  I usually take out the biggest one in the first batch and split it open when I think it’s done.  If it’s cooked through, I take the rest out, let the oil come back up to temp if it’s dropped, and then I use a combination of The Force and Intuition and Educated Guessing to judge the frying time of subsequent batches.

Success!

Everyone liked them.  Loved them.  Ate too many of them. 

We could taste the bacon fat, of course, along with the clams, and with every bite we’d taste fresh dill or thyme or both. 

Chowder inside the clamcake.

Thanks, Alex!

~~~~

The school year has begun.  Bill went back to school a couple days before the kids did, and I had to work, so the kids were on their own.

No big deal.  They’ve been home alone before.  They have keys, they have cell phones, and, most importantly, they have good heads on their shoulders.

I checked in with them through the day via text, and I’d given them a list of stuff to do.  It’s nice having kids who can do laundry and empty the dishwasher.

Somewhere around lunch time they asked if they could go play.  The only thing left undone was a load of laundry in the dryer, and one in the washer waiting for the dryer load to get out of the way. 

I asked if they’d had lunch and one of them texted back “Yes – we made nachos.”

I stared at the phone screen for a moment. 

I’d shown them how to make nachos the night before. 

Now, just so you know, we don’t have a microwave any more.  Our old one died and I was campaigning for us NOT to replace it, but I was outvoted initially.  We got a new one – smaller, though, because the other one took up way too much space on the counter – and it didn’t work right so we brought it back and decided to do a bit more research to find a better one.

And time went by and went by and went by…and we still don’t have one and Bill has said we don’t need one after all, so – yay!

But I digress.

So – nachos.  When we used to have a microwave, Julia learned to melt cheese on tortilla chips in the microwave all by herself.  Alex preferred to let me do the cheese melting. 

The other night after Open House at the junior high (JUNIOR HIGH!!!) Alex was hungry and asked if I’d make him some fake nachos.  We didn’t have tortilla chips, so he suggested saltines.  Okay.  Why not?

And it worked – the crackers stayed crispy.  I used a mix of shredded cheddar and mozzarella.  And when he wanted more, I brought him upstairs and showed him how to make them.  In the oven.

So that following day, my kids made themselves a hot lunch in the oven.

And they remembered to turn the oven off when they were done.

I felt this wave of emotion wash over me.  I was proud of them…and kind of proud of me, too. 

I am – like, I suspect, many parents – often wondering if I’m “doing it right.”  Am I teaching them what they need to know, am I raising good kids, hardworking kids, kids who will become good adults who can take care of themselves out there in the big wide world?  Will they be okay?

And at the same time there’s a part of me that likes being needed.  Mommy?  Can you – tie my shoe, pour the cereal, make my sandwich, bring me to the playground, get me some water, give me a hug, kiss me goodnight? 

I like being Mommy. But I know that it’s my job to raise them up so they don’t need me so much.  The only time they were mine-all-mine was when they were in the womb.  From the day they were born, it has been my job to hold them tightly and, finger by finger, hug by hug, to let them go.

Fortunately, it’s kind of a one step forward, two steps back kind of process.  Much easier on me – and them.

So.  The nachos.

I was proud of us.  I taught them.  They learned.  They did.

I told them they could go play.

~~~

Another first day of school.

My boy is now a seventh grader.  My daughter is a fifth grader.

They don’t need me to linger with them.  They don’t need me, really, to walk with them, but I still walked part of the way with Alex and all the way with Julia. 

I confess – it was unexpectedly hard to let Alex go off on his own.  But I did it.  I felt my eyes prickling, but I also felt good.  He’s a capable kid.  He’ll be fine.  Or at least that’s what I told the other Mommy in my head who kind of wanted to drive him to the bus stop and wait there until the bus carried him away.  I shut her off.  She wasn’t helping.

I walked with Julia, we found out which teacher she had, and pretty soon she and her classmates marched into the building and I stood there in the school courtyard, surrounded by countless other parents and children, and I felt…alone.

So I walked home.

And I typed all this.

Clams in January

While I was at work today Bill and the kids went digging for clams.  Yep, in January.  After about an hour and a half of digging they brought home fifteen pounds total.  Mostly little necks, with about a dozen steamers, a razor clam, and two oysters.

My Versions of Stuffies and Clams Casino

 

I say “my versions” because, well, that’s what they are.  Slightly different from the traditional, and heartily approved by my three main critics.

Mercenaria mercenaria

Sometimes we think about leaving.  Sometimes it’s a frustrating state to live in, our Little Rhody.  The economy is still struggling, and my husband is a teacher, and what this state is doing (and has done) to his pension is appalling. 

So sometimes we think of going somewhere else.  Starting over.  Doing something different.  We’ve talked of farming.  I would love a cow, some goats, a bunch of chickens.  We’d both love more land so we could raise more of our own vegetables.  And we think we’d make a good go of it.

Until this happens….

Notes From Yesterday and Today So Far

Okra! 

We’ve never grown it before, so I had no idea what to look for in terms of the actual ripening fruit.  But here’s what it looks like.  Pretty interesting, no?

Potato Glass Noodles

Bill and the kids and I went to our favorite Asian market recently to stock up on a few things and get ingredients for a couple of meal ideas Bill had been kicking around.  Part of the fun of shopping there (besides the fabulous butcher, “Tommy” who talks fishing with Bill) is finding and trying out new and different ingredients.  Sometimes we’ll just see something and buy it, figuring we’ll find a use for it eventually.

This time around, while the kids were searching for chicken feet in the poultry section (yes, really), I noticed bags of these noodles on an aisle shelf nearby.  I saw that these were made from potato starch, rather than bean starch, and they were kind of gray in color, and, well, they just looked cool.

So I had to get them.

Comfort Food - Spaghetti with Clam Sauce

 
Comfort food.

We all have certain dishes that we gravitate toward when we're feeling a little less than 100%.  Foods that wrap us up in a big culinary hug and tell us everything will be okay, and we'll feel better soon. 

Risotto with Shrimp and Clams

 
Yesterday it rained.  And rained and rained and rained.  It was definitely a day to stay inside and cook something warming and comforting for dinner.

Clampancakes

Or Clam Pancakes.  Or Clammycakes. 

Take your pick.  I don't know what to call them.

Here's how they came about.

Valentine's Day Ideas: Littlenecks and Lobsters

I think this is my personal favorite of all the meals.  I love seafood, first of all, and as far as preparation goes, a boiled lobster is pretty easy. 

Littlenecks on the half-shell are easy too - especially if you're not the one shucking them.  Bill usually does that here, which is good because I can't take pictures and shuck a clam at the same time.

Surfish and Turfish

I've been trying to dig out forgotten food items from the depths of the freezer so we can utilize them before they get freezer burn and become inedible.

I found a large square plastic container with something brown in it, so I figured I should thaw that just to see what it was about.  Turned out to be leftover beef stew. 

And Bill had mentioned that we had one remaining frozen bag of soft-shell clams in their broth, plus another bag of clam broth. 

So I thawed the bag with the clams in it and decided to make clam cakes to accompany the beef stew.  Weird combination, I know, but, well, sometimes that happens.

The clamcake recipe was Bill's mom's - it's written on a little torn-out page from a notebook; the fringes along one edge where it ripped through the spiral binding are discolored and raggedy looking.  The first part of the word "Clamcakes" is torn off - it's more like "lamcakes."

Clamcakes or lamcakes - they were pretty good.  And pretty simple.

First, in one bowl, whisk together 2  1/4 cups of flour and 4 teaspoons of baking powder.

In another bowl, combine 1  1/3 cups clam broth with 2 eggs.

Chop up the clams.  (Ours were already cooked.  Normally you'd use quahogs anyway, but hey, any port in a storm.  Or something like that.  Steamers worked just fine.)

Fill a large pot about a third to half way with vegetable oil and heat to 360 degrees F - 375 degrees F.

As the oil is heating up, combine the clam broth and egg with the flour and baking powder.  Whisk together to get rid of any lumps.  Then stir in the chopped clams.  Set aside until the oil has reached temperature.

Also, have a couple of plates ready with several layers of paper towels on them and some salt, and a large slotted metal spoon.

Here's how the batter will look after it has been sitting a few minutes:

When the oil is at the right temperature, get a large spoon (tablespoon or bigger), or, if you have it, a 2 tablespoon size measuring spoon.  Scoop up some of the batter with your big spoon and lower it to just above the surface of the hot oil.  Scrape the batter into the oil with another spoon.  Scoop 4-6 clamcakes-to-be into the oil.  You want them to have room to move around a bit, and you'll need move to turn them over so they brown evenly.

Here are some partway through the frying...

They're still too pale, but they're getting closer.  All those little straggly bits of batter can be scooped out and discarded. 

As they reach a dark golden color, take one out and cut it in half to make sure the batter has cooked all the way through.  If it has, pull the other clamcakes out and set them on one of the plates with the paper towels to drain.  Sprinkle right away with a little salt - it will stick better while they are still hot and a bit oily.  You can keep them warm in a low oven or under a dish towel.  You don't want to wrap them in foil - that will steam them and they'll lose their crispness.

Here's a tantalizing close-up of some of the finished ones from last night:

They go nicely with leftover beef stew.

Clambake - An All-Day Affair

A couple of Saturdays ago, Bill and I took the kids and some clam rakes and metal baskets and gloves and the kids' plastic gardening tools and my camera down to Galilee to dig clams.  Bill had bought about four pounds of soft shell clams, or steamers, earlier, but in order to do the clambake we needed rockweed (a type of seaweed) and since we had to get that, we might as well dig for more steamers while we were there.

Surf n Surf n Turf n Turf (sort of)

Or, my Mother's Day lunch, cooked and served by my husband.