White Wine Steamed Clams

I grew up in New England, where summer time is synonymous with clam bakes. Even now that I have lived away for over 5 years, I still get an urge when fresh clams start showing up in the store. However when you live in a small apartment, sometimes having a steaming kettle full of fresh seafood (and the stinky trash that goes along with it) is less than appealing. That doesn't mean you have to forget those summer time memories - just scale things back to apartment size! The traditional clam boil includes clams, lobsters, steamers, mussels, corn and potatoes boiled up in a beer and water mix (cooked in a giant sand pit if you have one but more often just in a big pot on a gas burner). But for us, since clams were on sale at the market, it was an easy decision to just grab a few dozen little necks and get cooking.

For our clam bake we are going to do things a little different though.... no surprise for those who read this blog often. I do enjoy a nice beer I was thinking more along the lines of white wine and garlic flavors. This recipe is a bit more of a French style than a New England one but I suppose when you have deliciously fresh clams on hand, its hard to go wrong! Instead of using a large stock pot to steam my clams I used a large saute pan with under an inch of brother in the bottom - just enough to steam but not boil.

VIDEO POST! Pan Roasted Chicken with Ratatouille Sauce

It has been really fun using my new Flip Camera to record recipes. And so far I have gotten some great feed back...and even had a friend make something new because of my video! They say a picture says a thousand words - so what about a video? I know that personally I often look up videos of new cooking techniques because so many of us are visual learners. This recipe really turned out amazing. As I say in the video its fast, easy and really is perfect for company as it makes a great presentation. Don't be afraid of the hard to spell French name - Ratatouille is a wonderful vegetable dish that is a perfect recipe to have when your summer garden is making you see green (zucchini that is!)

I used two Newman's Own products in this recipe - Family Recipe Italian Dressing as a marinade for the chicken and Cabernet Marinara as part of the ratatouille. I used boneless, skinless chicken breasts as I find them much more flavorful than the standard boneless, skinless chicken breast. However, if you wanted to serve this with on the bone chicken breasts I think that would be a great option as well. Also feel free to serve this over brown rice, another type of pasta or even something more exciting like quinoa or couscous!

Click the link for the full recipe and instructions

Lightened Up Cassoulet

Traditionally a French dish, cassoulets use a variety of rich meats to flavor a baked bean dish. This rustic dish is like many other baked bean dishes made around Europe - there are as many recipes as there are grandmothers out there! This dish is simple and easy to make - don't be scared by the long ingredient list. It works wonderfully as a lazy Sunday afternoon project when you have time to sit and wait for the flavors to combine perfectly. This will also work for slow cookers - so feel free to prep it in advance and come home to a delicious hot meal.

Generally, very rich meats like goose or duck are used as the main ingredient with additions of pork sausage and bacon to give flavor to the white beans. I decided to lighten my dish up by using chicken thighs and chicken andouille sausage. I do think that a bit of bacon would have been an excellent addition lending some of the smokey flavor that bacon is famous for to the dish. I also strayed from the original by using a mixture of red kidney beans and white cannellini beans which was more a decision based on my pantry supplies than tastes. I also didn't have any onions in my house...but I added some shallots to compensate.

 

Click through for the recipe!