61. Linguine with Clam Sauce

I prepared #61 on a Saturday night by myself. Yes, by myself. Does that seem sad–me staying home and cooking alone on date night? I hope not. I haven’t been making as many Dinner is Served! meals as I would like due to Cleveland being all sorts of busy with his job. So on Saturday night I said: Screw it! I’m making one anyway! I have to cook! I have to eat! I have to blog! Besides, I wasn’t alone. I had Brian.

So I opened a bottle of Pinot Grigio, put on some Rhythm Sweet & Hot and got to some good ol’ Italian cooking.

Since it was just me, I scaled back the recipe. I used 2 cans of clams instead of 3 and adjusted the other components accordingly. I also, like in some of my other adaptations, kept the spice/flavoring levels the same while decreasing the amount of main ingredients.

This was the resulting recipe:

• 4 tbsp shallots
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, minced***
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 tsp oregano
• 2 tbsp parsley
• 1 can of diced tomatoes, drained (14.5 oz)
• 2 cans clams, drained (6.5 oz)
• reserved clam broth + water to equal 1.5 cups
• 1/2 lb linguini (this still made a butt load of linguini)

***there was a very small amount of chopped garlic left in my jar of chopped garlic so I just used it all–it was probably closer to 4 cloves of garlic. Oh well! I like garlic and it was just me, so my breath wasn’t going to offend anyone. I don’t think Brian cares….OK, I KNOW that Brian doesn’t care. He just tolerates me.

This was a very quick and easy dish. Aside from the adjustments above, I just followed the directions. #61 was child’s play! The only small concern I had is that when I added the 1.5 cup of clam juice, the sauce became very soupy. I don’t know about you, but I do not like a soupy sauce. I remedied this by boiling the hell out of it in an attempt to evaporate some of the liquid. I am happy to say that this worked to a degree and the result was a more consolidated, but not heavy sauce.

 For the antipasto salad, I merely plated a jar of  Giardiniera, a few marinated artichokes, and a selection of olives, mushrooms, and hot peppers from the olive bar at Safeway. I finished with a garnish of parsley. I thought it was pretty.

So there you have it, #61 Linguine with Clam Sauce.

Dinner is Served!

I haven’t done it in a while, so here is the side by side:

Pretty good, eh? I impressed myself.

The verdict: this was delicious!

This surprised me because my mum would occasionally make pasta with white clam sauce and I detested it (which in itself is odd considering that, at the age of 6 I would order the raw bar platter at a seafood restaurant and was able to take down a 1.5 pound steamed lobster). I think that she may have been using the Progresso sauce from a can. Or maybe it was the addition of the tomatoes in this version that made it better. Regardless, this was a light, clean sauce that, although prepared with mostly canned ingredients, tasted very fresh. Not bad. Not bad at all. A small victory.

Also, just because I mentioned him, here is some Brian. He was, after all, my hot Saturday night date.

Sadly, Brian is not much of a date. He isn’t one for conversation and the majority of the night he slept in front of the television. Typical male.