Clam Digger

A few days ago Matt went out boating with a few of his friends, and on a whim they decided to go clamming. Matt's been craving clams for the last week or so, and he didn't come home disappointed. A $10 clamming license and a fun day in the bay sent him home with 115 clams!

Life is good by the beach. :) The first thing we did when he brought that giant bucket home was purge the clams. This is super easy to do and ensures you don't get any sand in your teeth. We do this even when buying clams from the store or fish market because even a small speck of gritty sand turns me off to the rest of the meal.

First just dump your clams into a big bowl of salt water (about 1/4 cup salt for every gallon of water) and let them soak.

After about 20 minutes, the clams will have pushed out most of the sand and salt they have collected. The sand will fall to the bottom of the bowl, so instead of dumping out the clams, just pick them out one by one and set them in a strainer in the sink. Then rinse and scrub them with a fine scrub brush. Then dig in!

Kidding. That was all Matt. I am definitely not a clams on the half shell kind of gal. In fact, I'm not much of a clam person, but I happily ate my way through this batch this week. They were so tender and flavorful! 

One night I made a stovetop "paella" by combining brown rice, soyrizo (that's chorizo made with soy), crushed tomatoes, green peppers and onions, shrimp, clams, fresh parsley and a ton of seasonings, and it was a knockout.

And last night we had our friends Chris, Vanessa and Adam over for a clam feast (Vanessa had watched Riker while the boys went tubing down the creek for the afternoon - don't you think we should all be teachers and have summers off?). When I arrived home from work, I was immediately served a glass of white wine and a bowl of clams and orzo.

We also noshed on shrimp doused in a homemade Old Bay sauce. Soooo good.

As if the feast and company weren't good enough, after dinner Adam and Vanessa insisted on making me sit and relax while they did the dishes. Um, don't have to ask me twice! ;-)

We spent the rest of the night chatting and having drinks on the patio until it was time for bed. I love hanging out with friends mid-week, it makes the work week feel so much shorter. And on that note, it's time for work!