New England Clam Chowder

I love, I mean LOVE, New England clam chowder. A few weeks ago my very pregnant friend from MA mentioned she was craving it. She doesn't really like to cook and they don't do clam chowder in Ireland, so I thought I'd try my hand at making some and take it over to her. I hadn't had it in ages myself, so I thought this was a win win for both of us! After I started making it I panicked a little bit, wondering if this mid-Atlantic girl could pull off making this soup for a true New England connoisseur of the clam chowder. Fortunately, it turned out better than I expected!

There are a million recipes out there for this soup, calling for things like dill or celery. You can pick one really depending on your taste, but from what I could remember dill and celery aren't really authentic. After searching around quite a bit I ended up using a recipe from a Boston tourist site and can be found here. It's a simple soup to make with basic ingredients. Fresh clams are very expensive here, so I ended up just using tinned ones and it was still delicious. I made this the night before and it tasted even better the next day.

I tweaked the recipe a tiny bit, so here's my version using the tinned clams:

Approx. 1 cup tinned clams*, drain and save the juice
2 pieces of streaky bacon, diced
1 medium onion, diced
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 dried bay leaf
2 tbsp butter
1/4 tsp black pepper
2 cups waxy potatoes, peeled and diced
3 tbsp flour
1 cup 2% or semi-skimmed milk
1 cup single cream
Salt to taste
Dash of cayenne

Heat up a sauce pan and fry the bacon until crispy. Add the onion, thyme, bay leaf, and butter. Once the butter melts, add the flour and stir until blended**. Once the onions are translucent, add in the reserved clam juice, diced potatoes, and milk. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently, then turn down the heat to a simmer. Cook until the potatoes are soft, 8-10 minutes. Once the potatoes are soft add in the cream and clams. Bring to a simmer and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add salt, pepper, and cayenne, tasting until you get it just right to your liking.

That's it! Super easy! I just heated it through the next day and it was even more delicious than right after I made it. This made enough for the two of us to have a hearty lunch with some nice bread.

*Use more or less clams depending on how clammy you like it!
**Yeah, I messed up here. I forgot to put in the flour. So to thicken the soup I added cornstarch before adding the cream and clams. I just added a little bit at a time, eyeballing it until it was a nice thickness.

Garlic shrimp in coconut milk, tomatoes and cilantro

Another successful recipe from Gina's WW's Recipes! For me, the biggest success of this recipe is that I actually peeled and deveined the shrimp all on my own! The peeling bit was easy (even though pulling the heads off was disgusting), but it was the deveining that I was most uncertain about. I believe they even make specific tools to do this and all I had was my $1 Pampered Chef Quikut Paring Knife. Fortunately I have watched enough cooking shows and eaten enough shrimp that I could handle it without the special tool! It took me a little while, but the whole process was actually quite cathartic.

Preparing the shrimp was the most difficult thing about this recipe, so if you find already prepared shrimp this is a quick and easy meal. The recipe says to saute the red peppers over low heat until they're soft (about 4 minutes). If you can manage to get something to saute on low heat, then well done to you! I couldn't. So after about 10 minutes of looking at raw peppers in the pan, I jacked up the heat to get some action. I turned it back down before adding the tomatoes and coconut milk. Wes doesn't like things too spicy, so I only used about 1/4 tsp red pepper flake. It wasn't spicy at all, so next time I'll use the full amount. Also, don't be put off by the amount of garlic in this dish. It wasn't overly garlic tasting at all.

Sorry about the quality of my picture. I had forgotten to take one and Wes reminded me when I had already put the leftovers in the container for him to take to work!

Here is the direct link to the recipe and I've also typed it out for you below:

Garlic shrimp in coconut milk, tomatoes, and cilantro (coriander if you're not in the US!)

1 1/4 lb jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
1 red bell pepper, sliced thin
4 scallions, thinly sliced, white and green parts separated
1/2 c cilantro
4 cloves garlic, minced
Salt
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flake (to taste)
14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes
14 oz can of light coconut milk
Juice from 1/2 of lime
Steamed or boiled rice

In a medium pot, heat oil on low (again, you might want to jack this up). Add the red peppers and saute until soft (about 4 minutes). If you have turned up the heat on the skillet, turn it back down to low, let it cool off a minute, then add the whites of the scallions, 1/4 c of the cilantro, and the garlic. Cook for about 1 minute.

Add the tomatoes, coconut milk and salt to taste, cover and simmer for about 10 minutes. The sauce should start to thicken up a bit.

Add the shrimp and cook for 5 minutes. Add the lime juice.

Serve over rice, sprinkled with cilantro and the green onions.

Serves 4 and the WW points is 5.5 (not including the rice)

Enjoy!