Proud Italian Cook

SPAGHETTI WITH OVEN BAKED CLAMS!!!

March 2, 2008 by Marie 34 Comments

This recipe is courtesy of Tyler Florence, and all I can say is… THANK YOU TYLER! I knew this was going to be good the first time I saw him make it. I love how rustic it’s made. Every thing’s made in a huge roasting pan, the kind you’d make a turkey in. It fits 5 lbs. of clams and a pound of pasta, and everything else just fine! Plenty of room for the clams to open up and spread out!

My trip to Costco on Saturday really convinced me into making this dish. They happen to have the best littleneck clams there, flown in fresh every week from the North Atlantic ocean, and fresh they were!

RECIPE

40 littleneck clams ( 5 lbs.)

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling

10 garlic clove, smashed with the back of a knife ( Yes 10!!!)

1/4 lb. pancetta, small dice

Handful of fresh basil

Red pepper flakes

1/4 cup of white wine (I used more)

2 pints of cherry tomatoes ( I bought the big container from Costco)

Lots of fresh ground pepper

1 lb. spaghetti

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. ( I raised it to 425)

Make sure clams are cleaned and discard any that are open. In the meantime get your water boiling for your spaghetti.

On top of stove put your roasting pan over 2 burners. Add oil, garlic, pancetta, red pepper, cook till pancetta renders. Add the clams, wine, tomatoes, and a good amount of pepper and toss all together. Transfer pan into the oven and roast till clams open up. The recipe said about 10 min. but it took mine about 1/2 hr. or so, maybe because of the size of the clams. The key is wait till they open!

When clams do open, throw your cooked pasta right into the same roasting pan to soak up all the good juices and intense flavors. Garnish with fresh basil leaves, lots of pepper, and an extra drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil.

Make sure you have some good crusty bread to soak up the juices too. I highly recommend this! You will not be disappointed!

Buon Appetito!

34 Comments Filed Under: Pasta, Seafood Tagged: baked clams, family style food, rustic style cooking

Julia Child’s French Bread- Daring Baker Challenge # 2

February 29, 2008 by Marie 41 Comments

Julia Child! What can I say? She’s an Icon to say the least, chef extraordinaire, the real deal, and the true Queen of food television! So it’s no wonder why our Host’s, Breadchick Mary, of The Sour Dough and Sara, over at I Like To Cook, wanted to make Julia’s french bread our next Daring Baker challenge.

I have to admit when I first saw the recipe ( by the way, you can get it in detail over at Mary’s site) I thought it was a bit overwhelming, I had to read it several times to take it all in. I kept pushing it aside, because as I said before, I have issue’s with precise and exact measuring. ( believe me, ask my family!) But heck! We’re Daring Bakers! Up for the challenge, good or bad we all learn something. Right?
That’s one thing I always admired from Julia, she was never afraid of making mistakes, she would take it in stride and move on!

So now, on to my french bread baking experience!

The dough came together with no problem at all, I did it by hand.

I did however have other problems, I wanted to make batards, but they ended up turning into baguettes, the dough didn’t fit into my pans, I rolled it out too long, so I ended up flipping my pans over and baking them on the actual bottom of the pan. It worked out well after all, but it was very hard to clean my pans for some reason.

I ended up making two plain loaves, and the other one I added sundried tomatoes with Kalamata olives.

I didn’t change the recipe at all, I just stuck them in, so I hope I stayed in the recipe guidelines as the host’s said we can top at least 1 loaf with any ingredient we wanted.

But I have to say, the plain loaf was our favorite anyway! The crust turned out crispy, crunchy, and chewy, just the way we like it, and the texture inside was the best!

Nothings better than a great loaf of bread, dipped into some very special extra virgin olive oil! Mmmm!!

As Julia would always say….Bon Appetit!

41 Comments Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged: baguettes, daring bakers, french bread, sundried tomato and olive bread

MY 15 MINUTES OF FAME!!

February 26, 2008 by Marie 33 Comments

This past week has been crazy and fun all at the same time. You see, I have a soon to be famous neice, who has already filmed 13 episodes for A&E which owns Bravo and the Biography channels. She will be featured in a documentary/reality show coming out in the summer. (not the wild kind!) I will give you all the details as time goes on. Anyway, to make a long story short, last Friday night they filmed part of an episode right in my house! A get together of my neice’s family and friends, a little wine, a little food. But the exciting part for me was, that I made all of the food that you see on the table for everyone! They definately shot footage of the food, which I was so excited about. There was about 25 people that came, and I served Mini Italian meat balls
Bite size sausage and peppers

Roasted veggie pasta salad

Grilled shrimp with orzo and feta pasta salad

Salami, provolone and Kalamata olives on skewers

Caprese salad

Chick pea salad

Zuccini with pesto and pine nuts

Assorted tapenades, and bruschetta’s

For dessert we purchased assorted mini bar cookies, and a quick stop at our favorite Italian bakery for a few dozen mini cannoli’s!

The film crew and the producers were a lot of fun, and they seem to really enjoy the food.

On a side note, my daughter will be in a lot of the scenes here, as my neice and her are very close. Not only was she wired with a mic, she got interviewed, gave a toast, the whole bit! ( who knows, she might get a spin off! ha ha) Needless to say, we all had a lot of fun, I managed to stay behind the scenes, no way was I getting on camera!!