Archive for June 29th, 2008
Clams on grill
Yesterday was our annual Garage sale which has become quite an event that always ends up with an after party. The new grill was very busy and was more than up for the task. Our local supermarket was running a weekend special on a box of about 50 small neck clams. My son bought one so we decided to grill them. This is a very easy way of cooking clams without all the hassle of steaming them. Just heat up the grill on high heat and pop them on. We used tongs to turn them a couple times until they pop at which point you turn them so the meat side is down and then cook until the juice starts to bubble. We then moved them to a serving bowl and had drawn butter and cocktail sauce for dipping. You can make just about any kind of sauce you want. Food and Wine magazine has a great Horseradish-Tabasco Sauce recipe in their June edition provided below. Clams make a great summer time appetizer that many love and using the grill makes it an easy and less messy experience. Just make sure you clean the clams well before cooking, sand in the clams not good.
Horseradish-Tabasco Sauce:
4 tablespoons of unsalted butter softened
2 tablespoons of drained horseradish
1 tablespoon of Tabasco
¼ teaspoon of finely grated lemon zest
1 tablespoon of fresh lemon juice
¼ teaspoon sweet pimenton de la Vera (Spanish smoked paprika)
Salt to taste
Light grill and in a small bowl, blend the butter with the horseradish, Tabasco, lemon zest, lemon juice, and pimento de la Vera. Season with salt and add about a half teaspoon to each clam after they are cooked. They even suggest serving with grilled bread, like a hard crusted French bread.
From Food and Wine June 2006
The Annual Garage Sale
Hi there Wine Lovers! What an exciting weekend I had, hope you had a great one too! As I sit typing this I am enjoying a glass of Chapplett Cabernet Sauvignon to wrap up the weekend. I am inside this evening as thunderstorms threaten to strike any moment. You may think what I have to say about the weekend is a little strange, but it was one of my most favorite annual event weekends- it was our annual garage sale. Yes, garage sale. Most folks probably dread the thought of garage sales as it is a lot of work to have one, but our family and friends have a great time. We all put our stuff together to create one sale, we make signs, we have breakfast, lunch, drinks and more. We set up our cooler in the garage and start with beers around 11:00 and some wine a little later. Our customers consistently ask to join the party or if drinks are for sale. We had Smoking Loon Chardonnay and St Clement Sauvignon Blanc at the sale, with some Hanna Sauvignon Blanc after the sale while swimming. We always manage to pull in some big crowds, everyone has a profitable day and most of all we have a great time. We made close to a $1,000, with the most profitable couple pulling in a little over $200.
After the sale and clean up we headed to the backyard for some swimming and relaxation. As I said earlier we had some Hanna Sauvignon Blanc after the sale, then as a quick shower passed over us, we enjoyed a Raymond Burr Chardonnay. Our sister and brother in law were staying the night, and we had others join us for dinner so there was quite a bit more quality wine enjoyed. We also had a variety of foods with our son pleasing the crowd with clams and later on some specially prepared venison meat on the grill. There was shrimp cocktail, lobster and crab cakes and finally some grilled salmon and small red potatoes to finish. During the course of the evening we indulged in some fantastic wines along with our foods. We certainly rewarded ourselves for the hard days work with some Bremer Family Cabernet, a Silver Oak-Alexander Valley while sitting by our outdoor fireplace. We then enjoyed a midnight swim including lots of trips down the slide into our inground swimming pool and finished off the evening with a bottle of Frank Family Zinfandel. In hindsight, it was too late to be opening a bottle as good as Frank Family that late in the evening, but it happens sometimes. Plus it wasn’t me, it was my sister that opened that one. Of course, I didn’t stop her though. Another great time, as usual!