Friday, February 19, 2010

Meatless Fridays

This week's meal is pure comfort food! There is nothing like it on a cold winter's evening. Bake up a crusty loaf of artisan bread and settle in for the night...
This week's Meatless Friday meal is:

CLAM CHOWDER



1 cup chopped onion
3 cloves garlic
4 cups peeled and diced potatoes
1 cup diced celery
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 (10 ounce) cans minced clams, drained with juice reserved
1 quart half-and-half cream
1/2 teaspoon white sugar
3/4 cup butter, melted
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
Old Bay seasoning to taste

In a blender, combine onion, garlic and enough water to make a smooth paste.
Set aside.
In a large pot, combine potatoes, celery, salt, pepper, onion mixture and juice from clams. Augment with enough water (or bottled clam juice for extra flavor) to cover. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until potatoes are soft, 20 minutes.
Stir in half-and-half and sugar. Combine melted butter and flour, then whisk into soup. Cook and stir until thickened. Stir in clams and adjust seasonings. Add Old Bay to taste.

For more meatless meal ideas, check out the
label cloud to the right!




3 comments:

JenniferM said...

Hi!
A dummy here.
What is Old Bay?
I've never heard of it.
Is there a good substitute?

JoAnnC. said...

Hey Jennifer,
Old Bay is a seafood seasoning. You should be able to find it in the spice aisle at your grocery store. It's in a yellow and red tin.

JenniferM said...

Yum! That was very good -- even the 2 & 3 year olds gobbled it up. I didn't make paste with the onions, and I added corn at the end. I forgot to look for Old Bay, so threw in some Tony Chachere instead. I think I'll add more clams next time as my husband said it was the best potato soup he'd ever had. : ) Thanks!