shrimp and clams with creamy garlic shells

So I know we just had seafood last week but when I cleaned out my deep freezer (and found that last pound of cheap fish) I also found these Clams in the shell that I had purchased at least three months ago, and I thought we'd better eat them.  Turns out, I don't really like clams that much on their own.... but more on that later.


So I started by assembling my main ingredients (I put the scallops back for another day).  Pasta shells: $1 (I used the whole box even though I knew it would be too much.  Don't ask me why.)  Clams, $3.99, I counted, 22 clams inside, (we ate 13, but more on that later), and a pack of salad shrimp, $1.29.
I boiled the shells, which only took a few minutes, strained them, and set them aside.  While they were cooking, I made a creamy garlic sauce with: 2 cups milk, 1/2 stick real butter, and the following seasonings "to taste" (didn't measure just shook on what looked good)


garlic powder (not real garlic, I know, I'm shocked, too.) and onion powder (this one was because I was too lazy to dice an onion and the pasta shells were done waaaay too fast and I just wanted dinner on the table already) salt, pepper, and old bay.  Oh, and parsley, and I stirred in the shrimp and the strained pasta and let it simmer for a while.  It smelled delicious.








To cook the clams, I followed the directions on the pack: In the same pot that I'd cooked the shells in, (because they were now strained and in the pan with the shrimp) I put: 1/4 cup lemon juice, 1 Tbsp of vinegar, 1 Tbsp vegetable oil, and 1 tsp diced garlic, then put the clams in and put on the lid over high heat for 4 minutes "until shells opened".

Then, because I wanted something green, I shredded just a little bit of lettuce.  I guess you can call it a salad, seeing as we put dressing on it, but it was just lettuce in a bowl with dressing.  

Maybe it was a garnish?  I'm still not sure.  Anyway, it kinda rounded out the plate.

Emily's the only one who liked it enough to ask for seconds, and between the four of us, we only ate 13 clams, so I took the remaining 8 out of their shells and mixed them in with the leftover pasta and shrimp.

Which is just as well, because when my ex finally got here, he ate about half of the leftover seafood, and all of the remaining lettuce, leaving me with one adult serving as "leftovers".

Dessert was chocolate-marshmallow ice cream cones in waffle cones this time.  

*yum*  

Except for the youngest, who wanted applesauce.

So, the total for tonight: $3.99 clams, $1.29 shrimp, $1 pasta, 1/4 a head of lettuce (purchased weeks ago for I don't remember how much but I think it was $1.39 but we'll be generous and round up to $1.60) for 40 cents, 3 ice cream cones is tricky: the waffle cones are 12 for $2, or 17 cents each, just eyeballing the amount of ice cream we used it looks like maybe a 10th of a container, and the ice cream was on sale $2.50, so that would be 25 cents worth of ice cream in 3 cones, but again, I'll be generous and double that, and call it 50 cents, and the applesauce was 1/8 of the container (he had a 6-oz yogurt cup full and it's a 48-oz container) which originally cost $2.50 as well, so 1/8 of that is 31 cents, 2 cups milk cost 44 cents, and a half a stick of butter cost 25 cents, since I bought a 4-stick box for $1.99.  The seasonings weren't more than 50 cents, making our total: 

$9.19

For five servings.

And that was rounding up a lot.