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.

(not beer) battered fish

So I wanted something fast and easy, and I found the last of this crazy cheap fish in my deep freezer the other day, so I had planned on making beer battered fish.  Now, I don't usually have beer in the house but I thought for sure one of my friends or neighbors nearby would have at least one can to sell me.  And I didn't want to buy a six-pack just for this.  So I searched around for a recipe for just "battered fish".  There wasn't one in any of my five cookbooks, but I found this beauty on the internet.  The batter was not as light and fluffy as it would have been with the beer, but the only alternative would've been dragging all 3 kids into a bar  to get a six pack, or into the beer distributor to buy a case.  Not. Gonna. Happen.

 So I thawed the fish and decided to slice an onion and make battered onion rings.  All you do is mix: 1 cup flour, 1/4 cup baking powder (yes, CUP), 1 tsp salt, 1/2 cup milk and 1/2 cup water.  Mix it thoroughly, and dredge your fish and onion rings through it.  Now, the online recipe said to fry them in a pan of oil.  I just turned on my deep fryer and fried them there.  Should've done them in a pan.  Why?  Because any molecules of loose batter are now semi-permanantly stuck to my deep fryer basket.  And the edges where it initially boiled over.  By the way, only takes 3 minutes on 375 for the fish, 2 for the onion rings.

So in five minutes of cooking (and roughly 10 of prep) I had a complete meal for my kids.  Only I realized the boys might not eat the onion rings.  So I made some broccoli (about 1/3 of a bag) for the boys.  It's healthier anyway.  It turns out everyone had some of everything.  Which is fine by me.

All done, mom!  What's for dessert?

When the broccoli was cooking in the microwave (a little butter and garlic salt, nuke for 3 1/2 minutes, and voila!) I stirred up some instant butterscotch pudding:  2 cups milk and 1 packet of pudding mix, stir for 2 minutes, pour into tupperware (or in my case, dixie cups) and chill.  By the time we were done eating, the pudding was ready.

So our total for tonight was: $3.29 for 1 pound of crazy cheap fish, 2 onions (out of a 98 cent pack of 7 onions) 28 cents, 1/3 pack of frozen broccoli (1.88/pk) for 63 cents, 2 1/2 cups milk (55 cents), one pack instant pudding (50 cents), and probably another 50 cents worth of flour and baking soda, giving us a total of $5.75

And there was enough left over to give a full adult serving to my neighbors.

Even though they didn't have any beer.

seafood and creamy garlic shells and more!

It all started a few weeks ago when we were all shopping.  I was just going up and down the aisles, seeing what was on sale and looking for any staples I might need for the house.

 

 

Emily saw these "shells" and said, "We could eat those with our ocean animals!"  In case you may have forgotten, when our family took a vacation earlier this year, we bought three of these "seafood combination" packs.

 

Since the pasta was $1 a box, we bought one box of "small" and one box of "medium".  Since last time I cooked the "ocean animals" I just did them in butter and herbs (and lemon juice and vinegar) I decided to do tonight's in a cream sauce: First, I poured the frozen "seafood combination" into a frying pan and set it on the stove.  I added about 1/2 cup milk, 1/2 cup water, 1 Tbsp vinegar, and the following seasonings:

 

Then I put on a lid, turned the heat to a "six" (medium-high) and let  cook.

 

 

I boiled about 3/4 of the medium shells first, then realized that would be enough and saved the "small shells" for another meal.  I strained the shells and set them aside while I made the cream sauce.  All I did was put 2 cups of milk and a half-stick of butter in the empty pot, and add the same five flavors I put in the seafood, plus a dash of red pepper for some "zing".  When it was boiling up, I sprinkled in 1/3 cup of flour, a little at a time, while stirring with a slotted spoon.  This was just enough to thicken it without turning it into a gravy.  Which, let's face it, would have been gross. Then, I added the shells I had set aside and stirred them in, and turned off the heat.

 

 

 Speaking of gross, although the kids devoured the seafood mix the last time, I didn't like it too much, so I pulled out some alternatives for myself: The fish in the ziplock baggie was caught by Andrew earlier this year, so it was free.  I added it to the seafood mix and put the lid back on.  The scallops and shrimp would've been great, but each little baggie would've been enough for only me, and I didn't want the kids mooching, so I put the scallops and shrimp back in the freezer, and just cooked (steamed in glass bowls in the microwave) about 1/3 the cauliflower and 1/4 of the peas. 

 

Even with the mountain of pasta I'd cooked (shells expand about 70% when boiled) I didn't think cauliflower, peas, and shells would satisfy me, so I pulled out this can of whole cranberries I'd bought last Thanksgiving.  (My eyes were bigger than my stomach - there was soooo much left over)  Still, I had a veritable feast and stayed under $10.  I told each kid to pick three things out of the five on the table and I served.  Then they had to clean their plates.  (This also gave me an "out": I ate peas, cranberries, and pasta)

 

 

Andrew's 3: Cauliflower, pasta, seafood

 

 

Emily chose all five, but then decided
she didn't like the berries and gave them to me.



Everybody did clear their plates, and Lucas had seconds of pasta, while Emily had seconds and thirds of the seafood.  We still had soooo much left over; I ate as much of the cranberry sauce as I could but put the rest in the compost.  We saved the shells for another day (seriously, I didn't even cook the whole box and we had half a plate left over!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everyone was so full that only Lucas wanted dessert - and while I thought for sure he would want applesauce (which is what I bought) he wanted cereal for dessert.  Of course, when Emily saw this she wanted some too.

 

 

 

And so our total for tonight was... Seafood mix: $5.99, 3/4 a box of shells, 75 cents, 2.5 cups milk, 55 cents, 1/3 bag cauliflower, 63 cents, 1/4 bag of peas, 38 cents, 1 can cranberry sauce (no idea because I bought it a year ago but let's just say $1) Side note: canned corn, creamed corn, and green beans are only 39 cents each at Costas today and tomorrow.  That's a heck of a deal, folks.  Back to the total: the cereal was "generic", $1.88/bag which says 13 servings per bag, so 2 servings for my kids was 29 cents.  So $5.99 + 75 cents + 55 cents + 63 cents + 38 cents + $1 + 29 cents = $9.59

 

So I'm under $10 AND I have 2 servings of delicious creamy garlic shells left over.  Hurrah!

 

 

 

 



Seafood "Medley" (or something)

Ok, so the story behind this meal is pretty typical for "how I get my recipes"....

 

Something like three years ago, I was visiting my awesome sister at her home in Lancaster, PA.  I had told her how my daughter enjoys strong flavors: Salt and Vinegar chips over plain chips, Extra Garlic in her spaghetti sauce, how she sneaks raw onions when I'm dicing them, too... and how we had just made shrimp scampi with extra, extra garlic and she loved it.  So my sister asks if I think my kids would eat a seafood mix, and I'm all, "huh? what kind of mix are we talkin about here?"  Apparently, in any town larger than this one, (i.e., any town, anywhere)

you can buy this: (or something like it)

 

 

This bag came with pieces of clam, shrimp, "other mollusks", squid and octopus tentacles, imitation crab meat, and some things I could not identify with my eyes, which didn't even seem to be on the ingredients list.  I seem to recall my sister bought something along these lines...  and the kids loved it.  I mean, really, really LOVED it. 

 

So while I was down in Delaware for our family vacation this year, I stopped in a "Super Fresh"

(Rte 1, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware) for three, yes three bags of this stuff. 

(It was $5.99 a bag, in case you care, and the bag says it contains 5 servings.) 

 

 

To give a little more volume to the meal, I added a fairly large piece of Pollock from this bag.  I put it on my palm to show you the size.  It was one vacuum-sealed fillet, and, I kid you not, this bag of 4 fillets was $1.99, so this tasty morsel was 50 cents! (Jubilee in Coudersport, sale was over weeks ago, folks.  This is why I have a deep freezer.)

I let my oldest boy help tonight.  He's the one who wanted this meal the most, actually.  To add flavor, we used a big splash of lemon juice (probably 1/4 cup, maybe even 1/3 cup), a small splash (1 or 2 tsp) of apple vinegar, 2 heaping teaspoons of garlic, 1/2 stick of real butter, and some salt, pepper, and paprika.  I simmered the whole pan over medium/high heat (a 7 on my oven, for what it's worth) for about 10 minutes.

Our side dish tonight was butter-herb pasta, but instead of making it from a bag, I just boiled some mixed pasta (roughly 1/3 box "tri-color" pasta - the kind used in pasta salad - and a large handful of egg noodles) strained it, then, in the pot it was in, melted the other 1/2 stick of butter and added several shakes of old bay and several shakes of Italian seasoning.  When it was done, I put it on a plate to serve.  You can't see or taste or smell the butter and the herbs but they were there and they were delightful.

Despite how much she liked it last time, my daughter seemed apprehensive about the meal.  But once she started eating, she had seconds... and thirds...

This one is a tentacle piece.  Yum.

and when I was passing tentacles down to my eldest, at the end, she snagged them en route.  Twice.  Needless to say, there were no leftovers.











Mystery meat.  Less yum...

Dessert was vanilla wafer cookies.  Because they were on sale at Best Buy Foods for 79 cents for the whole box.  We ate maybe 4 cookies each, barely 1/4 of the box, so dessert for the whole family was 20 cents.

Our total tonight, then, was... $5.99 mixed seafood, 50 cents extra Pollock, 1/4 of a $2.69 pack of real butter, or 67 cents worth of butter, 65 cents worth of pasta (normally I only buy 99 cent boxes but this was $1.29 for the tri-color) and 20 cents dessert = $8.01 

Even allowing for the cost of the seasonings, garlic, lemon juice, and vinegar, we're not even close to $10.  And I ate octopus.  Booyah!

Friday Night Fish Fry

As I've said before, my daughter loves seafood, but it is often prohibitively expensive.  During Lent, grocery stores often have deals on fish fillets, but I prefer my own recipe to the frozen patties.  I will, however, buy frozen fish when it's on sale, and save it in my freezer until we want some.  This was one of those nights.  The fish was advertised as "haddock fillets, $3.29/lb", but when I asked at the store, I had to buy $20 worth of fish: 6 individually wrapped 1-lb packets, sold in a box for $19.75.  So I bought a whole box, for the sake of the deal.  Fish is normally between $7 and $8 per pound, so this was a really good deal. 

So, to prepare my fish, I run it under cold water until I can peel off the plastic wrapper, but the fish itself is still frozen.  If you are under water conservation guidelines, you can thaw it in the microwave or in a pot of water.  I mix generic unseasoned bread crumbs (you can also make your own by toasting bread, then putting it in a blender) with old bay seafood seasoning.  I put 1 egg for every pound of fish in the right bowl, cut the fish into "fish stick" sized pieces, and put them in the "egg" bowl.  Coat the fish in raw egg, then coat the fish/egg in crumbs/seasoning.  This will get your fingers very messy.  Any unused egg, which usually has some small pieces of raw fish in it, can be stirred in with the crumbs and be molded into "crab cakes" (minus the actual crab).  My mom always called them "hush puppies", and gave them to the dog.  My kids like them well enough, but aren't crazy about them. 

The fish sticks and hush puppies can now be deep fried.  I served these with french fries (also deep fried, not baked, because, hey, my fryer is already on) and applesauce.  The fries I purchased bulk from Best Buy Foods (across from Charles Cole Hospital on Rte 6) so I can only guess that I used roughly $1 worth of fries, and the applesauce was $2.65 for 3 pounds; we ate about half the container.  So my cost for tonight was $3.29 worth of fish, $1.33 worth of applesauce, $1 worth of fries, and maybe $1 worth of bread crumbs and eggs, for a grand total of

$6.62 

Baby Shrimp Scampi

My daughter loves seafood, and in land-locked areas (like north central PA), it's expensive. 

However, there are a few ways to make affordable seafood, and this method is one of them.

For our shrimp, I bought this pack of salad shrimp for $2.99.  I cooked a half a $1 box of "thin spaghetti" (actually what it says on the box; thinner than standard spaghetti, thicker than angel hair).  While it was boiling, I put the still-frozen shrimp in a skillet, added a half a stick of butter, a few pieces of diced onion, salt, pepper, a few teaspoons of lemon juice (I just splashed some on there, really) and some garlic.  I buy diced garlic in water in a glass or plastic jar. I used about a Tbsp here.  Even if I buy the dirt cheap stuff, it's about $4 - 6 for the size of a standard jar of peanut butter, depending on if it's on sale when I buy it.  However, since it's much more potent (you can spoon some garlic-flavored water on for some extra bang for your buck, too) than fresh garlic, and since it won't go bad for roughly a year (something that can't be said for whole cloves) I prefer it, hands down, for all of my garlic-y recipes.  You can also use garlic powder, if you don't have a jar of the diced already in your house.  Traditional recipes call for white wine to be added; however, I have no white wine and would not be very thrifty if I bought some just for this recipe.  If you have some, by all means, add it.  You could probably also add white vinegar as a substitute for white wine, which is what I would have done if I'd had any.  I had cider vinegar, which is awesome in BBQ but I had my doubts about adding it to scampi, so I went safe and omitted it altogether.

The scampi heated up (over medium heat) just in time for the pasta, which I strained and added to the skillet, leaving the whole thing on simmer while I made the salad.  The best salads are the simplest ones, and I like to put myself on a "five ingredients or less" limit (not including dressing).  This salad was just lettuce, onions, green olives, and mild banana peppers.

The kids ate the meal, although my youngest one kept asking if these were "baby shrimp" or "mama shrimp".  Every.  Single.  Bite. 

Before he discovered its inherent tastiness, the only way he would eat seafood was if I told him that's what sharks ate.  Which is true.  Ish.

Anyway, they ate so well, that only one person at the table had enough room for dessert: Me.  The older two jumped down as soon as they were allowed, leaving just my youngest to change his mind when he saw what I'd planned for dessert: ice cream cones.  You can buy a box of generic Nutty Buddies (the cones with the chocolate in them and the nuts on top and now I really want some) for $3 which averages 50 cents a cone, OR buy a pack of 12 waffle cones for $1.50 and a quart of ice cream for $3, which averages to 38 cents a cone, but you lose the deliciousness of the chocolate-lined cone BUT you gain the choice of ice cream flavors inside the cone and the benefit of cheaper desserts.... for me, it's a toss-up.  What I had in the house was "Option B".

We all scream for ice cream.  Literally.

So the price of tonight's three course meal was: $2.99 for shrimp, $0.50 spaghetti, $0.50 lettuce (head of lettuce was $1.38, used roughly a third of it) and I'm estimating another $1 for all the extras combined.