Clams on the Grill! Corn in the Skillet!

Cousins grillin' up some scrumptious eats

~

Fresh corn-off-the-cob = in the skillet goodness!

The hubs played in a charity golf tournament the other day and won one of the door prizes - a bushel of fresh Long Island Sound clams (actually he won an embarrassing number of door prizes; I've been visiting a lot of restaurants and wine shops of late). While this is one of our favorite foods, a bushel of clams is a lot more clams than two folks could possibly consume. Good thing we have our Sunday Family Dinner tradition! We gathered, they grilled and we all moved directly toward a food coma. SO good! The clams started our meal and were followed by the corn, grilled assorted sausages and a big green salad. So very good!

The T'nG:

For the clams: 

Clams
butter, melted (LOTS) keep it warm (clarified butter is nice)

Store the clams either on ice in a cooler or in the refrigerator in an open bag until ready to use. About 40 minutes before grilling, place clams in a colander and rinse them, then put them in a big bowl (or kitchen sink) and cover them with cold tap water. Sprinkle corn flour or black pepper into the water and give all a gentle stir. Leave the clams - do not stir - in the water for 20 minutes. After that time is up, gently lift the clams individually, or a few at a time, out of the water. Clean anything ugly off the shell, rinse and put into a lasagna-like pan. (It's better to lift them out one by one as just dumping them into the colander would also dump the sand back on top of the clams. Not good.) Place clams on your prepared charcoal/gas grill, see above, and grill with the lid closed until they pop open. As they pop open, place clams on a platter or another lasagna-like pan. Serve. If you have a ginormous amount of clams like we did, use two serving pans and serve the clams in shifts. Delicious!  

For the corn: 

Corn, use frozen, fresh cut off the cob, or in our case, left-over grilled corn cut off the cob
butter 
cayenne and fresh ground black pepper
sea salt

Warm butter in a large skillet (and while I almost always use an iron skillet, for some reason I didn't when cooking the corn that night - what's up with that??). Add corn to the skillet and stir. Let corn sauté, stirring often until it begins to caramelize. Be sure to scrape the bottom of your skillet to get all the lovely brown bits that will be forming there. Add cayenne and black pepper to taste as well as salt. You want it to have a bite, but not enough to take your head off. You can do all of this ahead (takes about 30 minutes for good caramelization) and just reheat right before serving. Wonderful!

~~~

YUM!

'till we feast again!
xoabb

Annnnd We Have...Another Cake from the Non-Baker!

Sawdust Cake
Photo taken w/cake resting on the grass just before said cake and I got into the car to go to bridge night.

It's all Lauren's fault. Totally and completely. She knows I don't bake, but based on the fact I made that other cake that turned out to be a yummy success, she sent me the following email: "Hey Baker Lady. Bake this!" Never one to shy away from a challenge, and knowing bridge night was next evening and I'd have a captive audience of ladies that love their sweets, I told Miss LaLa her cake was forthcoming! Though I call this ~Sawdust Cake~, it's actually called Cornmeal Buttermilk Cake. Lauren found the recipe on the Tasty Kitchen website and the gal that posted it there got the recipe from Kelly's website. Whatever, it is one delicious cake!

Both the previous recipes called for it to be baked as a layer cake. Because I was taking it with me, I baked it in a 9 x 13 pan that had a handy dandy carrying cover (um...I also have no round cake pans). Don't think that made a bit of difference to the wonderful flavor! 

This is a very sturdy cake, quite different from the texture of most, but delicious none the less. Enjoy!

The Decidedly Not T'nG: (oh dear, this decidedly not T'nG cannot become a habit!!):

For the cake: 

1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/3 cup yellow cornmeal

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

8 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

1 cup buttermilk

1 teaspoon vanilla

4 eggs at room temp.

Heat oven to 350º and spray a 9 x 13 pan with non-stick cooking spray. In a large bowl sift together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder and soda, salt, sugar and brown sugar. In a medium bowl whisk together the butter, buttermilk, vanilla and eggs until well combined. 

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix until there are no large lumps of flour remaining. A few small lumps are fine. Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 25 - 30 minutes, or until the cake pulls away from the side of the pan and a stuck-in toothpick come out clean. Cool in the pan on a rack. (I waited till it was cool, covered it and refrigerated it overnight. It was iced the next afternoon.)

For the Frosting:

4 oz. semi-sweet chocolate, melted (follow box directions)

2 sticks butter at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup cocoa powder

4 1/2 - 5 cups powdered sugar

1/3+ buttermilk

In a large bowl, cream together the melted chocolate and butter until smooth and creamy. Add in the vanilla, cocoa powder and powdered sugar (powdered sugar a bit at a time) and begin mixing. Slowly add in the buttermilk until the frosting reaches your desired spreading consistency. If the frosting is stiff (mine was), add a but more buttermilk until the right consistency is reached. Frost the cake. 

(Note: I knew this was going to be too much frosting for a sheet cake, but there really is no way to halve this recipe. So...I made the whole amount and told my hubs there were left-over and to enjoy. Let's just say, he took me at my word, (though I did throw some away. Not much, but some.)

A slice after the icing had melted in our 98º day, but you can see the denseness!

~~~

YUM!

'till we feast again!

xoabb