Stuffed Cherrystone

What is the meaning of life for a clam? I don't mean this in a philosophical manner, but rather in quite a literal one. I can really only think of one thing they are good for, and therefore I am concluding without a doubt that clams were put on this planet for the single purpose of being eaten (yes, this is what I consider "research"). They even come in their own little serving dishes.

For our first seafood creation, we needed to find a way to stretch the somewhat expensive ingredient as much as possible without diluting any flavor. Our list of ingredients included cherrystone clams, onions, green peppers, chorizo, bread (preferably day old), white wine and parsley.




1. Wash the clams. Laugh when they spit up black gunk all over your hands.






2. Throw clams into a pot and fill with about in inch of water and some white wine. Steam the clams, and pull out when they open up. Filter the liquid and reserve on the side.








3. Saute onions and green pepper with butter until softened, then add chorizo.






4. Remove clam meat and chop into small pieces. Save the shells without detaching the hinge. Wash these shells if necessary.






5. Add vegetables, clam meat and cubed bread into a large bowl. Slowly add the reserved clam juice until the mixture is soft but not mushy.




6. Ball up the mixture, place in washed shells. Top with crushed crackers or breadcrumbs and bake at 375F for about 15 minutes.




Serve with a squirt of lemon juice and enjoy. If you haven't yet, check out our Youtube channel! Only a couple of videos so far, but more on the way - http://www.youtube.com/user/LateNightChefs

Is this where "happy as a clam" comes from?

- Angie, Carol, Charles, Daniel, Howie, Laura, Marcus & Michelle

Spaghetti filled Meatballs

While I love classic spaghetti and meatballs just as much as the next guy, I find it a very messy and difficult food to eat on the run. I have tried many different ways to eat pasta while driving/biking/flying a kite (including feed bags), but nothing has ever worked. Until now. We here at Late Night Chefs have finally found a solution - spaghetti filled meatballs. All the flavors and textures of spaghetti and meatballs, with the shape and portability of a hand fruit. No more dangerously slippery tomato sauce on the steering wheel. No more showing up to work looking like the inside of a pumpkin. Here is how to make spaghetti filled meatballs:




1. Make spaghetti. We used a standard sauce and added some of our own herbs and spices.





2. Make your meatball mixture. You can use any recipe you want, but we used a ground beef/sausage mixture and added eggs, breadcrumbs and spices to taste.







3. Stuff spaghetti into meat mixture. This step can be a little tricky to do without leaving any holes in the meatball.






We made a bowl-like shape, filled it with spaghetti and carefully worked the meat into a sphere encasing the noodles, adding extra meat when necessary.





4. Bake at 375F for about 15 minutes or until the meat is cooked through.




I suggest you make at least a dozen of these at a time, and replace those apples in your fruit basket with something of substance.

You should have went with spaghetti filled meatballs, dummy

- Angie, Carol, Charles, Daniel, Howie, Laura, Marcus, Michelle

Special Update

We have a youtube channel! We will start posting videos of some of our creations, and other food related things we do.

http://www.youtube.com/user/LateNightChefs

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Marcus

Deep Fried Macaroni and Cheese

How do you make an already awesome dish like macaroni and cheese even better? A generation ago the answer would have been simple: add bacon. This approach is very basic but has been the most reliable food-enhancer for years. I believe the culinary world has evolved in flavors and complexity since the days of our parents and grandparents, and today the answer has become much more complicated: add bacon and deep fry it. This formula works so well it almost seems like cheating. Using the bacon/deep-fry combo is like playing basketball against your kid sister/a midget - a little too easy and doesn't require a great deal of effort or skill, but ultimately still satisfying. So here are instructions on how to make deep fried mac and cheese:





1. Make macaroni and cheese. We used elbow macaroni and mixed it with cheddar, ricotta, sausage and bacon.






2. Wrap in a tortilla and hold in place with skewers.






3. Deep fry. As I have mentioned in previous posts, we don't own a lot of equipment. If you don't have a thermometer, don't leave the stove heat on too high like we did. We learned a valuable lesson in the smoke point of vegetable oil.





4. Eat.





Although we initially decided to just make deep fried macaroni and cheese, this session turned into sort of an experimental night. Since I don't want to make a post for each item, here's some of the stuff we made.

Another one, deep fried for less time with a thin coating of batter

Potato chips and sweet potato fries

Shrimp (the darker ones are coated with breadcrumbs)

Viva Puffs (marshmallow and cookie in chocolate shell)

- Angie, Carol, Charles, Daniel, Howie, Laura and Marcus

Giant Ravioli

If you have ever made fresh pasta by hand, you know that it can be a very tedious and time consuming task. Now imagine being a poor student and not owning a pasta machine, or even a rolling pin. Imagine having to use a freakin' wine bottle to roll out ravioli dough in a stuffy, unventilated kitchen in the middle of summer. Unfortunately for us, we don't have to imagine doing these things because we actually did them. Fortunately for you, it was all done to bring you the next installation in our ongoing series of gigantisized foods. Our giant ravioli measured about 10"x 10" and weighed at least a couple of pounds. Here's how to make one at home:





1. Make ravioli dough. We followed a generic recipe that can be found online using flour, eggs, oil and salt. If done by hand, it will require quite a bit of labor-intensive kneading.





2. Roll out dough into a roughly rectangular shape, which will be folded in half to make the giant ravioli.






3. Make ravioli filling. We made ours by mixing ground beef, bacon, spinach and ricotta cheese, as well as various herbs and spices.




4. Place filling on one side of the dough and brush the edges of one half with egg wash.






5. Fold the dough, seal with a fork and trim to create a square. Make sure to get out as much air as possible so that the ravioli doesn't burst.






6. Boil giant ravioli for 10-12 min or until tender.







7. Top with sauce and consume.





While I was forced to do a good chunk of the hard labor, the joke is on the rest of the team who probably ingested about 2 cups of Marcus sweat. I'm sure it helped with the overall moisture and saltiness of the dough.


- Angie, Carol, Charles, Daniel, Howie, Laura, Marcus & Michelle