Hi Everyone… I have some very exciting news to share with you today!  This past weekend I earned my lifetime membership to Weight Watchers.  For those of you who don’t know, this means that I am at my goal weight, and I have maintained it for 6 weeks.  I have lost a total of 50 lbs and I feel great!  Now it is time to go shopping because most of my clothes are too big!!

On another note, today I am going to share a recipe for steamed clams, which is something I have always wanted to try to make.  Clams are really expensive, but I got an email from Wegmans with a coupon for little neck clams, and I thought, “this is the time to try steamed clams!”  So I took my coupon to Wegmans and bought two large bags of little neck clams to cook up for my family!  I found my inspiration for this recipe on Pinterest from this lovely blog.  I made a couple of changes based on what was available and came up with this yummy recipe!

Ingredients:

• 100 little neck clams (I recommend going to Wegmans for these)
• 1 stick of butter
• 3 large cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 jalapeno peppers, minced and seeds removed
• 1/2 red bell pepper, minced
• 1 1/2 cups white wine
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 1/2 cup minced parsley
• salt to taste

Instructions:

Okay, the first thing you want to do is to clean the clams.  My process is probably going to sound very tedious, but if you don’t want to feel like you are eating sand, you have to do it!  Rinse each clam individually and scrub with a brush.  Discard any clams that are open even a little.  Saute the garlic, peppers, and zest in the butter for a couple of minutes.  Add the wine to a saute pan and simmer for another couple of minutes.  Add the clams to your pan, cover, and steam them for a couple of minutes until they have opened.  If any clams do not open, even with a little extra time, you should throw them away.  Remove the clams using a slotted spoon or tongs and place in a large bowl.  At this point you should have a lot more liquid, because the clams will have released more broth.  Add the parsley and salt to your broth mixture and simmer for a couple of minutes.  At this point, I reserve a small bowl of the broth for each person to keep by their plate and to dip the clams in while they eat.  You will still have  a significant amount of liquid left, which you can pour over the clams in the bowl.

I served this with Wegmans Miche bread, baked juilienned squash, and salad.  It was reeeeeeaaaaaalllly yummy!!!  When you eat the clams you can dip them in the reserved bowl of liquid to make sure that you get a taste of all the flavors in each bite!

This recipe was adapted from this recipe on the Heather Christo Blog.