Saturday, December 4, 2010

Creamy Seafood Pasta & Pumpkin Pancakes

Seafood Pasta with White Wine Sauce
Buttery garlic-herb shrimp and manila clams with sauteed mushrooms, tossed in a creamy Chardonnay sauce.

Needed to crack open that new bottle of Chardonnay, and what better way to do that than over good, fresh seafood? Bought a pound of fresh short-neck manila clams and shrimp, some fresh basil and we're good to go. My mom said she tried seafood linguine at a HK cafe and wanted me to make her something like that. Not hard at all. Delicious and 1/3 the restaurant price. Oui, oui, oui!

I used the wrong cup to measure my ingredients so I cheated myself out of like... 25mL per each half a cup. Next time: use right measuring cups and more sauce, more! I also tend to be generous with the garlic. I'm just the garlic and onions kind of girl :) Smell me please

Creamy Seafood Pasta (serves 3)
  • 1 lb pasta, cooked
  • 1 lb clams
  • 1 lb shrimp, deveined
  • 5 gloves garlic, sliced
  • 4 tbsp butter
  • handful of fresh basil
  • 1/4 lb mushrooms, sliced
  • 1/3 onion, chopped
  • 1/2 cup Chardonnay
  • 1 cup cream
  • 1 cup reserved clam water
  • salt + pepper
  • 1 tsp of red pepper flakes (if desired) or to taste
  • hint of lemon juice
  • parmigiano reggiano
  1. Season shrimp with salt, pepper, and dried basil.
  2. Cook clams until the part open. Set aside clams but keep boiling clam water to reduce.
  3. Heat pan to med heat and melt the butter, add half of the garlic and some red pepper flakes. The lower heat lets the flavors come out, but does not burn the garlic.
  4. Once garlic is golden, turn heat to med-high and sautee shrimp until cooked. Set aside.
  5. In the same pan sautee mushrooms with onions. Set aside.
  6. Add a bit of oil and the rest of garlic + red pepper flakes. Then deglaze with Chardonnay. Add the reduced clam juice and cream. Reduce until ... the alcohol is evaporated from the wine. (SALT+PEPPER+lemon juice HERE) Add parmigiano reggiano & rest of basil, but save some for garnish!
  7. Combine everything else and yum <3

Holiday's not complete without some dessert :)

Way belated post for the holidays. I had a leftover can of pumpkin puree that I thought I was going to use for pumpkin pie but didn't cause I was such a pumpkin-pie fail. But that's okay because I didn't waste it!

I think that per every 1 cup of Bisquick pancake mix I used about half a cup of pumpkin puree, some cinnamon sugar, and some nutmeg. Taste delicious with some candied walnuts, butter, and pancake syrup....! Mmmmh!

Just some food for thought! Pancakes don't always have to be the same color :P