After Monday night's epic fail re: seafood attempt #1, I couldn't even bear to look at my kitchen any more so I went over to Nick's. By the time I arrived, he and his roommate were engrossed in a very heated game of NHL. Although most girls would probably watch and feign interest as a guy dukes it out with their roommate on a video game, I'm not one for pretending so I grabbed a magazine sitting on their coffee table. Jackpot! Turns out it was a Penthouse from 1999. Although checking out late 90s you-know-whats doesn't really do it for me, I do think some of the articles in those magazines are OCCASIONALLY entertaining and the jokes are alright. And I might have even read a Forbes at that point. Anyway, fast forward to about a third of the way through the magazine, and I find a recipe. No joke. Penthouse from 1999 was giving men recipes. As I read it, I thought, wow, not only does this look really tasty, it looks remarkably easy. And, since it was from 1999 (pre Atkins) it was a pasta recipe! I didn't want to be a weirdo and interrupt their video game to ask for something to write with, so I did my best to remember the ingredients and instructions (which wasn't hard, I suppose Penthouse can't make any recipe too complicated given their audience).
Anyway, fast forward to work the next day: After getting chapped by the dadboss for weeks for not finishing my spreadsheets/analyses, you can imagine how pumped I was to type in those last little numbers and print them all out. Coincidentally, since it was 630pm I was also getting pretty hungry and decided that I wanted to make that Penthouse recipe for dinner. I knew I had some of the ingredients at home, but I thought it would be a really delicious meal with a nice piece of fish atop the spagetti and sauce. I also knew we had (what I thought was) a ton of marjoram growing in the backyard, which I researched and found out was often used as a substitue for oregano (which the pasta recipe called for). I also noticed when googling that my marjoram didn't look anything like the marjoram in the pictures.
I went up to Whole Foods, paranoid per usual that someone I know will be there and attempt to wave or have a conversation when I am desperately trying to keep my focus. Usually I am pretty organized at the grocery store so it's a quick trip, but this was one of those back and forth to the produce, and back to the dairy, and then back to the canned goods, etc kind of trips. BECAUSE when I got there, I had my pasta and my piece of fish planned out, but then I got very ambitious in the olive aisle and decided to make a whole Mediterranean themed salad (I love themes...possibly leftover from my days in Chi Omega). I then went one step further and decided to get pita bread to serve with the pasta/salad.
In the meantime, I had gone to the fish guy and gotten a couple of pieces of Chilean Sea Bass (I know, slap on the wrist it's endangered but I wanted it). While I was there I also saw the pile of littlenecks/cherrystones that are always on the ice and decided to get a dozen of those as well, for an appetizer (I am sure you can tell what kind of grocery store trip this was shaping up to be by now). I needed some butter to melt for the clams (I love butter so we go through a lot of it...sometimes I have to lie to Cathryn about how much I put into stuff I'm cooking). While I was in the butter aisle, guess what else I saw that fit into my Mediterranean theme? HUMMUS!!! I mean, I already had the pitas so I figured why not? I briefly thought about trying to take the clams back to the fish guy because now I had a different pre-dinner snack but I don't think you can return things like that.
After I swung by the olive bar and got some pitted olives for the salad and pasta, I finally was checking out around the time I had told Lizzy to come over for dinner. Thankfully she still runs on New Orleans time so we can always count on her to be about an hour behind.
I got home and wasn't quite sure where to start, so I decided to start with preparing the salad. Our housekeeepers had just been there so I didn't want to mess anything up so it was kind of hard, but once I got over that small issue things went a little more smoothly. I prepared the lettuce and put it in a bowl (on top of a paper towel- I like to do this so nothing gets soggy and also it makes the salad easy to toss when you pull it out). I threw in some tomatoes, thinly sliced red onions, and half a cucumber that my parents had grown in their garden (living in Georgetown it's difficult to have a big vegetable garden so they have a garden plot at Landon, my brother's school). I put the artichoke hearts, hearts of palm, and feta cheese aside by the salad to put in when I was ready to toss it and then made a dressing. The dressing consisted of lemon juice and olive oil (half of each), a sprinkle of sugar and some salt (you just have to taste it as you go along). I like making salad dressings in jars I have saved (and washed, obviously) because they are easy to mix (shake shake) and you can save what you don't use in the fridge.
I wasn't quite sure how to go about doing the pasta, since I wanted to doctor up the recipe a little bit (sorry, Penthouse). I decided to start it how I would start a regular tomato sauce, by sauteing a diced yellow onion and about 4 cloves of chopped garlic in 3 tbs of olive oil. To that I gave a hefty sprinkle of crushed red pepper flakes for some spice. Once the onion and garlic were sauteed, I added 2 chopped roma tomatoes (roma tomatoes are more meaty/less juicy than regular tomatoes and thus used in most sauces). I also added half of a container of grape tomatoes (which I had sliced in half) since I had seen them in the Penthouse picture (even though they weren't mentioned in the recipe). I added about 3 tbs of chopped oregano (good thing I didn't use the "marjoram," it turned out to be a weed). The last thing I threw in was about 1/2 cup of pitted kalamata olives which I had given a rough chop. I let that all cook at a low temp for about 20 minutes with the lid on, stirring so that it didn't burn. In the meantime I had put the water on for the spagetti so got that ready.
I pulled out the fish filets and set the oven to 400. I placed them on tin foil, drizzled olive oil, sprinkled salt and pepper, and then laid 4 sprigs of fresh oregano on top. I wrapped up the little pouch and put it in the oven for about 20 minutes.
While all of this was going on, Lizzy and Cathryn were enjoying their glasses of wine (I don't really like red so I wouldn't say I was "enjoying" mine, per se, but I threw an ice cube in and tried to get it down). I kept asking them what I should do with the GD bag of clams I had gotten, and both of them immediately said no when I asked should I steam them to dip in butter. I think they are over the butter use since they both DO like to exercise. After quite a bit of deliberating, we all decided the clams would be good in the sauce, sort of like a linguine with clam sauce but different. Anyway, I said what the hell, rinsed them off and dropped them into the pot of sauce. I put the lid on (they need to steam open) and let that cook, stirring every couple of minutes for about 12 minutes until all of the clams were open.
We ate salads while waiting for the clams to open and the fish to cook and the pasta to boil. If you time everything perfectly (which I did not, but probably could next time), then it can all be ready at the same time which is ideal.
If you are serving this meal for a dinner party , it is nice to have the several different courses. The salad, pasta, and fish course can all be served separately or at once (probably salad before or after). If you wanted to serve the fish separately, I would set it on a plate, put a slice of tomato and a sprig of oregano next to it to dress it up and then serve that as a small plate. Of course, you can serve the pasta with the clams as a small plate as well, but pasta is inexpensive and makes more so I think it is the more reasonable large plate choice for people in their 20s who don't have the last name Rockefeller. Either or.
When I served it to Lizzy and Cathryn, I put a little bed of pasta in the pasta bowl (a regular plate would be fine, but since I have pasta bowls I figure I should use them when I can). I topped the bed of pasta with a ladle of the sauce and about 4 clams (I had purchased a dozen which was a fine amount for 3 people). On the side of the pasta bowl I placed a little filet of the sea bass with the sprig of oregano still on it. At the last minute I grabbed a couple slices of the toasted pita bread we had used with the hummus and put those on the side so that we could scoop up our sauce with them. I handed everyone a fork and large spoon, Lizzy reminded me to get a bowl for the clam shells, and we sat down at the coffee table and ate. Both Lizzy and Cathryn said it was the best creation I have ever come up with and they can't wait to have it again. Ahhhhhh, seafood: SUCCESS!!! Recipes Below.
Mediterranean Salad:
-Romaine lettuce, chopped
-Half a cucumber, diced
-1/2 container grape tomatoes
-1 handful of very thinly sliced red onion
-1 small jar of marinated artichoke hearts
-1/4 cup hearts of palm (sliced for salad)
-1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
-1/4 cup roughly chopped pitted kalamata olives
-Dressing: one part each lemon juice and olive oil, salt and sugar to taste.
-Mix everything together, dress immediately before serving
Oven Roasted Fish:
-2 filets of white fish (like sea bass), totalling 1/2 lb
-Olive Oil
-Salt and pepper
-Fresh oregano
-Place fish on tin foil, drizzle with olive oil, S&P, lay oregano on top. Wrap up and bake at 400 degrees for 15 mins or until flaky and white.
Penthouse Pasta with Littlenecks
-1 box of Spagetti
-2 tbs olive oil
-1 white or yellow onion, diced
-3-4 cloves of garlic, chopped
-crushed red pepper flakes (to taste...about 2 tbs)
-2 roma tomatoes, diced
-1/2 container grape tomatoes, each sliced in half
-3 tbs chopped fresh oregano
-1/2 cup roughly chopped pitted kalamata olives
-1 dozen littleneck clams (optional)
-Sautee onion and garlic in olive oil, add red pepper flakes. Add tomatoes, oregano, and olives, cook for 20 mins at low/medium with lid on. Add rinsed clams, steam with lid on until all clams are open fully (about 15 minutes). Serve over spagetti.
Love and Happy Hostessing!
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