I came home from work today so hungry that I wasn’t hungry anymore.I didn’t want to roast vegetables because I knew that would take a long, didn’t want to make rice for the same reason, and didn’t want to thaw any meat.
I knew I wanted to delve into the smoked clams Santa gave me in my stocking. I love clams. I started eating them a few years ago because they are extremely high in iron. The smoked ones in cottonseed oil are beyond the best!
Anyway, I settled on pasta because fresh pasta is usually pretty quick. Over New Year’s I bought a pasta cookbook at a secondhand store. It’s pretty amazing..it has something like 127 fresh pasta recipes. I came across one which intrigued me – Old Bay pasta. Normally, I couldn’t care less about Old Bay seasoning. However, when I moved out of my apartment in Milwaukee I hoarded all the food left behind. One item was a full carton of Old Bay. I’ve never used it….until tonight! The only thing I knew was that the seasoning went well with seafood so I figured I’d give it a shot. The recipe also called for orange juice, so I was pretty excited for this. The result? Surprisingly good. The strongest flavors in the pasta were the celery salt and orange juice. As weird as it may sound, it worked. To go along with the pasta I boiled diced carrots, potato, and garlic in the cooking water. Since the pasta was made with a tablespoon of Old Bay, no seasoning was needed. For sauce, I just used the oil from the clams.
Old Bay Pasta
unlikely pasta ingredients
-combine 1-1/4 cup semolina, 1-1/4 cup wheat flour, and 1 tablespoon old bay seasoning in a food processor
-in a seperate bowl whisk together 3 eggs and 2 tablespoons orange juice; combine with flours in food processor
-mix until a ball of dough forms
when I first did this, I stopped too early and tried to use the dough when it was like this:
not ready!
The dough was very tough and kind of dry. I ended up adding another tablespoon of orange juice, but then the dough seemed too moist. I ended up just kneading it with some white flour to make it the right consistency.
-make the noodles using the 6 thickness and fettuccine die
–chop 3 large carrots, 1 potato, and 1 clove of garlic. Add to boiling water.
-once the pasta is ready, add it with the vegetables.
-boil ~5 minutes
-plate and top with a container of clams!
not the most photogenic, but it tasted good!
Total Cost: $4.69
–organic whole wheat flour: $1.69
-semolina flour: $1.66
-old bay: free!
-organic orange juice: $0.08
-organic eggs: $0.50
-3 organic carrots: $0.46
-1 organic potato: $0.20
-1 bulb organic garlic: $0.10
-clams: free!
I have so much left over…definitely probably enough for at least 2 meals
Poor Girl Organic 