NormOwn
Linguini and White Clam Sauce
The other night Eric and I were watching “Fast Times At Ridgemont High” (for, probably, the 20th time) and Damone gave Rat his five-point plan: “First of all Rat, you never let on how much you like a girl. “Oh, Debbie. Hi.” Two, you always call the shots. “Kiss me. You won’t regret it.” Now three, act like wherever you are, that’s the place to be. “Isn’t this great?” Four, when ordering food, you find out what she wants, then order for the both of you. It’s a classy move. “Now, the lady will have the linguine and white clam sauce, and a Coke with no ice.” And five, now this is the most important, Rat. When it comes down to making out, whenever possible, put on side one of Led Zeppelin IV.” I then realized that I had never made a linguine with white clam sauce. What a perfect time to try it!
The next day we did some grocery shopping, I purchased all of the necessary ingredients (those that I didn’t already have on hand) and then I started looking through my cookbooks and on-line to get some ideas for the basic recipe. I love to cook, but I almost never follow a recipe exactly. I find that too many recipes include unnecessarily unhealthy ingredients and almost all of them have too much salt. I finally found a couple of recipes that I felt I could work with. My next step was to elicit Eric’s superb prep cook skills and get him started chopping garlic, onions, anchovies, and parsley. I decided to use canned chopped clams (rinsed and drained to remove the salt).
I found that this was a much easier dish to cook than I thought. From start to finish, it took about 30 minutes. If you don’t have a master prep cook at your disposal, it would take a little bit longer 🙂
Here is the recipe:
2 cans chopped clams (rinsed and drained)
2 teaspoons Smart Balance Butter Spread
1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
1/4 cup chopped onion
4 cloves finely chopped garlic
2 oz. finely chopped anchovies (rinse and drain before chopping)
1/2 cup white wine
1 quart fat-free, low-sodium chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
2 Tablespoons chopped parsley
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 cup skim milk
1 Tablespoon cornstarch
1 cup low-fat Parmesan cheese
1 lb. whole wheat linguine (prepared while making the sauce)
Melt butter in a large saute pan then add olive oil. Add onion, garlic and anchovies. Cook until garlic gets LIGHT golden brown (be careful not to burn the garlic). Add wine and cook down until reduced by half; add chicken broth and next five ingredients. Cook on low for about 10 minutes. Increase heat to medium. Stir cornstarch into skim milk until completely dissolved. Stir milk into broth mixture and whisk until smooth and thickened. If the sauce is too thin, mix a little more cornstarch into a small amount of cold water and add. If the sauce is too thick, stir in more broth until it becomes the desired consistency. Add clams and cheese; mix. Pour sauce over cooked linguine and toss well.
Yes, it is actually spaghetti, not linguine, in the photo – so sue me, they were out of whole wheat linguine at the store!
Enjoy!!
How I started Do It The Hard Way
Growing up in a small town in Southern Maine, I was never very athletic. I didn’t like gym class and preferred watching movies and listening to music to playing outside. When I was in my early 20′s, after a few years of marriage and the birth of my son, I realized that time, genetics, and gravity were not my friends. This was in the early 80′s and the fitness boom was in full swing, so I jumped on the bandwagon (with the help and encouragement of my husband, who had been a high school athlete).
I began by attempting to run. I started with a half mile. Before I got to the halfway point I thought I was going to pass out; however I slowed down and pretty much crawled the rest of the way. I was thrilled when I finished and felt that I was now a “runner”. I continued this ritual every day adding a little distance every week and within a few months I was up to 4 miles every day. I then started adding some weight lifting. This, again, was due to the advice of my husband, who was now running 5-8 miles every day and had bought a gigantic home gym, complete with bench and squat rack. Over the next 10 years or so I was quite dedicated to working out and thought I was eating a pretty healthy diet.
Then in the early 90′s my world got turned upside down when my husband died suddenly. This required me to get a job that would support me and my son as well as finding a more affordable place to live. So we packed up and moved from the small town we had grown up in to a city a couple of hours away. I had a few friends there, but the lifestyle was completely different than my previous 15 years of “soccer mom” existence. So, of course, my fitness routine was the first thing to go.
Fast forward 10 more years. My son is grown, I am re-married to a wonderful man (Eric), and I now live in Nashville. In our years together, Eric and I made moderate attempts at fitness and healthy eating, like so many people do. Living in Nashville was a whirlwind of new experiences and we would jump on and fall of the health wagon regularly. Then in 2003 Eric began working on the Toby Keith tour and I was left with a lot of time on my hands. We were living near a gym and I purchased a membership. It was at this time that I also began researching recipes, ingredients, and all aspects of nutrition. What I learned was mind-boggling.
The first thing I discovered was that there was no one place to go (either in a book or on-line) to find the answers. I would find conflicting points of view, depending on the background and/or sponsor of the articles’ author. So I began digging deeper and found that most of what is readily available for information is at best incomplete and more than likely very inaccurate. The deeper I delved into nutrition, food labeling, restaurant menus, and food company advertising; the more I realized that what I had thought was a healthy diet was far from it. I began putting together some common sense guidelines derived from my research. I created and cooked recipes based on truly healthy ingredients like whole grains (no more garbage white), fresh fruits and vegetables, fresh herbs, good oils, nuts, legumes, low-fat dairy, and lean meat.
As my recipe collection and research grew, I felt I needed to do something more with it. So, being a website designer by day, I decided the logical thing was to create a website, thus, www.doitthehardway.com was born. I came up with the name “Do It The Hard Way” because that’s what it really is. To really eat healthy, it takes learning what ingredients are truly healthy, learning to read the ingredient list of a food label – not the hyped up lies on the front, taking your time in the grocery store to pick out the right ingredients, sometimes doing the shopping at more than one store, and bringing that food home and cooking it. It is harder than ordering a pizza or heating up some prepackaged products and calling it a meal. Being healthy takes work, it’s hard. It’s also worth it.
It’s now 2010. I have expanded the Do It The Hard Way website to include a cookbook of some of the recipes I’ve put together over the years. It is far from complete, but I have a goal of having it ready for sale sometime next year. In our journey down this healthy path, Eric and I recently discovered P90X, a fitness routine like no other. It is a 90 day “boot-camp” style workout which requires 1 – 1/2 hours 6 days per week. We began this 90 round on June 9th, a mere two days ago. I’ll be back to blog more about that soon!
Do It The Hard Way – it’s not real quick, it’s not real easy, but it is real – and it really works.