For anyone you hasn't seen the recipe and is interested here's the margarita recipe
Juice of 3 lemons, 4 limes and 1/2 grapefruit Bar Syrup (either buy at liquor store or make your own--2 cups sugar to 1 cup water; mix and boil till sugar is completely dissolved; cool) triple sec tequila
Fill a blender with ice, add 5 oz. of the juice, 4 oz. bar syrup, 5 oz. triple sec, 3 oz. tequila Blend
You should have enough juice to make about 2-3 blender fulls. Depends on how much juice you get
I just love this recipe. Who would have thought about adding grapefruit?.... Which makes this really good for us, because it has so much FRUIT JUICE in it. We'd never get colds with all of that Vitamin C...and if we did, we wouldn't care!
Since it looks like the party will be in Maine, and I'm on the coast, I'll bring steamed clams and lobster. This time of year I could also get real Maine shrimp. Some real Maine maple syrup should also go well with almost anything.
Isn't this the most fun, p'liking we're having a real party. I read each little blurb and feel like we're really planning a great party. For me, the planning is almost more fun than the doing. Let's keep this going. I've never been to a real clambake...but we can buy clams in Texas. How do you cook them "in the house"??
This is the way we small town country girls make margaritas. Don't laugh until you have tried it. 1 frozen can Lime juice (save can for measuring) 1 can margarita mix 1 can tequila 1/2 can triple sec 1 12oz. can Sundrop (Sprite, 7Up, or any lime soda) Mix in a blender or just pour everything in a large pitcher and stir...Pour over ice in a tall glass and enjoy.
The best way to cook clams is outdoors - Build a big fire on the beach and put in large rocks. Heat until the rocks are white hot. Remove all wood, leaving only hot rocks. Cover the rocks with seaweed up to 1½ feet thick. Put clams on seaweed, and cover with more seaweed. You can also put a towel, etc. over the whole thing. Let clams steam for 20 minutes. Then uncover and enjoy the best taste you can imagine.
To cook the clams indoors, put in a steamer with some salt water in the bottom. Steam for 20 minutes or until most of the clams are open.
Interesting!!!!!!! I have never eaten steamed clams and just thinking about it I am not sure I want too. I am not a big seafood fan, mainly I think, because fish are not local and when I was growing up I can't remember EVER eating seafood except fried oysters occasionally, or occasional fish caught in the local creek. However, lobster is one of my favorite foods now.
marsh-you forgot the keg of beer. Normally I don't like beer-but an outdoor clambake calls for it. We were on the beach with lobsters, clams and corn cooking. No one remembered to bring lobster crackers. I was wearing a pair of Dr. Scholl wooden sandals (remember them). My shoes got passed up and down our bunch. These memories are so bitter sweet
I love all kinds of seafood, mostly clams, oysters, crab and shrimp. I betcha Marsh is the best Clambake chef. I wonder how many clams I could eat before I died of 'clam-itis'. I've eaten them cooked in a big caldron with a watery- buttery garlic parsley juice. They had to be cooked indoors. I embarrased my DH to death because of the pile of clam shells - he didn't realize how small the clams were! He thought I looked like a glutton... I suggested he dispose of my shells and then look the other way. How I wish for those days again. I wouldn't mind being called a (clam) glutton!!!
i have never been to the northeastern states. never farther than new york city but i have been across the world several times! thats the pits not knowing my own country first-. my DH used to tell me how he watched folks in restaurants eat the shellfish up there in boston area to get the hang of it...maybe some day! and i will eat lobster and clams and soup til i pop/. Divvi
Used to belong to a "gourmet club" and one of the members took a course on how to make a real clambake. We went to an outdoor gathering place that had a sortof bay beach - you could swim, but it wasn't the kind of place people went to, to swim much. Around 10 a.m. People dug a hole and put in the logs and started them up and when they got good and hot, put in the rocks, drinking beer all the time.
THose of us up on the bank at the outing site prepared 4x8 trays of hardware cloth with wooden framing: one for the lobsters. That was easy. One for clams and mussels. One for corn, in the cob with the silk pulled off. and one took some time to do: cheesecake hobo sacks tied up with a piece of chorice (Portuguese sausage like chorizo), a potato, an onion inside. Someone always brought stuffed clams. I brought a big pot of Rhode Island clam chowder (made with clam broth but no cream and no tomato; cream on the side).
When the rocks were hot, we'd form a procession going down to the beach carrying the trays, loaded them quickly and carefully over the seaweed over the rocks, and put big tarps over all to keep the steam in. Another round of beer or wine and the chowder and clamcakes followed. (I've never been a beer drinker but they'd have all kinds of weird beers.) By the hour or so later when the tarps were lifted, everyone was a little wobbly. Back up came the trays, and we all feasted.
If anyone wanted it, we had watermelon later. This was an annual event for most of the '80-90s, as I recall, and we still remember it fondly. Someone once said to the bakemaster, This was wonderful. How long was your course?
Marsh I would have been sooooooo disapointed if you had not known the proper way to steam clams, but Briegul has got it down with the whole Clam Bake Menu. You two will be in charge of that day! OK, how many like a good cold beer? MAINE has many local breweries and make some good stuff! Of course we also have a couple of wineries. Blueberry wine anyone. Oh! I make a mean blueberry cake we can have for breakfast. Ummmm I'm hungry.
hey and since i'm ticked at the sandals and jaimaica commericals. i say we get one of those raegae bands from the islands and set them up for some fun music and do some wild limbo dancing while smacking on that lobster and drawn butterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-and lets not forget to fly in some of that speciality keylimepie from key west they raved about on the cruise?? that would go just righ twith seafood..divvi
I don't know how keylime pie would go with clams and lobster. We always ended our clambakes with blueberry buckle, made from fresh Maine blueberries. Another great dish is blueberry cake (maybe the same as Jim's wife's) topped with lemon sauce.
I adore Blueberry Buckle. Texas has blueberry farms now and so we get fresh blueberries and make Blueberry Buckle. I am so bad, I cannot open the refrigerator without sneaking a "pinch".
Blueberries in TEXAS?? Can't be!! Gotta have low-bush blueberries and the old guy in his overalls chasing you off from your vistas over Penobscot Bay because you'll step on them. And I agree, blueberry anything is the best way to end a clamcake. Or to start breakfast the next morning. Ever go to Jordan's in Bah Habah, marsh?
We do have blueberry farms in Texas. They grow on trellis type fencing...and we can take a bucket and pick our own. I'm a 70 year old cheat. I pick one for my mouth and one for the bucket. My tongue, teeth and lips are blue when I turn in my little bucket to be weighed. I pretend to try to hide my mouth and talk with my lips closed together.. and they just laugh and weigh the bucket. I'm sure they expect most of us to taste the produce. They say blueberries are good for the brain. If that's so, I've got a great brain...because I put them on everything!! and my jelly/jam of choice is always blueberry. yummmmy.
Here in WV our blueberries grow up like small trees. My neighbor has 4 that are maybe 7' tall. I used to pick huckleberries as a child and they grew low on the ground.
OK, so we'll order up a reggae band! And I'll tell the town we are renting the beach, oh heck they can donate it to us, we deserve it. We'll hire a half dozen bartenders, buy some grass umbrellas, more kayaks and canoes, lots of comfy beach chairs, and have ourselves one heck of a clambake. Then back to my yard to sleep in our Over the Top fancy pants tents and wake to hot coffee and the huge cinnamon buns that the country store makes! Oh yeah!