Clam Chowder

After my Dad's 50th Birthday party we had half a garbage can full of clams on ice that needed to be cooked up immediately. So Sunday Mom and I spend over three hours cooking and shelling clams. Just so that yesterday, I could spend practically my entire day making chowder. Of course my OCD got the better of me and I spent a lot of my time cutting up the clams by hand... no yucky green stuff in my chowder! And as much as I don't like clams... I LOVE clam chowder. But I will have you know... saving all that clammy smelling broth isn't worth the time and effort. Save a few cups of it if you plan on making a ton of it... but no more than that. The recipe I used called for two and a half cups of clam broth... that batch came out very very clammy. The next one I did I only used a cup of clam broth, followed by a cup and a half of water, and guess what... it was still REALLY clammy! I was so sad. I made three kinds/batches... the first was clam and corn chowder, the second was veggie clam chowder (I used peas, corn and two cups of carrots from our garden), and the final was your regular clam chowder. (All "New England" clam chowder by the way... 'cause that's really the only way to have a proper chowder after all!)
And, knowing me, I had to make bread bowls! :-D I found a nice hard roll recipe in one of moms falling apart ancient cook books. They came out well except that once again the dough didn't rise. No more mixing wheat and white flour for me! *sigh* Oh well. So what was suppose to make two dozen rolls instead made four small bread bowls. But they still tasted yummy and held the soup in well. So all in all, it wasn't a major loss.
So... now I have a ton of clam chowder in the freezer, and I'm so sick of clams that I don't want to eat any of it. lol.
Next up on my list of cooking adventures: vegetable soup! :)