Bread and Jam - er, Clams.

In most excellent news, The Preserving Kettle canning classes are continuing throughout spring, summer and fall (YES!) so I will be bringing you ongoing blogs about jam, jellies and a host of preserving possibilities. It's a tough job, I know. But I'm willing. Such a trooper.  You could say I've got jam.

In the meantime, I promised to blog a bit about bread. I posted one of my favourite quick bread recipes as the ROM for March, and promise to post my best-ever French bread recipe, as an homage to my infatuation with all things francaise. HOWEVER.

captivating Calabrese!

Let me startle and amaze you by recommending a store-bought loaf. Yes, I did say store-bought. This is beautiful crispy-on-the-outside, soft-and-tender-on-the-inside Calabrese white from the local Save-On Foods. Yum. I served it alongside a platter of steamed clams that four of us DEMOLISHED as an appetizer. Sadly, not a clam left standing.

Steamed Clams* (legs hidden) with Chorizo 

The Calabrese was the perfect dipping bread - spongy enough to suck up all that delicious wine-infused clam broth and strong enough to do the job. Incidentally, one of the best recipes for steamed clams EVAH, courtesy of the fine chefs at Northview Golf and Country Club in Surrey BC. If I share it with you I will have to kill you.

(No, seriously - I will be posting it in April - this one definitely deserves Recipe-of-the-Month status).



*My family has an ongoing joke about clams, provoked by Johnny Hart's series of BC cartoons about clams published in the seventies. Still can't talk about them, serve them, dig them or think about them without chuckling. Enjoy!