Oh, and hickory smoked, without question.
STUFFIES: A NEW ENGLAND CLASSIC
Posted: November 8, 2026 in Food, Recipes, Rhode Island, seafood, Southern New EnglandTags: CLAMS, cooking, dinner, food, NEW ENGLAND, recipe, recipes, seafood, STUFFED CLAMS
This is one of my sure-fire all-time favorite appetizers. My recipe is a twist on ones I enjoyed at a local restaurant, The Back Eddy, in Westport, Massachusetts. But, as always, I’ve made a couple of changes to make it my own.
Stuffies, or stuffed clams, are a very personal matter here in Southern New England. There are as many stuffies recipes as there are chowder recipes, and everyone thinks they’ve got the best one. Most stuffies that I’ve had in restaurants have too much bread and not enough of the good stuff.
I use medium-sized clams for this recipe and not the traditional quahog, a large clam often used in chowders that I find to be too chewy. Dropping the clams in hot water in the beginning helps make opening the clams a lot easier.
This recipe requires quite a bit of fresh sage, which can be expensive at the supermarket. So I grow sage in my summer garden, using it throughout the season, then snipping as much as I can at the end of the growing season to store it in freezer bags for winter use. I’ll even measure out 1 1/4 cups of fresh sage leaves (what I need for each batch of stuffies), then place that amount in the freezer bag, so I don’t need to measure later.
I use Portuguese chourico (since I live near Fall River and New Bedford, Massachusetts, the Portuguese capitals of America), and I think their flavor is best.
This recipe makes a lot of stuffies, but they freeze well so you can have them when you want.
This recipe is gluten-free…and you’ll never be able to tell the difference! But if that doesn’t matter to you, use toasted Portuguese bread instead of gluten-free bread. For gluten-free breadcrumbs, I buy loaves of Udi’s gluten-free frozen bread. I toast the slices, then put them in a food processor to make breadcrumbs.
I don’t like peppers in my stuffies (or my crab cakes), so I leave them out. But if you do, feel free to add them to your recipe.
4 dozen medium sized clams
1.5 pounds chopped chourico, skin removed (I use local Portuguese chourico)
3 onions, finely chopped
3 tablespoons garlic, finely chopped
3 cups frozen or fresh corn kernels
3 cups toasted and coarsely ground bread (I use Udi’s Soft & Hearty Whole Grain bread to keep it gluten-free)
3/4 cup chopped fresh oregano (or 1 tablespoon dried)
1 1/4 cups chopped fresh sage (don’t use dried)
Salt and pepper
Butter
Sambal chili paste, or chili crisp, or Chinese chili garlic sauce
Mayonnaise
In a large pot of boiling water, drop the clams in, about a dozen at a time. Remove them after about 30 seconds, before they open. Place them in a bowl to cool. Do this with all the clams.
Open the clams with a clam knife over a bowl with a strainer, making sure you save all the liquid from the clams. Put the clam shells to the side. Throw away any broken shells, and wash the empty shell halves thoroughly, making sure there are no broken pieces.
Take the clam meat pieces out of the strainer, leaving the clam juice behind in the bowl. Move the clam meat to a cutting board or food processor and chop them to medium-fine. Set them aside.
I pour the clam juices carefully from the bowl into tall drinking glasses, being careful not to let the sediment get in. Then, after some time, I pour off the clam juice from the glasses, leaving even more of the sediments behind. I find that the tall glasses make it easier to see the sediments, and maximize the amount of clam juice I get.
In a large frying pan, add the olive oil, onions, and chourico and cook them on medium heat for a few minutes. Add the oregano and sage and cook a few more minutes. Add the corn and cook a few more minutes, a little more if the corn was frozen. Add the chopped clams and stir, cooking for a few more minutes. Add the breadcrumbs a little at a time until you have a nice balance of bread and other ingredients. Add the clam juice a little at a time as well, so that you can add all the breadcrumbs, but the mix isn’t runny. There’s lots of flavor in the clam juice, so use as much as you can! Season it all with salt and pepper.
Remove the pan from the heat and fill the empty clam shells with the stuffing.
At this point, you can freeze the clams. I put them on small sheet pans in the freezer until they harden, then I wrap them 6 at a time, and put them in freezer bags. Keep them frozen!
To make the aioli, mix the mayonnaise and Sambal (or your favorite hot chili accompaniment) in a bowl, to taste. Sambal is hot, so a little goes a long way. Keep it covered and refrigerated.
When you’re ready to bake, remove the clams from the freezer and place them on a sheet pan in a pre-heated 350° oven. Top each clam with a small ¼” square piece of butter. Bake them about 15 minutes, until the clams are sizzling and light brown. Top each with a small dab of aioli.
I still have garden tomatoes that are ripening on the kitchen counter. And to me, the best way to honor them is with a BLT! But I’m a bit restricted with my diet. So I do lettuce wraps.
I leave the bread out, limit my mayo (which is way more difficult than it sounds), and weigh the cooked bacon, which, according to the package, is 90 cal per 17 g.
So the bacon was 180 cal, and the mayo was 100. The lettuce and the tomato can really count as nothing. A total of 280 cal, which would have been at least triple had I used bread.
Is it the same as a big fat sandwich dripping with mayonnaise? Of course not. But it satisfied the cravings, and that’s all you can ask for in a diet!
I’ve been substituting maple syrup for honey in a variety of recipes lately, and I found that I prefer it. Doesn’t matter if it’s in a barbecue sauce, a marinade, or, in this case, cornbread. Pure maple syrup just makes the recipe better!
1 cup yellow corn meal
1 cup all-purpose flour (gluten-free flour works great, too)
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
2 large eggs, beaten
1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup real maple syrup
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
In a bowl, combine the corn meal, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Mix them together well.
In a separate bowl, combine the milk, eggs, butter, vanilla and maple syrup.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and stir them together until they’re just blended. Don’t overmix.
Grease an 8 x 8 pan with oil (I use olive oil or avocado oil), and pour the batter into it.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until golden brown.
I use a cast-iron pan for even cooking, but use whatever baking pan you have.
To make this corn bread gluten-free, substitute a GF flour for the all-purpose flour. I used Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free 1 to 1 Baking Flour with great results.
Important: I was surprised to find that not all cornmeal is gluten-free! Be sure that it says it on the bag.
I have no problem with dairy, so I never look for a substitute. To be honest, there is a richness to the cornbread when you use whole milk. Soy milk, almond milk, oat milk, etc. all have so many chemical additives in them, I would never use them.
DIETING TAKES SOME MATH
Posted: November 5, 2026 in UncategorizedTags: diet, fitness, health, nutrition, weight-loss
There’s no doubt I love my food. And just because I’ve decided to lose some weight, it doesn’t mean I’m going to give up on tasty meals. My diet simply consists of fewer calories in than out…a slow but steady process that takes patience and willpower. But it’s safe, and it works. When you realize you didn’t gain weight by more than 2 pounds per week, you understand you can’t lose it any faster, either.
I’m limiting my calorie intake to about 1500 calories a day, based on my height, weight, and age. That requires that I weigh and measure everything I eat, and read every food label. A small kitchen scale is an absolute necessity.
Here’s an example of a delicious dinner I had and how it all broke down…
Raw tuna: 168 calories.
Avocado : 200 calories.
Jasmine rice: 105 calories.
Peanuts: 25 calories.
Sesame seeds: 20 calories.
Asian marinade, which consisted of soy sauce, hoisin sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, and Chinese chili garlic sauce: 110 calories.
Total: 628 calories.
I weighed and measured every bit of that meal to get those numbers. (By the way, I gave zero calories for the green onion I scattered on top.)
So, if I know I want to have that meal for dinner, I have to make sure that I don’t have too much food for breakfast or lunch…especially if I also want to have a cocktail in the evening!
The reason why so many people fail at diets is because they require discipline, and that is tougher than it sounds. If you don’t weigh and write down everything you eat every day, I guarantee you are underestimating how many calories you’ve consumed.
I used to write everything down on paper. Now I use an app called The Fitness Chef, that lets me plug in the numbers of everything I eat and have it right on my phone for reference. It’s great when I’m on the road or at a restaurant, because it also features a scanner that does a pretty darn good job of determining how many calories your plate has, simply by taking a photograph of it.
FRIED GREEN TOMATOES
Posted: November 4, 2026 in UncategorizedTags: cooking, dinner, food, frying, recipe, recipes, tomatoes
I don’t know why it took me so long to try this recipe. But this year, here in November, I’m still pulling tomatoes off my garden plants!
It’s a really simple process of slicing the tomatoes, seasoning them with salt and pepper, dusting them with flour, dipping them in egg, and then rolling them in some flavored breadcrumbs before frying.
Good news for those that need it all gluten-free! It can happen if you follow my instructions below.
Green tomatoes, sliced
Salt and pepper
All-purpose flour (I use Bob’s Red Mill 1-to-1 Gluten-Free Baking Flour)
2 eggs, beaten
Seasoned breadcrumbs (I make them gluten-free…see below)
At first, I sliced my tomatoes at about 1/4″ thick, but I found that if I could make them just a bit thinner, they would come out even crispier.
I placed the tomatoes on a cutting board, and seasoned them with the salt and pepper.
I then set up my 3 bowls for adding the breading. In the first bowl, the all-purpose flour. (I like using the Bob’s Red Mill 1-to-1 Gluten-Free Baking Flour because it’s mostly rice flour and it makes the coating lighter.)
In the second bowl, I whisk a couple of eggs.
In the third bowl, I place my seasoned breadcrumbs. (You can buy Italian seasoned breadcrumbs, but I make my own by toasting a loaf of Udi GF bread, tossing the pieces into a blender to mill them down to a powder. I add oregano, basil, parsley, salt and pepper, granulated garlic and granulated onion, then whiz the blender for just a few seconds to combine everything. I place this in the third bowl.)
Then it’s time to do the one-handed method of dipping the tomato slices one-by-one into the egg, then dropping it into the breadcrumbs, where the other hand takes over to cover the tomato with a light layer of breadcrumb. Do the same for all the tomatoes.
Fry the tomatoes at 350° in an oil with a high smoke point, like avocado oil, until golden.
Place the tomato slices on a wire rack to cool, seasoning them immediately out of the fryer with some sea salt.
On my recent trip, I stumbled upon two interesting historic sites.
In Wheeling, West Virginia, I made a quick detour to check out the Wheeling Suspension Bridge.
Completed in 1849, it was the first long-span wire cable bridge in the United States. And for a couple of years, it remained the longest suspension bridge in the world.
You can’t drive on it today, but you can walk up to it, and it’s pretty impressive. I caught a local riding his bike across it. I don’t know if I would do that!
And during my stay in Easton, MD, I decided to take a drive to the town of Oxford, which was not all that far away. Quaint and extremely quiet, it had its own spot of historic significance…
I know so many people that would rather take a plane from point A to point B. But I love getting behind the wheel of a car and driving. Reminds me of my childhood family trips.
And for me, traveling is not just about getting from one point to the other…It’s the journey along the way as well.
For this trip, I drove over 2300 miles…from Bristol, RI to Syracuse, NY, to Toledo, OH, to Evanston, IL, to Columbus, OH, to Frederick, MD, to Easton, MD, and back home again.
Can’t wait for the next road trip!
My trip from my home in Rhode Island, all the way out to see my daughter at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, and then back again through Maryland, had its share of interesting sites.
Chinatown, Chicago
Logan Square, Chicago
Stepping into my first Trader Joe’s ever (I know, I know), in Evanston, IL. Honestly, I wasn’t blown away.
Don’t really want to know where this truck was headed.
Wheeling, West Virginia
All 5 above: Saint Michael’s, MD
ASIAN NOODLES WITH PEANUT SAUCE
Posted: November 1, 2026 in Food, RecipesTags: Asian, cooking, dinner, food, noodles, peanut, recipe, recipes
There’s something about Asian noodle dishes that make them incredibly addictive. They’re great hot or cold, and easy to make at home. I store an arsenal of basic Asian ingredients in my pantry, so slapping this together is no effort at all. And if you don’t have Asian noodles around, chances are you’ve got a box of pasta, which works just as well.
Next time you’ve got a bunch of people coming over, cook a batch a few hours beforehand and let it come to room temperature. It’s great with anything, really. Grab a bag of frozen egg rolls or some potstickers, and you’ve got great munchies for your guests.
Adding boiled and chilled shrimp to these noodles makes it a cool meal. I usually double the sauce recipe when I do that.
If you need to go gluten-free, use GF pasta or rice noodles…and you can find gluten-free hoisin sauce in the Asian food section of many supermarkets.
4 tablespoons creamy peanut butter
1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1 teaspoon Chinese chili garlic sauce (more, if you like it spicy!)
16 oz. package Chinese noodles or pasta
Combine the peanut butter, hoisin sauce, sesame oil, and chili garlic sauce in a bowl. Set it aside. I keep my peanut butter in the fridge once the jar is open, so sometimes it’s a bit thick. So I just zap it in the microwave for about 10 seconds to soften it up.
Boil the noodles or pasta until al dente. Drain it and place it in a large bowl.
Mix the noodles with the sauce.
It’s easy to make this recipe a meal by adding meat and veggies, which is what I did recently.
I took about a pound of chicken breasts, and sliced them thin, into strips, placing them in a bowl. I added a little soy sauce (go gluten-free soy sauce if you need to…La Choy is the brand I use) and a little rice vinegar, and I let the chicken marinate in the fridge for a few hours.
Meanwhile, I chopped up some broccoli and blanched it in boiling water, just to cook it a little. I drained the water and set the broccoli aside.
I chopped some sugar snap peas on the bias, and set them aside. And I had a bag of mung bean sprouts purchased, ready to go.
This time, I used Udan noodles for this dish (by my daughter’s request) and I found a brand that simply needed to be microwaved for 90 seconds before using.
So once we were ready to eat, I put a little avocado oil in a hot pan and seared the chicken that was marinating, getting some nice caramelization on the meat. Toward the end, I threw in the snap peas and broccoli just to heat them up. I tossed it all into a large bowl.
I heated the Udon noodles in the microwave and tossed them in the bowl.
I added the bean sprouts to the bowl, and then a generous supply of the peanut sauce mixture, as above.
I really gave it all a good mix before serving it in bowls, with a garnish of fresh cilantro on top.
