No Fresh Food Dinner

This is in response to bearing's call for 'empty cupboard' dinners (i.e. what you can make the evening before going grocery shopping). It is a re-post with some new edits from this space in Jan 2008.

Last week when returned from 2 weeks away, we found that the car battery was dead. This altered my otherwise excellent plan of returning home early afternoon from vacation so that I could make a leisurely trip to the grocery on Sunday afternoon.

Fortunately, the milkman comes early Monday morning so breakfast was covered with cereal or toast (bread from the freezer), and even though I hadn't made it to the store before Monday dinner I could make something decent with contents of the pantry. Thanks go to Rachael Ray for teaching me this dish. I no longer use the actually cookbook. I just eyeball it, but for posterity, here it is: Linguine with White Clam Sauce (link to recipe). I will now annotate said recipe with my changes that will be noted in orange:

1 pound linguini any shape will really do - I don't tend to use linguini because it seems to choke kids more than a nice short or round pasta
Salt
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, 4 turns of the pan
6 fillets flat anchovies, chopped I skip the anchovies entirely
4 cloves garlic, chopped this is a minimum number depending on your taste!
1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
1/2 to 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes it's odd for RR to measure something - a pinch or two does it
1/2 cup dry white wine, 2 turns of pan I skip this entirely, and it isn't in the book version of this recipe
1 (15-ounce) can whole baby clams, with their juice I used chopped clams which are cheaper, 2 of the tuna-sized cans
Handful flat-leaf parsley, chopped I use this only if I have it, otherwise sprinkle in some dried parsley for color

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add salt and the linguine and cook to an extra chewy al dente, 7 minutes or so. The linguine will continue to cook in sauce, later.

To a large skillet heated over medium heat, add oil, anchovies, garlic, thyme and red pepper flakes. Cook together until anchovies melt into oil and break up completely. Add wine to the pan and give the pan a shake. Add clams and their juice *. Drain pasta and add it to the clam sauce. Toss and coat the pasta in sauce with clams until the pasta absorbs the flavor and juices, 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from heat and season with salt I rarely add salt, add parsley and serve. If using dried parsley, add it to the sauce stage at the * so that it can rehydrate.

This dinner can truly be ready in under 30 minutes. Under 20 with practice and if you don't have to stop and nurse a child!

For this particular evening we served it with canned pineapple. Milk for the kiddos (remember the milkman brings that so it isn't grocery-dependent at our house), water for adults + homemade hard apple cider for me and some home brew, I don't know which variety, for J.