Clams in White Sauce

There are times where you need to whip something up really quickly, and you don't have terribly many ingredients lying around.  Hopefully, you've got some milk, butter, and flour.  If you're really lucky, you've got a can of clams too.  If you've got all that, lets get started!

Ingredients:

1 can of clams
2 T flour
2 T butter
1 cup milk
1/2 an onion, diced
Oregano
Garlic powder

Equipment:
1 quart pot
1 spoon
can opener
measuring implements

Directions:
1. Heat up the pot, adding in the butter
2. Add the flour to the melted butter, mixing to create a roux
3. Once well mixed, add in the milk and clams
4. Stir in the spices
5. Once thickened, remove from heat

Serve on top of Orecchiette, shells, or spaghetti (or any other kind of noodle.  I'm not your boss.)
Should feed 4~5 people.  If you double the recipe, you can easily just add more flour and neglect to add extra butter.

Possible Alterations:
Everything mentioned here, except for the clams, goes into a standard white sauce.  You could use shrimp, tuna, mushrooms, or any other type of addition that you desire.  If you add cheese, you can make a pretty tasty cheese sauce.  If you don't have butter, you can use oil, or shortening, or probably even bacon fat.

Happy Gaming!

Carrot Curry

Saying I like curry is an understatement.  I put curry spice in my eggs, curry sauce on tuna, and have now started exploring making my own different varieties of curry.  My first attempt was from a vegetarian cookbook.  It was potatoes and peas, and it was good.  Not really great, but good.

Anyway, the recipe calls for half and half, which I don't always have on hand.  So, I asked myself what could be used that I do have on hand as a base.  The answer I came up with was Cream of Mushroom soup.  So, lets get started!

Ingredients:
2 carrots, peeled and sliced
1/2 cup peas (frozen.  If canned, make sure it is drained.)
1/2 yellow onion, diced
1 can Cream of Mushroom soup
Milk
Olive Oil
1 T Curry Powder (or more.  Curry powder is delicious!)
Garlic (There is probably some in the curry powder, but garlic is also delicious.)
Parsley

[ A note about curry powder: curry powder is actually a western thing, based on an eastern style of food.  McCormick makes a good curry powder, but where ever you're getting your curry powder might have different varieties that could be awesome. Feel free to go off the beaten path and try something other than the McCormick brand!]

Equipment:
Stir-fry pan/Wok
Spatula
Can opener

Directions:
1. Heat the oil in the pan
2. Add the sliced carrots and onion, and cook them until soft.
3. Add the peas, cooking until unfrozen.
4. Dump the can of soup into the pan, adding milk to thin it out.
5. Add the curry powder and garlic, stirring.
6. Remove from heat, and put on bowls of rice.
7. Add parsley to the top before serving

Makes 4~6 servings, depending on how much milk you put in.

Possible Alterations:
There are lots of other things you can put in a curry, and many things you can serve it on top of.  The potato-pea curry I mentioned earlier was pretty good, and tuna in curry is very tasty as well.  I'm sure there are many other things that you could add, and if you have any suggestions I'd love to hear from you.

As always, Happy gaming!