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Revived thread- A search pulled up a page of old threads like this. In the name of thread conservation, I elected to revive this most recent one one from 2012. :)

Do you like Clam Chowder? This simple and easy recipe which can be fixed on the stove or in a crock pot could be the best home made (sort of, considering the Cambell's soup ;)) clam chowder you'll ever taste. Despite most of the contents are commercially sold cans of soup, the wimnning aspect of this recipe is the ease of preparation and the taste of the final product. This tends to impress everyone we serve it to. :)


Rich and Easy Clam Chowder (white)
- 3 cans Cambell's Cream of Potato Soup 10oz
- 2 cans Cambell's Clam Chowder 10oz
- 2 cans 6oz chopped clams
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1pt Half and Half
- 1 Small onion (diced).

Combine all ingredients including the clam juice from the cans of clam and cook in the crock pot for 2-4 hours or on the stove at low heat until the unions break down and are no longer crunchy 1-2.5 hours. I've never fixed it on the stove, always the crock pot so I took a wag for length of time on the stove. So on the stove, taste test for crunchy onions which don't taste bad, but most people don't want crunchy onions in their soup. :)
 
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My favorite carnitas recipe:

2010_7_8-slow-cooked-carnitas.jpg


Slow-Cooker Carnitas
makes 20-30 taco-sized servings

1 (6-8 pound) pork butt, also called pork shoulder
2 tablespoons coarse salt
1 tablespoon cumin
1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon dried oregano
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper, or to taste
8 whole cloves garlic, smashed
2 chipotle peppers, chopped finely (canned or dried)
1 small can diced chili peppers
1 cup diced tomatoes
1 cup orange or pineapple juice

Trim excess fat from the meat and discard. Cut into 3"-4" chunks and brown in hot skillet (do not cook, just brown).

Rub garlic into browned pork chunks (can be done before browning if desired).

Combine dry ingredients (don't skip that cinnamon!). Coat all sides of pork chunks with dry ingredients.

Place pork in the slow-cooker and add the juice, diced tomatoes, and diced chili peppers. Set to cook on LOW for 8 hours. Meat is done when it literally falls off the bone. When cool enough to handle, lift the meat from the juices and place in a large bowl. Remove the bone, then shred the meat.

Skim the fat from the juices and keep as a medium for re-heating the meat.

For carnitas tacos, reheat the meat and serve in well heated (cook them good!) corn tortillas with sour cream or guacamole, cilantro, chopped red onion and topped with shredded cabbage.

carnitas-taco-jpg.23482



I found the recipe here, but modified it slightly:
http://www.thekitchn.com/slowcooking-in-the-summer-heat-121376

Michael

This looks so freaking good! Going to give this one a spin!!!! Awesome!
 
When I am in the mood to do so, and it is cold and threatening, I make a fish chowder, or fish stew, sometimes, which is quite delicious, although rather time consuming. This dish here is my own, and is a sort of fusion of - firstly - a dish I was taught in Stockholm by a Swedish friend who had seen me devour a similar dish on several occasions in Stockholm restaurants - his was taught to him by his grandmother (the tomatoes and turmeric, and fennel come from his version, which also lacked smoked fish), and secondly, the classic Irish/British chowder, which features smoked fish, and cream.

Ingredients: Fish mix chopped in large chunks, (white fish - pollock, cod, haddock, or something similar; red fish - usually farmed salmon; and smoked fish, say haddock, or coley). Roughly two lbs of fish for four people - more if you are having more people. If prawns are available, I'll use them also at the end.

Small tin of anchovies, I use the Portuguese company Ortiz, rather than John West, as the quality of their tinned fish (tuna, sardines, anchovies) is far better. (This is great for flavouring the stock).

Vegetable - or fish - stock. (Use a good quality organic stock cube or two and add boiling water in pint jug). When I have plenty of time, and am feeling hardcore, I prepare additional stock by boiling the prawn shells for around twenty minutes and straining the resulting stock before using it.

Root vegetables: Onions (4-5 depending on size, 2-3 if large), leeks (2 finely chopped), carrots (3-4 depending on size roughly chopped), parnsips (1-2 depending on size), potatoes (4-5 depending on size), and roughly a head of garlic (finely chopped).

Tomatoes (cherry tomatoes chopped). Fennel (chopped and optional; the Swedish version of this dish takes both fennel and tomatoes, but not that much garlic. I increased the garlic, and generally, don't use the fennel, as not many people like it).

Spices: The original Swedish version used turmeric (that orange colour). I use saffron - I have quite a lot of it as I worked in central Asia for a few years.

Cream.

Black pepper. (I prefer it to white, although some purists think that white pepper should be used for a fish stew from Northern Europe). Salt is not really necessary as you should have enough from the anchovies, but feel free to add at the end.

Olive oil and butter.

This dish will need a large casserole dish. I use a very large Le Mauviel copper casserole.

Directions:

Prepare the stock and set it aside in a jug.

Chop the vegetables and keep them in separate dishes.

Parboil the carrots (diced in large pieces) in vegetable stock along with the parsnips. Keep the stock.

Sauté a mix of olive oil and butter and sauté the diced onion until soft, on a low but consistent heat. Add the tin of anchovies and their olive oil and mash them into the olive mix. They will melt and disappear and add a stunning savoury fish flavour which enhance the dish immeasurably. Add the saffron to this mix and stir. (With saffron, if you are using the powder, it can go straight in; if using the stands, have them infuse a small glass of water or milk for around twenty minutes first and add this liquid with the strands of saffron to the onion mix).

Add the garlic and leeks to the onions and sauté until soft.

Fish out the carrots and parsnips from their stock and add to the onions, garlic and leeks, stirring. Add the potatoes to the stock and parboil them, then add them in turn to the onion mix, stirring. Add the chopped tomatoes, stirring. Add black pepper, periodically.

Then, when the vegetables have embraced the olive oil and butter mix sufficiently, slowly add the various sources of stock, the water in which you parboiled the vegetables, the jug of prepared fish stock, ( and even the jug of strained prawn shell stock if you were in a mood for culinary perfection; these days, I usually forgo this step, although it is nice).

Stir, and make sure nothing is sticking. Place a lid on it and let it bubble away, at a slow simmer for around 30-40-50 minutes - after 30 minutes, I check on it every 10 minutes or so.

After 40 minutes, it should look and smell amazing. Then, I add the chopped fish mix (red fish, smoked fish and white fish) for a further 10-15 minutes. If I have prawns, they go in around 15 minutes after I have added the fish, for around three to five minutes. Then, I add the cream (organic) and stir. It is now ready to serve and eat.

Serving: I serve this in large bowls - sprinkled with finely chopped parsley - with seriously good bread on the side. Dark beer (a Trappist beer, or Founder's porter, or even Guinness), or a pretty decent white wine (say, a good Burgundy) are excellent accompaniments.
 
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I love clam chowder more than anything in the world. I consider myself a connoisseur (of New England- not much of a fan of Manhatten or Rhode Island styles). I've always been hesitant to cook it because of the following:
1. The time imagine it takes to cook
2. The smell
3. Fear of food poisonin
4. The potential of coming out really bad (which exacerbates point 1)

I'm interested in @Huntn 's technique of adding to Campbell's (IMO the best canned grocery store stuff you can get). I might have to go that a shot.
 
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I love clam chowder more than anything in the world. I consider myself a connoisseur (of New England- not much of a fan of Manhatten or Rhode Island styles). I've always been hesitant to cook it because of the following:
1. The time imagine it takes to cook
2. The smell
3. Fear of food poisonin
4. The potential of coming out really bad (which exacerbates point 1)

I'm interested in @Huntn 's technique of adding to Campbell's (IMO the best canned grocery store stuff you can get). I might have to go that a shot.

If you buy your fish from a reputable source - I always buy mine from a stall of fishmongers's in the farmers' market as they are selling stuff they have caught themselves over the previous few days, and they will tell you if it is not as fresh as it should be - this should not be an issue.

Then, I tend to make the chowder either the day I buy the fish, or the very next day at the latest; no later. So, it tends to be freshly bought and freshly made.

I'll grant that it takes a lot of time. Lots of time. Give yourself that time and you won't be under pressure; indeed, if you give yourself enough time, you will able to take it easy, and relax while cooking.

Re smell, if the fish is fresh, there will be no smell.

Likewise, if the fish is fresh, food poisoning should not be an issue.

For that matter, I used to think that this was a dish that was too demanding of time and resources, but now that I have made it a good few times, I know what to do and roughly how long it takes.


 
If you buy your fish from a reputable source - I always buy mine from a stall of fishmongers's in the farmers' market as they are selling stuff they have caught themselves over the previous few days, and they will tell you if it is not as fresh as it should be - this should not be an issue.

Then, I tend to make the chowder either the day I buy the fish, or the very next day at the latest; no later. So, it tends to be freshly bought and freshly made.

I'll grant that it takes a lot of time. Lots of time. Give yourself that time and you won't be under pressure; indeed, if you give yourself enough time, you will able to take it easy, and relax while cooking.

Re smell, if the fish is fresh, there will be no smell.

Likewise, if the fish is fresh, food poisoning should not be an issue.

For that matter, I used to think that this was a dish that was too demanding of time and resources, but now that I have made it a good few times, I know what to do and roughly how long it takes.

Thanks for the tips. My parents have a place on Rhode Island and there's a clamming spot nearby. I've done a fair bit of clamming in my life, but I've never tried cooking clam chowder.
 
Crab Imperial (from the Maryland's Flavor cookbook 1981)
1 LB Crab meat (I use 3- 6 oz cans of lump crabmeat)
2 TBS Butter (6 TBS for triple sauce)
2 TBS Flour (6 TBS for triple sauce)
3/4 Cup Milk (2 1/4 Cups for triple sauce)
1 Egg Beaten
1 Hard boiled Egg (chopped fine)
1 TBS Mayonnaise
6 Drops Worcestershire Sauce
1/2 TSP Parsley Flakes
1/4 TSP Seafood Seasoning (I use Old Bay)
1/2 TSP Dry Mustard
1 Cup Bread Crumbs (for topping, you can purchase bread crumbs or crumble your own old, but not moldy bread. You can use fresh bread too to make crumbs, but if you premix the melted butter with it like I do, it can become somewhat of a glob of bread. ;))
1/4 Cup melted Butter (for topping)

This casserole recipe is not technically hard and is delicious. Preheat Oven 325°F. Place Crab Meat in large bowl removing any noticeable cartilage.

The sauce: Of note, I triple the sauce or the casserole comes out on the dry side. In a large shallow sauce pan, melt 2 TBS Butter over low heat, add Flour and stir into a paste. Slowly add milk, stirring constantly until all milk is added and sauce has thickened.

Reserve 6 TBS of sauce in a separate cup. (With triple sauce, I reserve 12 TBS. Note, this step is optional. If you don't do this, it makes no significant difference in the taste of the final dish IMO. )

Combine Ingredients: Add sauce to Crab Meat, along with Raw Egg, Hard Boiled Egg, Mayo, Worcestershire Sauce, Mustard, Parsley, and seasonings. Mix thoroughly, and pour in a 1 1/2 Qt Baking Dish. I use a 9x11" rectangular shallow glass baking dish.

Top with Bread Crumbs and melted Butter (I mix bread with melted butter before scattering on top), and then drop dollops of the reserved sauce on the top.

Bake for 45min or until brown on top.



I love clam chowder more than anything in the world. I consider myself a connoisseur (of New England- not much of a fan of Manhatten or Rhode Island styles). I've always been hesitant to cook it because of the following:
1. The time imagine it takes to cook
2. The smell
3. Fear of food poisonin
4. The potential of coming out really bad (which exacerbates point 1)

I'm interested in @Huntn 's technique of adding to Campbell's (IMO the best canned grocery store stuff you can get). I might have to go that a shot.

The major advantage of the recipe, is it's super easy to fix. The crockpot is slow, but it's basically dump in the ingredients, stir and and leave it for the required time. I'll start it around noon-1 for an early dinner.
 
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The major advantage of the recipe, is it's super easy to fix. The crockpot is slow, but it's basically dump in the ingredients, stir and and leave it for the required time. I'll start it around noon-1 for an early dinner.

Oh nice. I like the crockpot idea. Crockpots are amazing. Just throw in the indgredients and out comes perfection.
 
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Gratin Dauphinois: (French recipe for potatoes baked with garlic and cream).

Ingredients: Potatoes (depending on size, two-three per person; four if small). Use waxy (i.e. firm) rather than floury (the sort that are ideal for a baked potato, and turn into a fluffy texture).

Cream. (Preferably double).

Milk.

Garlic (a head, or close to it, to, finely chopped; six-eight cloves of garlic if you don't wish to use a full head). It sounds a lot, but, baked in the cream with the potatoes it gives a great flavour without overwhelming the dish. Garlic - in generous quantities - makes this dish. It is the marriage of slow heat, a lot of time, and generous helpings of cream, potatoes, and garlic that make this classic.

Method: My recipe below is an adaptation of a Nigel Slater recipe.

There are two or three debates over this dish. The first concerns the type of potatoes used - do you use waxy (i.e. firm) or floury (i.e. fluffy). You want the dish to retain some degree of solidity, hence firm potatoes - the kind that would be used for potato salad - are what I recommend.

The second is whether you make it from scratch - i.e. put the potatoes into the baking dish from the outset. To my mind, this takes too long, (two hours would not be unusual) and, even then, your potatoes might not be fully cooked through even though you have sliced them thinly.

So, I take a short cut. Having learned (from hard learned experience), that even two hours in an oven may not necessarily fully cook the potatoes, I parboil them first.

So, parboil the potatoes, and drain them when they are beginning to get soft - they don't need to be fully cooked.

In a large baking dish, (I use a copper baking dish these days, but pyrex glass, or a Le Creuset baking dish, or anything well sized and oven proof will do) rub some of the freshly sliced garlic around the dish. Sprinkle the bottom of the dish with the diced garlic (that head of garlic you have minced).

On top of the (head of) minced garlic gently drop - or place - the drained potatoes and roughly break them up into decent sized chunks. (The classic recipe called for thinly sliced potatoes - you can do that too, but remember, yours are already half cooked if you have parboiled them, so thin, neat and evenly sliced potatoes might not be possible.)

Add cream (double cream) and some milk - roughly half and half - until the potatoes are not quite covered, but are poking out through the rich sauce.

Place in a preheated oven at 160 C - (320 F) - sometimes 150 (300F) , or 140 - (280F) - although, as ours is ageing, the heat I need to set tends to be higher; 150C - 300F would be enough in a normal over) for an 45 minutes to an hour, checking on it at the half hour stage, and reducing the heat further to around 140 C (280F) for the last half hour.

This is a superb accompaniment with lamb cutlets, or pork chops, or steak, rabbit, veal, or sausages, or - almost anything. It is a terrific dish once autumn comes in, as it is rich and soothing, and incredibly tasty. I usually serve it with a bottle of red wine, and a dressed green salad.


 
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^^ Great attention to detail here. This sounds like a good dish.

Thank you. It is one of my favourite autumn/winter/spring accompaniments.

After 30 to 40 minutes, the top of the dish will be browned nicely and unevenly, the potatoes will have drunk/devoured/absorbed much of the creamy sauce, and what is left will have thickened beautifully. The smell - scent - aroma - will be divine (again that garlic aroma wafting through your kitchen). It will look fantastic, and taste amazing. You will want to stick a large serving spoon into it and devour it.

You won't need gravy with whatever meat you serve this with, as the potatoes supply their own sauce. Nor will you need much by way of salt or pepper - the flavour of cream, potato (and be generous with double cream - this is not a dish for those ghastly dairy substitutes, skinny this and soya that - the cream gives it texture and rich flavour) and garlic will be quiet sufficient, and a sharp green salad will provide balance, and whatever meat you serve (you can also serve thick white fish, or salmon) will supply a savoury saltiness if that is what you want.
 
Easy Chicken Enchiladas (makes 10 enchiladas)
2 cups cooked chopped chicken (I use skinned deboned thighs)
2 cups sour cream
1 can condensed cream of chicken soup
2 cups Monterey Jack cheese shredded
3*cups of Longhorn (mild cheddar cheese) shredded- * set 1 cup of this cheese aside to sprinkle on top.
2 TBS chopped onion
1/2 TSP salt
1/4 TSP pepper
10" flour tortillas (package of ten)
Vegetable oil

These are delicious and a huge hit in our family. :D Unlike many enchilada recipes there is no tomato sauce used, and these are not drenched/floating in sauces in the pan. They appear as rolled tortillas side by side, with just shredded cheddar cheese melted on top. This is closest picture I could come up with online but with just yellow cheddar cheese on top, no sauce.

enchiladas2.jpg

Cook the chicken: Boil it in water until cooked through. I boil it for about 20-30 min. Then shred or cut up into small pieces.

Mix the filling: Set 1 cup of the Longhorn cheese aside. Combine first 8 ingredients in large mixing bowl. It's optional to fry each tortillas one at a time in 2TBS oil, 5 sec on each side. I usually don't, using them straight out of the package. This recipe allows you to make up all 10 enchiladas at once or make up less and keep the left over mix in the fridge or freezer to assemble and cook later.

If making all 10, plan on 2, 8x12" or 9x13" glass cooking pans, 5 enchiladas per pan (glass optional ;)).

To assemble: You can, but it is not necessary to spray or wipe these pans with vegetable oil prior to placing the enchiladas in them. Place a large dallop of the mix in a tortilla and roll it up. This should make a substantial enchilada, not a little skinny one. Place in cooking pan seam down, side by side. Sprinkle some Longhorn cheese on top of each enchilada. Cook at 350 degrees for 20 min. Serve immediately.

Any mix left over can be refrigerated to make more later. This recipe lasts 2 people, 3-5 meals, 5 meals if each person only eats 1 enchilada. For us, it's usually 3 meals.
 
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Quick Crab Quiche- hmm good.
  • Pie crust for 9 inch deep dish pie
  • 3 eggs beaten
  • 1- 6 oz can crabmeat
  • 1- 2.8 oz can fried onions
  • 1- 8 oz carton sour cream
  • 1 cup mild shredded cheddar cheese
Bake pie crust- I use pre-prepared, refrigerated pie crust, the type that is unrolled and place in a glass pie dish. Prick pie crust with fork, cook for 3 min at 400 degrees. Remove from oven and gently prick crust a second time, then cook for another 5 min, let cool.

Combine remaining ingredients mixing well. Pour into pie shell and bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes or until set.

a8c7e4f54830927b6cbd8f0dd262bd7a.jpg

Not my picture​
 
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To clarify, if fish smells lightly of fish, it can be fresh. Some fish stink within minutes of butchering. If fish or seafood smells of ammonia and or sulfur, throw it out! After having caught large tuna and other 'exotic' fish, butchering it on a boat and placing it into an onboard freezer, it will smell like fish by the time you get to shore, even if the damned thing is rock solid. Rockfish, Snapper, cod, sea bass, halibut, stingray, mahi mahi and haddock are some of the worst offenders. Swordfish is extremely pungent, but becomes very mellow when cooked.

Best places to get seafood IMO are at the port in the morning, if you live close to a port or a store/market with high turnaround. In other words, a seafood loving community or a store whose main clientele has a diet revolving around seafood.
 
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But some threads never die. They are too good to die. They just go to sleep for a while.

That's how I feel. If the info is still pertinent why start a new thread? That said...

Chicken Yakitori
  • 6 deboned chicken breasts (or substitute a like quantity of thighs- I prefer the latter).
  • 3 small carrots (optional- see description below)
  • 4-5 green peppers (optional)
  • 1 bunch scallions (optional)
  • 1 can mushroom caps (optional)
Marinade
  • 7 Tbsp soy sauce
  • 3 Tbsp cooking wine
  • 2 Tbsp cooking oil
  • 5 cloves garlic (optional minced- 1 Tbsp)
  • 2 Tbsp brown sugar
Marinate chicken for 3-4 hours, preferably over night. This recipe was written for the creation of shish kabobs, alternating 3 pieces of chicken (cut up breasts) alternating with vegetables on 6" skewers. Charcoal broil for 5-8 minutes until chicken is done. Optional items listed above are for use in creating shish kabobs.

However, my interest is the marinated chicken and I prefer thighs as they are dark meat and more moist. I mix up the marinade, multiplying the ratios as needed for the quantity of chicken I'm preparing, and then I grill it, minus the skewers and vegetables on my charcoal barbecue. For 8 chicken thighs, I tripled the marinate and used an 8x8 glass casserole dish to marinate them in. At community BBQs we've had friends cooking steak, lusting after our chicken. :D
 
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A couple of weeks ago we went down to the U.K. store (British Isles) here in the Houston Museum District which of course specializes in products from the U.K.

b771c476223aabeb7e1dbf82242190e7--rice-houston.jpg


Among other things we picked up some scone mix and bottles of clotted cream. Well, I had a spare bottle of clotted cream that needs eating so I found a scone recipe online which turned out great. Who needs an over priced scone mix when I can make it myself for a pittance of the price? :)

IMG_0112.JPG

However, they have me over a barrel when it comes to clotted cream which I am unaware of a donestic version, but can be ordered from the likes of Amazon and Walmart for a pretty penny. ;) It's a better deal for me to drive 30 minutes (non-rush hour) to buy locally at the store for about $5 for 6oz Devon Cream Company Clotted Cream.

Scone Recipe
3 cups white flower
3/4 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg beaten
1 cup milk
1/2 tsp salt
5 tsp baking powder

Mix, place large dollops of doe on a greased baking sheet. Depending on size, makes 6-8 scones. Cook for 15 minutes in preheated oven 400 degrees.
 
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This evening made a (delicious) version of my fish chowder; recipe similar to above, but with smoked, sweet paprika added before the saffron, and today, in addition to the vegetables posted in the recipe above, I added diced celery; diced celeriac can also be used.
 
Coquilles St. Jacques
A delicious scallop recipe from The Southern Living cookbook.

E6860C2F-92EA-4FB5-9942-56367F758FCD.jpeg
Not my image​


Ingredients
  • 3/4 Cup chopped fresh mushrooms
  • 3 Tbs chopped green onions (I use scallions)
  • 3 Tbs butter
  • 1 Lb of fresh bay scallops
  • 1/2 Cup dry white or white cooking wine
  • 2 Tbs chopped fresh parsley ( I use dried from a bottle)
  • 1 Tbs lemon juice
  • 3/4 Tsp salt
  • Pinch of red pepper
  • 3 Tbs butter
  • 1/4 Cup all purpose flour
  • 1 Cup Half and Half
  • 2 egg yokes
  • 1/4 Cup soft breadcrumbs
  • 1 Tbs butter melted
Create
  • Sauté mushrooms and onions in 3 Tbs butter in a large skillet until tender.
  • Add scallops, wine, parsley, lemon juice, salt, and pepper; cover and cook over medium heat for 3-5 minutes.
  • Drain scallop mixture, reserving 3/4 Cup plus 2 Tbs of liquid and set aside.

  • Melt 3 Tbs butter in a heavy saucepan over low heat.
  • Add flour, striiring until smooth. Cook 1 minute, stirring constantly.
  • Gradually add Half and Half; cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture is thick and bubbly.
  • Beat egg yokes until thick and lemon colored.
  • Gradually stir about 1/4 of hot mixture into yokes, then add that back into remaining hot mixture, stirring constantly.
  • Gradually stir in the reserved scallop liquid (3/4 Cup plus 2 Tbs), fold in scallop mixture.

  • Spoon mixture into 6 greased individual baking shells. (I use a single casserole dish.)
  • Combine breadcrumbs with 1 Tbs melted butter; sprinkle evenly over scallop mixture.
  • Place shells (or casserole dish) on a large baking sheet.
  • Broil 3 to 5 minutes or until top(s) are browned and bubbly.
  • Yield 6 servings.
 
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