White Wine for the Mussels...White Wine for Me!

The first time I had mussels (as in more than one to try) was just this year at New Wave Cafe with N & her boyfriend. We got together to play some Quizzo and got a few apps to share. N & J ordered the mussels...I promised I would try them. Then I consumed a gazillion calories worth of bread and white wine sauce cleaning the plate once all the mussels were gone. 

In my opinion mussels are all about the sauce. My cousins W & Z are French and are world travelers (this is a big deal because they are both significantly younger than I am). They also have very mature tastes when it came to food. Down the shore, while most of the kids were ordering chicken fingers and fries from our favorite seafood restaurant, W & Z would always order big servings of mussels. One of the cool tricks they taught me was breaking the mussels in half and using one side as a spoon to scoop up all the extra yummy sauce. This is a good trick especially since it is way too easy to eat an entire loaf of bread soaked in the stuff before you realize what you've done...

Anywhooo for those of you who read my blog (thank you!) you know that I made mussels with family at "Camp Tierno". Well actually you know that I didn't make them but rather instructed my cousins to make them! The recipe is based off of a dish I had at Valanni one of my favorite places for drinks & apps in the city! F & I met up and got a few things to split and the mussels were definitely my favorite! We also had some fancy cocktails one of which was named "Boys Gone Wild"....no comment ;)

You can see Twitter Bug sniffing out the mussels!

One thing I've learned in my cooking adventures thus far is to not be intimidated by certain meats & fish. It is very easy to cook these things if you find a good recipe. Follow the preparation instructions and timing exactly and you will be pleasantly surprised with the results!

Mussels are not as hard as they seem! If you buy them at the grocery they are de-bearded and cleaned so there is not a lot of work needed on your end. However, when you make them they say to let them sit in fresh water for 20 minutes to get any sand and grit out. Also, make sure when you take them out of the water you use your hands instead of dumping them into a strainer...makes sense since if you dump them all the stuff you just got out of the shells is being poured right on top again! Also, if there are any shells that are open or broken trash them!

I loosely followed a recipe for this but they use clams and I prefer mussels. Also, the fresh corn at the grocery was not looking so great so I opted for canned corn! It was such a yummy treat while catching up on So You Think You Can Dance. Also the entire meal cost around $25 and was enough for probably 4-5 people. Not bad considering the price for mussels at some restaurants. I have plenty of leftovers if anyone wants to stop by for dinner :)

Until next time...Thanks for following my foodie journey!