Grillin & Chillin

There is nothing better on a warm day, than to cook out.  Seriously, in my opinion, everything tastes better on the grill.  My husband has always been good at grilling, but this past week, we found a new favorite meal.  It is so easy it is practically criminal.

So, the first part of it is just to steam clams.  Whatever your favorite kind.  This weekend we had cherrystones.  They are HUGE and next time I think we'll use them for baked/stuffed, but not necessarily steamers.  I think littlenecks work better for steaming.

On the side, I made a sauce.  I put butter, white wine, some of the clam juice, garlic, parsley and a dash of salt and pepper in a pan and let it simmer on medium heat until the alcohol was cooked out of the wine.

We ate the clams with the butter sauce and our favorite hot sauces to add a little heat.  A couple of drops of hot sauce and a spoonful of butter sauce in your shell and that clam is delicious!

Then for round two, we took fresh asparagus and after cutting off the butts, we placed them in a ziplock bag with olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic powder and let them soak.

We also got two of the most beautiful rib-eye steaks you've ever seen and we put them in a ziplock back with some Ken's Steakhouse Zesty Italian salad dressing.  Ken's labels their GF products and this is my favorite to use as a marinade.

We let both of those marinade for a few hours while we let ourselves digest the clams.  Believe it or not, a dozen cherrystone clams is really filling.  Those things were HUGE!

So after we were finally ready to eat again, my husband fired up the grill and cooked both the steaks and the asparagus.  He uses a BBQ brush to keep brushing on more of the dressing while the food cooks.  He even adds it to the asparagus, for a little something extra.

I don't know what it is about that combination, but it is just delicious.