Clam Fritters

In my efforts to increase iron in my "no meat" diet this last week of Lent, I tried to buy a box of frozen breaded clams at my nearby Meijer, but they didn't have any. The store is never my first choice for grocery shopping - they don't give a reusable bag discount and I hate the bag carousels at the end of each checkout lane. Worse yet, they are making over my current nearby store to be a "foodie destination", which I suspect means increasing prices. The only reason why I go there is on the days when I need to buy groceries and toilet paper or shampoo, because they have good prices on those household type items. Last Sunday, it took me 10 minutes to find where they put the frozen seafood, and there were no clam strips. I asked at the seafood counter if they had fresh clams, but they were sold out. The stress of shopping was incredible! I couldn't find anything I needed. It will be a cold day in hell before I return there.

In the process, I ended up in the canned seafood area, and decided to give canned clams a shot. At my house, no one but me is going to eat linguine with clam sauce or clam chowder with too many clams in it. I figured a deep fried clam is the best shot I had at anyone eating anything. I found a can of whole baby clams and it had this recipe on the back of it. Why not give it a shot?

Clam Fritters
1 10 oz can whole baby clams
1 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
Fresh ground pepper to taste
vegetable oil for frying

DIRECTIONS:
Heat 1 inch dept vegetable oil in a cast iron frying pan if you have one, if not, use whatever kind of frying pan you've got. I think cast iron works really well for deep frying. Do not drain clams, and combine them with remaining ingredients, Drop batter by tablespoon into hot oil. Brown 4 or 5 minutes, turning once. Serve with tartar sauce. Makes about 12 fritters - serve 3 fritters each.

These fritters were a hit! One can of baby clams contains a whopping 47 mg of iron. This is the food Popeye should have been eating. Each serving is 12 mg of iron. A woman should get 18 mg per iron a day, so clam fritters really help boost my iron intake yesterday. And everyone in the family liked their mild taste.