Here is a homegrown recipe for wild blueberry muffins—so delicious. Did you know Maine is the largest producer of wild blueberries in the world? Maine produces 15 percent of all blueberries in North America!

Blueberry Muffin Ingredients
Makes 16-18 blueberry out-of-this-world blueberry muffins.

6 Tbsp. butter
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 eggs

Cream butter and sugar thoroughly, then add eggs one at a time beating well after each addition.

2 cups flour, unsifted
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 cup milk

Sift dry ingredients and add to creamed mixture alternately with milk.

1/2 cup blueberries, crushed with fork, and mixed into batter.
1 1/2 cup blueberries, crushed with fork, and mixed into batter.
1 12 cup blueberries, washed and dried on paper towels.

Mix well into batter. Pour batter into lined muffin tin filling cups 7/8 full. Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes. Cool 30 minutes BEFORE removing from oven. Store uncovered or they will become too moist.

Be sure to mark your calendar for the 35th annual Machias Wild Blueberry Festival- Every year in mid August (August 20th– 22th) the town of Machias (pop. 2,353) rolls out the blue carpet with crafts, food, entertainment, contests, and all things blueberry. There’s no admission charge. Enter the blueberry pie-eating contest, cooking contest, and road race! More than 250 vendors offer Maine-made items and more! Enjoy some true Down East fare

Here is an original East Coast recipe for shrimp chowder.

Ingredients for Shrimp Chowder
1 1/2 lbs. North Atlantic Shrimp, heads of, but shell still on.
1 teaspoon whole allspice
4 tablespoons olive oil
6 cups water
3 cups water
1 cup celery, diced
1/2 cup onion, diced
1 cup carrots, sliced
1 small, ripe tomato or 2 tablespoons canned tomatoes
1/2 cup frozen peas
1 cup diced potatoes
1 cup tiny macaroni cooked

Tie allspice in cheesecloth and add to the 6 cups of water along with olive oil. Boil for 10 minutes, then add shrimp and wait until shrimp turns pink and curls (3-4 minutes.) Remove shrimp from broth. Set shrimp aside to cook, then peel. Discard spice bag. Add the 3 cups water to stock and bring to a boil; add celery, onions, carrots and tomato. Simmer 10 minutes. Then add peas and diced potatoes. When potatoes are just about cooked, add the cooked drained macaroni along with shrimp.

Have fresh chowder shipped direct to you from East Coast Gourmet.

A steaming bowl of mussels and some crusty bread are simple and delicious. Here is a classic recipe for steamed mussels ready in about 10 minutes. Offer a large bowl into which guests can discard empty mussel shells.

Serves 2 main course or 4 appetizer servings.

Mussels Steamed Ingredients
2 pounds cultured (farm-raised) mussels
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons diced Vidalia or other sweet onion
1 tablespoon chopped fresh herbs such as basil or parsley, or 2 teaspoons dried basil leaves
1 teaspoon minced garlic
2 to 3 teaspoons butter or extra virgin olive oil (optional)
Freshly ground back pepper

Gently rinse mussels under cold running water. Discard mussels with broken shells. Squeeze the sides of mussels with shells that are open (or gaping). If they do not firmly close, discard these gapers as well.

2. In a large pot, combine the wine, water, onion, herbs, and garlic. Add mussels to pot and bring to a boil over high head. Reduce heat to medium.

3. Time for 3 minutes (the minimum time mussels need to steam). Using a large spoon, stir mussels gently, cover pan tightly, and steam until all shells open, about 3-5 minutes. Remove pot from heat.

4. Using a slotted spoon, divide mussels among individual rimmed soup plates. Leave any unopened mussels in pot, cover pot tightly, and continue cooking for 1 to 2 more minutes to see if mussels open. Discard any mussels that remain unopened at this point.

5. Return heat to high and vigorously boil mussels broth for 1 minute to concentrate the flavors. Enrich broth with butter or olive oil, if desired. Add pepper to taste. Ladle the broth equally over the mussels. Serve with crusty bread for dipping.

For tips on how to buy fresh mussels like a real shellfish purveyor check out this post from LobsterAnywhere.com.

Broiled Scallops

When selecting scallops to broil, always insist on fresh dry sea scallops. There is no added moisture or other additives like those commonly found in the grocery store–so they retain their flavor and don’t shrink when cooked.

1 1/2 lbs. scallops
1 stick of butter melted
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

Serves 4

Preheat broiler. Rinse and dry scallops. Roll them into the melted butter an place them close together in a shallow pan. Pour over any remaining butter over them, sprinkle with parmesan cheese, and broil for 5 minutes. And for variety, put slices of bacon on top of the cheese. Cook a little longer, until bacon is crisp.

Or…just as delicious, rinse and cut the large scallops in half or in third; then dip them in a slightly beaten egg, roll them in seasoned bread crumbs, and place in a shallow baking dish. Pour melted butter over them (tutning, so they’re coasted), and broil for 5 minutes. Serve with lemon wedges.

The leaves are turning bright beautiful fall colors on the East Coast. It’s Charlie’s favorite time of year to enjoy a heaping bowl of chowder and his favorite pumpkin bread spiced with cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. Pumpkins were one of the first plentiful New England crops. Along with corn and fish, this sweet vegatable was the mainstay of many a Pilgrim diet.

Foliage isn’t the only reason to travel to northern New England in October! Last year, 25,644 pumpkins decorated the streets during the annual Pumpkin Festival in Keene New Hampshire! The largest pumpkin ever displayed, weighing in at a hefty 1,300 pounds, was brought by Cheshire Medical Center/Dartmouth-Hitchcock Keene.

East Coast Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients
4 eggs
3 cups sifted flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup vegatable oil
2 cups canned pureed pumpkin
1 cup raisins

Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, spices and salt 2 times. Butter 2 loaf pans. Line the buttered pans with paper cut to fit. Mix oil and sugar in a large bowl. Add eggs one a time, beating after each until mixture is light. Add flour alternately with pumpkin, beating well after each. Stir in raisins. Pour into pans. Bake in preheated 350 degree oven for 1 hour or until toothpick when inserted into center comes out clean. Makes two loaves.

Looking for a fun spot on Cape Cod? Be sure to stop in the historic sea captain’s town of Brewster, Massachusetts. It is centrally located on the bay side of Cape Cod. The town owns two championship golf courses and there are miles of salt water beaches. Don’t forget to visit the Great Cape Herb Farm, offering organic medicinal herbs. And if your a baseball fan like Charlie, don’t miss the Brester White Caps, members of the Cape Cod Baseball League. Former alumni include such big league stars as Geoff Blum, Mike Myers, Chase Utley, Billy Wagner. The Cape League marks in 125th season in 2009 attracting the country’s top college players.

When Charlie travels to the lower Cape to play golf in Brewster, he enjoy a nice ice cold beer and a couple of stuffed clams. Here’s a delicious recipe for baked stuffed clams.

Stuffed Clams Recipe

12 medium-size cherrystone clams
2 tablespoons water
rock salt (optional)
2 tablespoons butter
2 shallots, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 cups soft bread crumbs
1/4 cup finely chopped celery
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
1/2 teaspoon dry basil
1/2 teaspoon oregano
2 tablespoon freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon dry white wine
Freshly ground black pepper
8 slices bacon, cut into thirds

Place the clams and water in a pan, cover and steam until clams open. Reserve the liquid, remove the clams form the shells and chop finely. Wash the shells and place on rock salt in shallow baking pan. Melt butter in a skillet and saute the shallots and garlic until just tender. Add the bread crumbs, celery, parsley, basil, oregano, cheese, oil, wine and pepper. Mix well. Stir in enough of reserved liquid to moisten crumbs but not make it soggy. Distribute chopped clams among the shells, top with bread crumb mixture and a piece of bacon. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 10 minutes and then broil until browned. Serves 4.

In the little State of Rhode Island you can find three types of clam chowder: white clam chowder, red clam chowder, and clear clam chowder. Native Rhode Islanders and purists favor a clear, thin broth chowder. Rhode Islanders and tourists alike also enjoy the creamy, white chowder also served in Boston and on Cape Cod. Finally you’ll also find the tomato-based red chowder. All three RI chowder varieties share two common ingredients: Quahogs and salt pork. Quohogs are the large clams, chopped and featured in the chowder. Why salt pork? Salt pork gives chowder some flavor and helps create the broth. It also can keep for months, especially on the sailing ships of the 18th century!

Is Rhode Island’s red chowder the same as Manhattan clam chowder (also called New York chowder or Fullton Market chowder)? No way! Rhode Islanders make their own version of. Unlike the Manhattan clam chowder recipe, the Rhode Island chowder contains no vegatables and uses a tomato base, not tomato chunks.

Charlie asked Ray Testa, a long time Rhode Islander and author of Rhode Island Favorites: Back Home Recipes, for his favorite chowder recipe. Below you will find the chowder recipe served for decades at the Shore Dinner Hall at the Rocky Point Amusement Park*, located on Narragansett Bay. The hall could seat a 1000 people and was advertised as the largest shore dinner hall in the world. Although the park and the hall are no more ( closed in 1996 and demolished in 2007), the food from the Shore Dinner Hall lives on.

Rocky Point Clam Chowder

1/2 lb. Salt Pork (finely diced)
1 lb. Onions (chopped)
1 lb. Potatoes (diced)
2 cups Tomato Puree
1-1/2 qts. Quahogs (chopped)
1 Tbsp. Paprika
Water as needed
1 gal. Clam Juice
Salt & Pepper to taste
Oyster or Saltine Crackers (broken)

In a large kettle, heat the salt pork until the fat melts. Add the onions. Cook over medium heat until very soft. Add the clam juice, potatoes, seasonings, tomato puree and a little water. Simmer until the potatoes are soft, then add the quahogs. Heat and taste for seasoning. Add water if needed. Crush some saltine crackers and stir them into the chowder to thicken it further, near the end of the cooking. Makes about 15 servings.

*The Rocky Point Amusement Park was a popular landmark on the Narragansett Bay side of Warwick, Rhode Island. Rocky Point closed in 1995.To learn more about Rhode Island’s famous seaside playground visit Joe Nisil’s excelent resource and photo history page.

Should you boil or steam lobsters? It depends. Charlie prefers to boil lobsters if he has to cook a bunch of lobsters at a time. Second, boiling lobsters cooks them more evenly and quicker than steaming. But watch out and keep an eye on your cooking times to make sure you do not overcook your lobsters. Finally, boiling lobsters makes it easier to remove the meat out of the shell. The high, intense heat of boiling cooks the meat quickly, causing it to pull away from the shell. If you are just cooking a few lobsters (1-4) see the advantages of steaming lobsters.

How to boil lobsters
Fill a pot (large enough to hold the lobsters) anywhere from one-half to two-thirds full with water. Add 2 tablespoons of salt for each quart of water. (If sea water is available, even better. Skip the salt.) Bring the water to a strong boil over high heat.

Place the live lobsters in one at a time, headfirst, completely submerging them. Pick up the lobster by holding the upper side of the thorax between your thumb and middle finger. Hold the underside of the body away from you, because the lobster have a tendency to flip the jointed tail, splattering water. You can cook more than one lobster in a pot as long as there is enough room and water to cover the lobsters. (If you do not have a big enough pot use two smaller pots or cook your lobsters in batches.) Cover the pot tightly and return to a boil as quickly as possible.

After the water boils start timing, and regulate the heat to prevent water from boiling over (but be sure the water continues to boil). Melt some butter while you wait.

Cooking Times for Lobsters
1 lb. Lobster… 5-7 minutes
1 1/4 lb. lobster… 8-10 minutes
1 1/2 lb. lobster… 10-12 minutes
2 lb. lobster… 12-14 minutes
3 lb. lobster… 15-18 minutes
5-6 lb. lobster… 18-20 minutes

How to Tell if My Lobsters are Cooked?
Lobster is cooked when the shell is entirely red. When properly cooked, lobster meat is a creamy white color all the way through–no translucent areas. Some chefs say when the antennae pull out easily, lobsters are done, but this is not always the case. It is important to note when you take your lobsters out of the pot they will continue to cook. To stop the cooking process, put your lobsters in a bowl of ice.

If you overcook them, your going to be eating tough lobster. If you under-cook your lobster you can always heat them up. The reason many people believe larger lobsters are tough is simply because they overcook them. Many people will mistakenly boil a two and half pound lobster twice as long as a quarter pound lobster. Another common mistake is adding to the cooking time just because you are cooking more than 1-2 lobsters in the pot. Just remember to bring your pot back to a rolling boil and regulate the heat. Happy cracking!

May brings in warm weather on the Coast, and Charlie loves to make fresh lobster salad. For something different, his recipe for lobster salad uses fresh shrimp and is served in lobster shells!

Lobster Salad Ingredients
2 1 3/4 – 2lb. lobsters
12 large shrimp
4-6 tbs. mayonnaise
2 stalks of celery, chooped
4 tbsp. parsley, chopped (optional)
2 jars marinated artichock hearts*
1 lemon

Cook lobster adding shrimp to the pot for the last 3-4 minutes of cooking (be careful not to overcook)!Cool, and remove tail, body, and leg meat. Keep the claws. Clean out the shell, discarding everthing else inside the shell, including the black line that runs along the lobster. Cut the tail meat into pieces and refrigerate, along with the claws, lobster meat, and empty shells. Peel and devein shrimp and refrigerate.

When ready, mix the lobster meat, mayonnaise, celery and parsley together. Divide equally between 4 shells, add 3 shrimp to each shell and fill remaining space with artichokes. Serve on lettuce leaves, a cracked claw on each plate and wedges of lemon.
*Substutute muchrooms marinated in Italian dresing..or..potato salad.

Here is a real simple recipe for Seafood Chowder. Charlie borrowed the recipe from his friend Skip who lives down the Cape in Chatham. Skip been making it for years, and it’s a real crowd pleaser. The secret to Skip’s famous seafood chowder is fresh fish and small, tender clams. He says some of the big surf clams or ocean quahogs can be tough.

Seafood Chowder Ingredients:
1 to 1 1/2 lbs of fresh Cod or Haddock (cut up)
1 lb. chopped clams
1 large onion (diced)
3 medium Yukon Gold Potatoes (cut into cubes)
1 quart heavy cream

In a large pot add diced onions and clams with juice. Cook until onions are clear. Add potatoes then add water (enough to cover potatoes). Cook until potatoes are almost cooked, then add fish (do not stir, fish will break up) cook for 2 minutes. Lower heat to simmer, add cream with a pad of butter. Cover pan. Once butter has melted its ready to serve.