Chi-Chi-Chi-Cioppino!

 Procrastination is one of my specialties, especially now that I am a graduate student, with tests to study for and stacks of papers to keep up with.  So while "studying" for my Pathways & Signaling midterm, I "inadvertently" stumbled on Alizarine's blog for Cioppino. (pronouned: Chi-o-pino)

Cioppino is a soup/stew/stoup sort of dish characterized by 3 prominent ingredient categories: tomatoes, wine, and seafood. I've never even heard of cioppino let alone tasted it, but I was much intrigued - just the ingredients in it alone was enough to make me salivate.  So I set out to make my own cioppino, though my soup was a virgin as I did not use wine.  I probably can't legitimately call it cioppino without wine, but this blog isn't exactly concerned with legitimacy, so cioppino it is.

Ingredients:
-half an onion, finely diced
-1 red bell pepper, finely diced
-5 stalks of celery, finely diced
-5 cloves of garlic, minced
-pinch of red pepper flakes
-1 can tomato paste
-1 can diced tomatoes, no salt added, undrained
-1 bottle of clam juice (yes, there is such thing as "clam juice" though I've no idea how to juice a clam)
-1 can of baby clams, drained
-chicken stock, use however much you want to get the consistency & taste you want
-any seafood of choice (shrimp, scallops, fish, clams, etc.); I used mussels a la Costco
-2 bay leaves
-bunch of parsley, finely chopped
-salt, pepper, olive oil, sugar

So plump and happy these mussels look!

What to do:

1.  In a stock pot, heat oil & add in onions & garlic.  Cook until fragrant, then add in red pepper & celery; cook until tender.  Sprinkle in pepper flakes.  Add in tomato paste and cook until all ingredients are mushed together, but make it doesn't burn.
2.  Pour in chicken stock, clam juice, diced tomatoes, and drained clams.  Adjust the soup level to the consistency of choice with the chicken stock, watery or thick or somewhere in between.  Season with salt, pepper & sugar to taste.
3.  While the soup simmers on low-med heat, clean the mussels.  Make sure to de-beard them & brush the shells.  Throw away any that are cracked or don't close upon tapping. 
4.   Turn up the heat on the soup and drop in the mussels.  Cover & cook for ~5 minutes.  Stir to make sure everything is coated well and all the mussels are open.
5.  Serve hot with crusty bread.  Sit back and gloat in your cooking abilities. 

Served with crusty hunks of bread to mop up all that delicious soupy goodness.