Cajun Food Where You Find It
Cajun French: le matin (lu ma-tain) – morning
Start with melt in your mouth French bread from Champagne’s Bakery in the heart of Acadiana (Breaux Bridge). Next add a link of crawfish boudin from Poche’s Meat Market in Breaux Bridge, LA, with one crawfish tail in the entire length (we were trying to rescue the boudin). Next we added eggs (after all it was morning) and boiled shrimp and breakfast was served.
Mais C’est Bon!
Cajun French: l’ail (l’a-ee) – garlic
Fresh poboy bread, pork boudin, and red beans; all leftovers – what to do with them? The boudin needed some help since it was not well seasoned and the red beans were very well seasoned. The bread from Champagne Bakery in Breaux Bridge, LA was begging to be eaten and so the Cajun Creole Poboy was built. Add Cajun seasoning and garlic and dinner is served…
Mais C’est Bon!
Cajun French: la carotte (la kar-ot) – carrot
Tonight dinner was to be a veggie loaf with different techniques. Laurie was going to place a pie crust on an inverted loaf pan, bake then fill. John was going to place the pie crust in the loaf pan, fill and bake. Neither happened…was not a good fit. Instead we decided to make a veggie tart and that was a perfect fit. We used the vegetables we had on hand and built the pie using egg and cheese as a binder. The main thing to remember is to season each vegetable to taste. This tart will take some time since each vegetable is steamed separately, but it was well worth it.
Mais C’est Bon!
Enjoy!! Continue reading “Veggie Tart”
Cajun French: le coco (lu kō-kō) – coconut
Cajun…Curry…maybe not exactly but Cajuns are adaptable and we are always using interesting ingredients.
The interesting ingredient was Coconut Cream. We use coconut milk but had never tried cream and could not resist. Curry naturally followed along with cashews and turmeric and then came the rest of the ingredients. The results were amazing. The only thing we would change or John would change is using the entire can of coconut cream so there would be more sopping sauce.
Mais C’est Bon!
Cajun French: la prune (la prūn) – plum
Most of our recipes are made from “starch”, but sometimes we have prepared items that must be used. We do not like to throw out anything including prepared foods. In walks Pesto and we must use it somehow, somewhere, in something, etc. The pesto had already been used on pizza, but we still had half a bottle left. Shrimp was on the menu and the pesto became a marinade. The blending of flavors became a simple supper of shrimp with fresh plum and avocado. This is a great summer evening meal!
Mais C’est Bon!
Enjoy!! Continue reading “Pesto Shrimp”
Cajun French: l’orange (l’ō-ronj) – orange
A small bottle of Sweet Roasted Garlic Balsamic Dressing was hanging out in our pantry. We weren’t sure how we would use the dressing. Flash forward, on the table in our fruit bowl was oranges and avocados while in the fridge we had cooked shrimp, roasted corn and roasted garlic. It was coming together. We decided to build a citrus salad with shrimp.
Mais C’est Bon!
Cajun French: le sel (lu sel) – salt
Brining has become very popular for meats and poultry. Since neither is on our menu, we decided to try brining fish and WOW! This brine is easy, simple and oh so good. We have used it for catfish as well as salmon and smoked the fish with excellent results. When smoking, we used apple wood which added an extra sweetness.
Mais C’est Bon!
Enjoy!! Continue reading “Fish Brining”
Cajun French: la salade (la sal-ad) – salad
Growing up among fields of sugar cane in south Louisiana we are always interested in local products made with sugar cane. Steens, famous for their pure cane syrup, makes cane vinegar from their cane syrup. The vinegar has a light sweet aftertaste and adds a unique flavor to this dressing. This dressing is great with tomato and red onion salad, potato and dill salad, and just about any other salad you prepare.
Mais C’est Bon!
Cajun French: la breme (la brem) – eggplant
écraser (ā-kra-zā) – mash
The eggplant sitting on the counter was begging to be used. Not wanting to prepare in the usual way of smothering we put our creative caps on and went to work. Knowing we were going to serve the eggplant with salmon, we decided on a mash. Salmon has a very mild flavor so we did not want the eggplant to overpower the salmon. By using garlic and mint with grilled onions the eggplant was not heavily herbed. The eggplant taste was predominant and blended well with the rosemary salmon.
Mais C’est Bon!
