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8th Anniversary, Congratulations!!!

Cajun French: le manger (lu mon-jā) – eats; food

 

Laurie: Eight years ago I listened to my doctor tell me I either had to lose weight or go on medication; I don’t like meds and I didn’t want my health connected to medication. Knowing what I had to do and also knowing how hard it would be, I made a commitment to myself to drop the weight forever. Although I was not sure how I was going to do that, divine intervention occurred via my mail – a magazine article discussing the South Beach Diet. After reading the article, I knew I could manage a weight loss program which turned into a lifestyle change, I lost 43 pounds and have managed to keep the pounds off.

Mais C’est Bon!

Enjoy!!

Continue reading “8th Anniversary, Congratulations!!!”

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Camellia Cocktail

Cajun French: le camélia (lu kam-ā-lee-a) – camellia

 

January brings an explosion of color to south Louisiana gardens with the blooming of camellia bushes. We enjoy floating the blooms in bowls of water and setting them around the house to bring the outdoors inside. When fixing what everyone else calls a Poinsettia, we realized the drink reminded us of a camellia and hence our name for this cocktail is forever a Camellia.

One change we make is we use cranberry pomegranate juice.

Mais C’est Bon!

Enjoy!! Continue reading “Camellia Cocktail”

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Bulgur Salad

Cajun French: le limon (lu lee-mon) – lemon

 

Remember our beautiful bouquet of carrot tops? We finally finished them off and it has been a great gastronomic adventure. The final dish is a bulgur salad using carrot tops. Most bulgur salads like Tabbouleh use parsley; carrot tops give a completely different flavor. The carrot tops need more liquid compared to using parsley. We have used this salad as a base for stuffed tomatoes, an addition to other salads, in an omelet, or as a side vegetable with meals.

Mais C’est Bon!

Enjoy!! Continue reading “Bulgur Salad”

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Kumquats and Greens

Cajun French:  le fruit (lu frū-ee) – fruit

 

South Louisiana has wonderful citrus.  In fact, many yards have at least one fruit tree and winter is citrus time.  Our neighbor has a kumquat tree and he does not eat the fruit, so we are beneficiaries of his harvest.   This time of year we always search for new ways to incorporate kumquats with what is fresh at our farmers market.  Remember from a previous post that we have carrot tops that we want to use and some kohlrabi and radish greens.  Not knowing how it would turn out, we decided to cook the greens and throw in some kumquats.  Wow!  The greens had a most wonderful citrus flavor.

Mais C’est Bon!

Enjoy!! Continue reading “Kumquats and Greens”

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Carrot Top Green Eggs

Cajun French: la carotte (la kar-ot) – carrot

 

Being Cajun we try to use all parts of vegetables. Our fresh carrots from the Red Stick Farmers Market came with a large top bouquet. What do you do with Carrot Tops? After some research, we decided to try carrot tops and eggs. Only using about ¼ of the bunch, we still have lots to be creative with. We used only the leaves not the bottom stem.  When the tops are cut they smell like parsley. The cooked carrot tops had a firm texture and added lots of flavor to the eggs. We served our eggs and carrot tops with Papa Tom’s Grits and toast.

Mais C’est Bon!

Enjoy!! Continue reading “Carrot Top Green Eggs”

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Shrimp Grillades and Grits

Cajun French: le grue (lu grū) – grits

 

What started out as left over crawfish and carrot tops over girts for breakfast turned into Shrimp Grillades and Grits. Traditionally grillades are slow cooked meat in rich gravy. We enjoy grillades and since we no longer eat meat wanted to try shrimp grillades. Today was the day and what a dish! Another difference to the traditional grillades is the shrimp do not cook in the gravy. The shrimp are pan fried and plated in the gravy just before serving. As usual we used shrimp from the Anna Marie.  Even though this dish is very rich, it is not high fat. The richness comes from using red wine in the gravy. We plated the dish on plates with a shrimp design. Wanting to highlight the design as well as the food we plated the dish two ways.

Mais C’est Bon!

Enjoy!! Continue reading “Shrimp Grillades and Grits”

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Island Pasta

Cajun French:  l’ile (l’eel) – island

 

Friday was travel day, so Thursday night supper was going to be an easy dish of mushrooms and pasta.  Yet, like most of our dishes, it evolved and evolved.  Mushrooms and garlic were cooked and pasta was cooking; then we saw the ripe avocado.  Okay that sounds good.  Here’s a fresh tomato; that sounds good also.  The dish was still easy; it just had more depth of flavor to it.

Our newest evolution – Island Pasta.

Mais C’est Bon!

Enjoy!!    Continue reading “Island Pasta”

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WesMar Farms Dairy Market

Cajun French:  le cabri (lu ka-bree) – goat (general)

NOTE: This market is no longer operating

The goats were staring at us through the fence, curious creatures. Then we saw a group of people visiting; drinking coffee and eating fresh baked bread and sweets. We must be in the right place – WesMar Farms Dairy Market in Moreauville, LA.

What are two Pescatarians doing at a dairy market? That is the question we asked ourselves the first time we visited the WesMar Farms Dairy Market. Never ones to pass up an opportunity to visit a farmers market of any kind, we ventured to WesMar to see what was offered. Continue reading “WesMar Farms Dairy Market”

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Tenth Day of Christmas – 10 pirogue paddles

Cajun French: le riz (lu ree) – rice

 

A pirogue is a small flat bottomed boat originally made of Louisiana cypress. The pirogue is designed to move through the very shallow water of the Louisiana marshes. It can also easily be turned over to drain any water that gets in the boat. We have seen pirogues that were carved from a single cypress tree, meaning no seams. Many Cajun cooks have “pirogue paddles” to use when cooking, for stirring the pot. On the tenth day of Christmas we are going to stir up a Shrimp Creole Casserole.

John, like many Cajuns, are known to “stir the pot” having no connection to cooking. It means they like to get things going, pit one against another in fun.

Mais C’est Bon!

Enjoy! Continue reading “Tenth Day of Christmas – 10 pirogue paddles”

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