Cajun Food Where You Find It
Cajun French: la breme (la brem) – eggplant
Smothering eggplant with onions and tomatoes is the usual way we prepare eggplant. Today we wanted something different and a sandwich sounded good. Roasting the eggplant gave it crunch, adding capers and pine nuts gave depth.
This sandwich builds and each layer add a depth of flavor.
Mais C’est Bon!
Enjoy!!
Cajun French: la patate douce (la pa-tat doos) – Sweet Potato
Many years ago John‘s grandmother owned a General Store across from the school in Port Allen, LA. This was before school cafeterias and Francis would make hamburgers at lunch for the students. Since most of the students were Cajun Catholics, on Fridays she would make Potato Croquettes using fish flakes. Francis, the below recipe is in your honor, we hope we make you proud. The below recipe has been updated using sweet potatoes and salmon.
Mais C’est Bon!
Enjoy!!
Cajun French: la cocombre (la kō-kom) – Cucumber
Pinch My Salt has a great recipe for a Sweet and Spicy Dill Cucumber Salad. The salad was in a recent tweet and it sounded wonderful especially for the hot weather we have been having in south Louisiana. Like all the recipes we make we always look for a way to make it Cajun. For this one we did two things: we changed Rice Vinegar to Louisiana Cane Vinegar and added fresh Louisiana Gulf boiled shrimp. The salad tasted as good as it looked. We think we will keep a container in the fridge all summer.
Thank you Pinch My Salt for this great recipe.
Mais C’est Bon!
Enjoy!!
Cajun French: la chevrette (la shuv-ret) – shrimp
Brocato’s Eat Dat Restaurant in East New Orleans was one of the food vendors at the Vieux To Do Festival in New Orleans in early June and this recipe was inspired by the wrap from their booth. We ate lots of great food, many of our favorites, yet for us this particular dish was number one this year.
Everyone has their favorite Remoulade and Brocato’s may even make their own, for us our Remoulade of choice is Omi’s from Omi’s Gourmet Foods. We do make our own Remoulade yet sometimes it is easy to use a prepared one if it is good and suits the dish. Since this is a quick meal, we chose to use the prepared Remoulade.
Boiled shrimp was our choice since we had some in the refrigerator. Any type of cooked shrimp (boiled, sautéed, bbq, fried, etc.) will work for this dish. This is a quick and easy lunch!
Mais C’est Bon!
Enjoy!!
Cracked wheat is high in fiber and health benefits and great for any diet.
Always being on the lookout for new items or new ways to use various ingredients, cracked wheat came to mind for our bean burgers. Although this is not a new way to use cracked wheat, for us it is new. The cracked wheat gave the burgers a nutty crunchy taste and we liked it. The dish has firmness and weight, definitely is filling.
Mais C’est Bon!
Enjoy!!
What is a Creole Tomato?
A true Creole Tomato is grown in the river parishes south of New Orleans. The soil and the climate make the tomato a “Creole”. The tomato is meaty, juicy, thick and a delicacy in south Louisiana. Nothing announces summer like
the Creole Tomato and snowballs. Locals wait for each to “come in season”.
We purchased Creole Tomatoes at the festival and have enjoyed them all week. Now we are down to our last big plump juicy delicacy – what to do with it? We decided to make a tuna salad and stuff the tomato which is large enough to share.
Mais C’est Bon!
Enjoy!!
“Vieux To Do” is this weekend in the French Quarter in New Orleans, LA. This festival is three in one: Creole Tomato, Cajun Zydeco Music, and Seafood Festivals. To get ourselves ready to eat, drink, dance and thoroughly enjoy the heat we are preparing a shrimp dish along with a creole tomato salad. We have Zydeco music on, opened a favorite bottle of wine and we are ready to cook. Join us as we enjoy the bounty South Louisiana offers…
Mais C’est Bon!
Enjoy!!
Continue reading “In Honor of Vieux To Do: Shrimp, Creole Tomato, & Zydeco”
Shrimp is a staple in our diet and we always seem to have leftover ones in the fridge. We try to come up with creative ways to use the shrimp. This dish came about because it was lunch time, we were hungry, nothing was fixed and into the fridge we went.
There is really no recipe for this dish; it is a building of ingredients we had on hand. In our opinion it turned out great – very clean and fresh tasting!
We always try to keep roasted garlic in olive oil on hand. I always say we should own a garlic farm with the amount of garlic we use. If you have never roasted garlic in olive oil, try it. It keeps well, of course ours never last long enough to really know, and is good in almost everything.
Mais C’est Bon!
Enjoy!!
Summer is the grilling season, yet in Louisiana it is best when the weather is cool and being outside is enjoyable. Such was the case when we were RVing at Tickfaw State Park in Springfield, LA. It was the last cool snap before record heat and we decided to enjoy every minute of the Spring weather. We had fresh vegetables and shrimp from the Red Stick Market in Baton Rouge and we grilled them with just olive oil and seasoning. It was as fresh as the cool breezes!
The farmer’s market was alive with color this Saturday. Nothing was more brilliant than the yellow squash. They were so yellow; it was as
if we were looking at the sun!
Squash is so versatile that it is hard to decide how to cook the squash.
The below recipe is a quick and easy meal or side dish. In fact, you can make two different entrees or side dishes with the basic recipe.
Mais C’est Bon!
Enjoy!!
