Tag: camping

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Crab Dressing

Cajun French: la pince (la pains) – claw

 

Fresh claw crabmeat was one of our purchases at the Red Stick Farmers Market this week. Once home, we knew we had to use some of the crabmeat immediately. The crabmeat is from the Outlaw Katfish Kompany and just like their catfish; the crabmeat is sweet and melts in your mouth. With John’s creativity on overload, a crab dressing was in order. This dressing would be excellent not only on a salad, yet on fish or steak.

Mais C’est Bon!

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Simply Catfish

Cajun French: faire la cuisine (fair la kū-zeen) – cook meals

 

Sometimes preparing a meal is not about complicated recipes and fancy presentation; it is about quality ingredients fixed simply so the true taste comes out. That is what dinner last night was all about. We had catfish filets from Outlaw Katfish Kompany and fresh broccoli from Red Stick Farmers Market. It had been a long day, we were tired and not really into fancy cooking. The catfish from Outlaw is small, sweet and melts in your mouth and we were ready.

Mais C’est Bon!

Enjoy!! Continue reading “Simply Catfish”

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Shrimp Cocktail Extraordinaire

Cajun French: l’ail (l’a-ee) – garlic

 

Watching the sunset on a beach, sipping a cool, crisp glass of wine and a shrimp cocktail waiting for dinner. Dreaming of the day that will be our front yard and it will be soon! So tonight we are having the shrimp cocktail without the beach sunset or glass of wine (no wine on South Beach Phase 1). Having purchased large shrimp from the Anna Marie at the Red Stick Farmers Market, we decided a shrimp cocktail was in order. This was going to be dinner so we wanted to make the cocktail a complete meal. Searching the frig to see what was available and how the finds could be used resulted in our Shrimp Cocktail Expanded.

Mais C’est Bon!

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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!

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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!

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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!

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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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