Oh When the Saints...

So I'm not the most die-hard of Pro Football fans, I do like a good game and even better, a good reason to cook Cajun food!!! Ok, more like mix up a sauce for an appetizer and post a recipe I've been holding onto for a few weeks :)

Whether or not the Saints come marching in today and stomp the Colts it's a good night for a great bowl of gumbo (I'll be making sure to get a bowl at my mom's house where she's cooking up a Shrimp, Crab and Oyster Gumbo of epic flavor) but it's been pretty chilly around here lately and I felt like it was great timing to post my Chicken and Sausage Gumbo, but first, the Super Bowl appetizer that I'm responsible for...Shrimp with Remoulade sauce.

Remoulade Sauce
*Serve with chilled shrimp or other steamed/boiled shellfish

1/4 Cup Fresh Lemon Juice
3/4 Cup Mayo
3/4 Cup Chopped Spring Onions (Green and White Parts)
2 Tbsp Chopped Garlic
3 Tbsp Whole-Grain Mustard
2 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
4 Tbsp Ketchup
3 Tbsp Chopped Parsley
1 Tsp Salt
1/4 Tsp Cayenne
1/8 Tsp Freshly Ground Black Pepper

1. Toss is all in the food processor, pulse for 30 seconds at a time, one it's mixed up to your liking put it in a bowl and serve!



Yes that might be the easiest recipe ever, especially if you're just serving it alongside boiled shrimp but mmm....mmm is it good!

Now for the Chicken and Sausage Gumbo I turned to my favorite Emeril cookbook (Louisiana Real and Rustic) and set off to the races...

Chicken and Smoked Sausage Gumbo
*Adapted from Louisiana Real and Rustic by Emeril Lagasse

1 Cup Vegetable Oil
1 Cup Flour
1 1/2 Cups Chopped Onions
1 Cup Chopped Celery
1 Cup Chopped Bell Peppers
1 Cup Frozen Okra
1 Lb smoked sausage, I used a pork/venison kielbasa
1 1/2 Tsp salt
1/4 Tsp Cayenne
3 Bay Leaves
6 Cups Water
1 Lb Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts
3 Tsp Paprika
2 Tsp Fresh Ground Black Pepper
1 Tsp Garlic Powder
1 Tsp Onion Powder
1 Tbsp Dried Oregano
1 Tbsp Dried Thyme
2 Tbsp Chopped Parsley
1/2 Cup Chopped Green Onions
1 Tbsp File Powder

1. Combine the oil and flour in a large heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. Stirring slowly and constantly for 20-2 minutes, make a dark roux, the color of Hershey's chocolate.
2. Add the onions, celery, and bell peppers and continue to stir for 4-5 minutes, or until wilted. Add the water. Stir until the roux is well mixed into the water, add bay leaves. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to med-low. Cook, uncovered, stirring occasionally, for 1 hour.
3. Season the chicken with the paprika, black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, oregano and thyme and add to the pot. Add sausage (sliced into 1/2 inch rounds) and okra to the pot. Simmer for 2 hours.
4. Skim off any fat that rises to the surface. Remove from heat. Stir in parsley, green onions and file.
5. Remove the bay leaves and serve over rice in deep bowls with crusty french bread.

Old Habits...

Old habits are like a well worn hoodie, you relish in finding them and enjoying them once more and miss them terribly when you can't get to them. I have longed to bring normalcy back to my life...routine, being the OCD person that I am I crave it. Unfortunately my life has been anything but normal the last few months....the holidays, life at a start-up company and the random social events I find myself committed to seem to have taken their toll in a lack of convention. So as I try and re-start my good habits (and kick the bad ones) I find myself coming back to my blog. This has always been a struggle for me, I've never been a writer, unless it was a research paper or something academic it never came to me. I'm a little critical of myself and my writing (ok maybe very critical) so I have always looked at what I write and erased it numerous times. This blog has been the only exception to that rule so here I sit once more, back from an extended furlough attempting to do something that is good for me.

Now, to clarify, just because writing on this blog is good for me doesn't mean I'm going to post recipes that are exclusively healthy :) No, to the contrary, I have stores of photos and recipes I've made over the past few months (and stockpiled hoping I would eventually get around to posting them) and since they were very holiday focused for two months they won't necessarily be healthy...oh well being all good is never that much fun!

The first two of such recipes are healthy in a devilishly tasty way, so I guess it's walking the fine line between the good and bad. Thanks to Foodbuzz and Egglands Best for a coupon for a delicious dozen eggs. With some of the beautiful Egglands Best eggs I pulled together two simple dishes, an appetizer (although I love it as a vegetarian dinner on weeknight) and one of my favorites, an egg custard.

Originally I came across this in a Curtis Stone cookbook (Cooking with Curtis) where it is listed as a hearty appetizer, however it has quickly become a favorite for me and can be found gracing the dinner table after a long day at the office. It's the perfect comfort food, delicious crunchy toast with a perfectly poached egg and amazing mushrooms.

Sauteed Mushrooms on Fried Ciabatta with Poached Egg
*Adapted from Cooking with Curtis by Curtis Stone

3/4 Cup White Wine
1 Tbsp White Vinegar
6 Tbsp Butter
1/2 Shallot, peeled and finely chopped
1/2 Garlic clove, peeled and minced
14oz mushrooms, I prefer a mix of Baby Bellas and Button Mushrooms for everyday cooking but Oyster Mushrooms or some Shitake would be great as well
Salt & Pepper to taste
1 Tbsp Flat Leaf Parsley, Chopped
4 Slices of Ciabatta
Extra Virgin Olive Oil


1. Place a large deep saucepan over medium-high heat with butter inside. Once butter has began to melt, add shallot and garlic. Sweat 1-2 minutes.
2. Add mushrooms and wine, allow wine to reduce to about 1/2 its volume.
3. While wine is reducing, bring a pot of water to a boil (add 1 Tbsp White Vinegar to the water).
4. Break eggs into boiling water and poach for 2 minutes.
5. Place ciabatta slices on a griddle pan or cast iron, brush with olive oil and toast until slightly crispy.
6. Place toasted ciabatta on serving plate and top with the mushrooms, top mushrooms with a sprinkle of parsley and then the poached egg. Drizzle with olive oil, serve.

This should comfortably serve 4 people.

Now if that amazing poached egg doesn't make you want to run out and get a dozen eggs then I'm not sure what will! Oh wait, I do know, it's this egg custard. I love egg custard, I have vague recollections of watching my grandmother make this in an ancient oven (not because she's that old but because she lived in a very old, historic ranch house for a long time). Mimi would put these in and turn on the light in the oven and that was really the closest I would get to the custard until after dinner...of course she made them mid-afternoon so I would sit in anticipation for quite sometime until I got to eat the dessert! This is such an easy recipe that I was astounded, funny, I hadn't actually made my own egg custard until I tested this out...but I will surely be making more soon.

Easy Egg Custard

2 cups whole milk
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Freshly grated or ground nutmeg


1. Preheat oven to 300°F.
2. Place six 4-ounce ovenproof cups (you can use ramekins, or coffee cups marked as oven-safe) in a deep baking pan just large enough to hold them.
3. In a medium saucepan, bring the milk to a simmer over medium-low heat.
4. Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, yolks, sugar, and vanilla.
5. Slowly pour the egg mixture into the simmering milk, whisking gently to combine.
6. Pour the mixture through a fine strainer into the cups (if the strainer clogs, use a spoon to scrape it clean), then sprinkle lightly with the nutmeg.
7. Pour hot (not boiling) water into the pan until it reaches halfway up the sides of the cups.
8. Bake until the custard is just set (it can still be a little loose), 30 to 35 minutes.
9. Let the custard cool in the water bath for about 2 hours before serving.

I'm rather embarrassed to admit that in all my free time I forgot to take a photo of the egg custard : (

Now I feel officially like I might be back on track, got up this morning and exercised, packed a healthy lunch, posted on my blog, came home from work and made a pretty healthy dinner....now if I can just lather, rinse and repeat for tomorrow I'll be set!

Friday Night Dinner - Salt Crusted Pork Loin and Oven Roasted Pumpkin

Our local grocery store has recently run some amazing specials on pork loin, $1/pound - unfortunately for me they only sell them in massive sizes so being that I'm intrigued by the price I went ahead and bought a monster pork loin and have been testing out various recipes for using the thirds that I cut the meat into once it came home. First go-round was a BBQ pulled pork, it wasn't bad but the pork loin didn't have enough fat to keep it moist over the long-slow cooking process. Second time around was a big hit, I adapted a recipe that I found in a Curtis Stone cookbook (my favorite Aussie chef), Roast Loin of Free-Range Pork with Roast Pumpkin....a great way to use some of that pork loin that was perfect for a chilly fall evening.

Roast Loin of Free-Range Pork with Roast Pumpkin

3 1/4 LB Loin of Pork
1/4 Cup Kosher Salt
1/8 Cup White Sugar
2 Tbsp Olive Oil
3 1/4 Cups of peeled, cubed Pumpkin
1 Tbsp Fresh Majoram Leaves
1/4 Cup Maple Syrup

1. Preheat oven to 425. Score the loin of pork with a very sharp knife and rub with salt and sugar, then drizzle with olive oil.
2. Place on a rack in a roasting dish and roast in the oven for 20 minutes. Reduce oven temp to 350 and roast for an additional 50 minutes.
3. While pork is in the oven, preheat a separate baking dish for pumpkin.
4. Place cubed pumpkin in dish and toss with oil. Don't put too much oil in the dish or the pumpkin will become soggy, not crisp.
5. Sprinkle the pumpkin with marjoram leaves and roast int eh oven for the last 30 minutes of the pork's cooking time. Turn the pumpkin frequently to ensure even cooking.
6. Drizzle the pumpkin with maple syrup and return to oven to keep warm until serving time.
7. Once pork is cooked, remove it from the oven and leave to rest for 20 minutes.



While the pumpkin served as a delicious side, I had some potatoes that needed to be used so I made a simple family favorite, potatoes au gratin (aka cheesy potatoes).

Potatoes Au Gratin

1/2 Cup Shredded Swiss Cheese
1 Cup Half and Half
1/2 Cup Parmesan Cheese
3 Tbsp Butter
3 Tbsp Flour
1/2 Tsp Salt
1/4 Tsp Paprika
1/2 Tsp Black Pepper
5-6 Medium Yukon Gold Potatoes, Thinly Sliced in Rounds

1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease a baking dish, then arrange first layer of potatoes in the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle a mix of the Swiss and Parmesan cheese over the layer. Continue layering potatoes and cheese until you have used all potatoes.
2. Whisk half and half with flour, salt, and pepper. Pour over potato and cheese mixture.
3. Put one last layer of cheese on top. Dot butter on top of the cheese and sprinkle paprika over the top.
4. Bank 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours, until top is bubbly and golden brown.

Flan and apologies...

So apparently every time I think I've caught up and work and life and everything else have slowed down and I feel like I can get back to things I enjoy (knitting, blogging, you know the good things :) ) I end up being wrong - very wrong! Last month was a complete bust, well not professionally, just blog-wise because I ended up working my tail off for the latter 1/2 of the month in a way that is uncommon unless it's the end of a quarter. This month is starting to escape and I feel like the ultimate blog slacker, a very sad blog slacker. Everyone has been posting up delicious seasonal recipes and I realized that while I've been cooking (sort of) it's nothing like the amazing dishes that I'm seeing online - like I said, I'm a slacker!

Alas, once more I will try to regain my blogging devotion - I present for your enjoyment a favorite recipe (probably been posted here before) with a new twist - Flan Napolitano with Fresh Blackberry Sauce. The Flan is a tried and true favorite, one I originally got from mom (see her post from 07)

Flan Napolitano
1/4 c. Sugar
4 eggs
1 can sweetened condensed milk~La Lechera, or Eagle Brand
1 can evaporated milk
1 tsp. vanilla
4 oz. cream cheese (small Philadelphia cream cheese packet)

Caramelize & melt sugar in the bottom of flan pan (9 inch cake pan with high sides will be fine also but cover firmly with foil when baking), allow it to darken, set aside. Add all remaining ingredients: eggs, sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, vanilla & cream cheese, placing into a blender. Blend till this mixture is smooth, about 1 min. Then pour into Flan Pan onto caramelized sugar in bottom of pan. Place lid on flan pan & clamp down. Place flan pan in H2O (about 2-3 inches up the side of the pan in water bath) Bake 1 hr. 15 min. @ 350 or till knife comes out clean & flan is firm. Cool in pan. Can be refrigerated over night for best firmness & flavor. Place in warm water to loosen from pan & turn out onto platter or cake stand. The burnt sugar caramel makes the top of the Flan a nice golden color.

Fresh Blackberry Sauce:
1 1/2 tbsp. cornstarch
1 1/4 c. sugar
1/4 c. lemon juice
2 c. fresh or frozen blackberries

Combine lemon juice and cornstarch in saucepan. Add sugar and blackberries. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until thick. Once it has thickened to desired consistency, pull aside and pour through a fine sieve, press as much juice as you can through the sieve. Use juice as sauce - discard what is left in sieve.



Yup I'm ok with the fact that this is really not a seasonal fruit, actually I made this back in May and have kept it stashed (ok I forgot to post it) but it is tasty no matter what!

And just because I need to show off something funny - here's a photo from our newest grocery spot - Sporuts - they had a 'cheese artist' who carved Bevo (aka the Longhorns' mascot) into a gigantic block of chipotle cheese not something you see every day!

Friday Night Dinner Fancy BBQ Chicken

So we've taken to a new ritual in my family, everyone eats together on Friday nights, which is great since my sister and I both live somewhere other than home with my parents. Most of my recent posts have been about something I made for Friday night dinner but now I'm going to try and be more consistent in posting the Friday Night Dinner Specials. First on the list is one I made earlier, while it was still summer, straight from Bon Apetit (September 2009) is Art Smith's recipe for BBQ Chicken with homeade BBQ sauce and a delicious slaw.

Chicken:
1 1/2 pounds skinless boneless chicken thighs
Olive oil
Brown Sugar and Coffee Barbecue Sauce

Brown Sugar and Coffee Barbecue Sauce:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 3/4 cups chopped white onions
6 garlic cloves, chopped
2 tablespoons minced seeded jalapeño chile
1/2 cup (packed) dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons mild-flavored (light) molasses
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes with added puree
1 cup low-salt chicken broth
1 cup freshly brewed strong coffee or 1 tablespoon instant espresso powder dissolved in 1 cup hot water

Slaw:
2 cups thinly sliced fresh fennel bulb
1 1/2 cups thinly sliced red onion
2 medium carrots, cut into thin matchstick-size strips (about 1 1/2 cups)
1/2 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup Sherry wine vinegar
1 teaspoon sugar

Hoecakes:
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 cup all purpose flour
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup water
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter, melted, plus additional for griddle

3/4 cup coarsely grated sharp cheddar cheese
Vinegar Slaw

Special equipment: 2 cups wood chips (such as hickory, apple, or cherry), soaked in 2 cups water for 1 hour, then drained; 13x9x1-inch disposable aluminum foil baking pan preparation

For Brown Sugar and Coffee Barbecue Sauce:
1.Heat oil in heavy large saucepan over medium-high heat.
2.Add onions, garlic, and jalapeño; sauté until onions are tender, about 7 minutes.
3.Add brown sugar, chili powder, molasses, cilantro, and cumin; stir until sugar dissolves.
4.Stir in crushed tomatoes with puree, broth, and coffee; bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered until sauce thickens slightly and is reduced to 4 cups, stirring often, about 35 minutes. Season sauce to taste with salt and pepper.
**DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 week ahead. Cover and chill.

For chicken:
1.Prepare barbecue (medium-high heat). Spread drained wood chips in disposable foil pan. Remove grill racks from barbecue. Place foil pan with wood chips directly atop hot coals (for charcoal barbecue) or over flames (for gas barbecue). Return grill rack to barbecue.
2.Brush chicken with oil; sprinkle with salt and pepper. When wood chips begin to smoke, place chicken on grill rack above pan with wood chips. Cover grill and smoke chicken until cooked through, turning occasionally, about 18 minutes.
3.Transfer to large bowl and cool slightly.
4.Shred chicken into bite-size strips; place in same bowl. Mix 2 1/2 cups barbecue sauce into chicken.
**DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and chill. Rewarm chicken in barbecue sauce over medium-low heat before using, adding more barbecue sauce to moisten mixture, if needed.

For slaw:
1.Toss first 4 ingredients in large bowl.
2.Whisk oil, vinegar, and sugar to blend in small bowl. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
3.Add dressing to vegetable mixture and toss to coat. Season with salt and pepper. Cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour and up to 3 hours, tossing occasionally. Toss to blend before using.

For hoecakes:
1.Preheat oven to 300°F. Mix first 5 ingredients in medium bowl. Add 1 cup water and melted butter and whisk until well blended.
2.Heat griddle or large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Brush with additional melted butter. Working in batches, pour batter by 1/4 cupfuls onto griddle.
3.Using back of spoon, immediately spread batter for each cake into oval shape about 4x21/2 inches; cook until bottom is golden brown, about 2 minutes. Turn cakes over and cook until bottoms are golden brown, 1 to 2 minutes longer.
4.Place hoecakes on baking sheet and transfer to oven to keep warm while making remaining cakes.
5.Place 2 hoecakes on each of 6 plates; sprinkle 1 tablespoon cheddar cheese over each cake. Top each with warm chicken in barbecue sauce. Spoon Vinegar Slaw atop chicken and serve.




The entire dish was a big hit - especially the chicken, the smoky flavor from the wood chips was so good the family discussed making the chicken without sauce at some point!