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The real deal…Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie

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My mother in law, Shirley is an INCREDIBLE baker. A serious sweets maker. A sugar-craving away-taker.
So when she asked me to chip into the Thanksgiving preparations by making a pecan pie I felt more than a little nervous… thankfully, she was making an apple AND a pumpkin pie just in case. 😉

She also made enough crust so I could just use the flaky pastry she’s perfected over the years…which meant that I was really just in charge of the filling. I wanted to jazz up the standard pecan pie recipe she had just a bit, so I combined a couple of recipes that looked good and ended up with a Chocolate. Bourbon. Pecan. Pie. that was the real deal for people who need a little something (or a lot of something) sweet after ALL the thanksgiving gorging.

 
I wanted to share the recipe here since it was really tasty AND I was able to get Shirley’s fantastic pie crust recipe with tips and notes straight from the horse’s mouth.  Read on because it’s hard to find a foolproof pie crust recipe AND because I promise this pie isn’t only good in November.
Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie
 Serves 8-ish
 
What you need: 
For the Pie Crust…
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 Cup plus 1 Tablespoon of Crisco or other shortening
2 Tablespoons of cool water
 For the filling…
2 cups pecan halves or pieces
3 large eggs, beaten
1/4 Cup butter, melted
1/2 cup dark corn syrup
1 cup sugar
2-3 tablespoons good-quality bourbon
2 teaspoons vanilla
2/3 Cup semisweet chocolate chips
What you Do:
Preheat your oven to 325.
Once that’s done we’ll get started with the crust… Shirley’s favorite recipe comes from a super Classic Betty Crocker cookbook. It’s clear that this book has been used and loved and cooked from for decades, and her pies are always SO good there’s no need to fix something that isn’t broken.

To make the crust, mix your salt into the flour in a medium mixing bowl. Cut the shortening into the flour/salt mixture using a pastry cutter or a fork until the mixture is the size of peas. Shirley uses a fork, and works just right, so if you don’t have a pastry cutter, don’t fret or run out and buy one. (this is Shirley, hard at work.)

Add in the water, one Tablespoon at a time, sprinkling it around the flour/shortening mixture and stirring/working it into the flour with the fork until it’s moistened. At this point, you’ll need to get your hands in it (or WANT to… we’re making pie crust here!) Gather the dough together with your hands until it releases from the sides of the bowl. 
Press it into a ball. Whatever you do, don’t overwork the dough… this means, just press the dough enough in your hands to make it a ball.. anything more than that, you’re overworking it.
 

Now, lightly flour your work surface and turn the ball of dough out onto it. Lightly flour the rolling pin and/or the top of the ball of dough so it won’t stick. No really… lightly flour this so you don’t work too much flour into the dough otherwise it’ll be too tough.

 Flatten your dough ball just a little by hand, and then roll it out. If your dough cracks at the edges, you can work it back together with your hands.

Tip from Shirley: Roll the dough from the center of the ball OUTWARD so that your pie ends up a more uniform thickness.

You’ll need to roll the dough into a circle about 1/8″ thick. It’ll also need to be a 1″-2″ inches greater than the diameter of the pan. (so if your pan is 9″ in diameter, then you’ll want to have 10″ or 11″ circle of pie crust”

THIS IS TRICKY for the beginner, but you can do it! Make sure the top of the crust is lightly floured and fold the the dough circle in half to make a half-moon. Carefully (eeks!) lift the dough into your pie pan with the fold in the center and then unfold it to cover the entire pan. Lightly press the dough down onto the edges of the pan, and along the sides.
The dough will hang over the edge of the pan a little bit. It’s almost time to crimp the crust and make it pretty, but first  you’ll want to roll the dough along the edges back under so that you have a little extra ridge of dough to work with. Then, you can take your thumbs and make an imprint with a little raised ridge between each. Continue around the pan using both thumbs. You can technically also use a fork for this if you want a different kind of edge, but Shirley crinkles her nose and shakes her head at this tactic.”Use your thumbs,” she says.

 
At this point you can set the pie crust aside and start on your filling. Pull all your ingredients together, since this is a dump and stir kind of deal.
Start by combining your eggs and sugar and mix well. Add in your corn syrup, vanilla, and bourbon and stir into the eggs, then add in your melted butter.


I added the pecans BEFORE the butter the first time, but I recommend adding the pecans and chocolate chips in last so that all of the liquid ingredients are able to mix and incorporate super well.

Pour the mixture into your pie crust and and bake at 325 degrees for about 45 minutes or until the filling sets. Let sit to firm up and cool for a about 10 minutes, then cut and serve (ideally with vanilla ice cream!)
Hope you like Shirley and my first cooking collaboration (the first of many!)

Lucky Soup with Black Eyed Peas, Greens, and Bacon

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By now, y’all know that I’m not going to let a New Year’s Day pass without eating Black eyed peas and greens in SOME form or fashion for luck and money in the New Year… I’ve made pickled peas, black eyed pea hummus, and this year, I combined the two good-luck foods with pork (a German good-luck food) into a spicy, warm soup. I had some friend over…one of whom asked, “wait, what’s the deal with this soup? is it really eaten for luck?”
This gave me the chance to explain what little I know about the peas… but thankfully I’d read this post about the history beforehand so I knew a little more than past years.
In short, the peas are tied to southern history… they were introduced to the south from West or North Africa and are an ancient food eaten on that continent and also across Asia. Either way you tell it, eating BEP on New Year’s Day dates back to the Civil War. Black eyed peas are undoubtedly an important ingredient in some soul-food dishes, so while there are multiple stories about WHY we eat the peas (from the White Southern Community AND the African American Southern community) exist, I think that the history of BEP as a soul-food staple gives credence to that legend. The way the history goes, the only thing many slaves had to eat on the first day of January were these peas because they were one of the few crops left in the winter fields since the Union armies and Slave-owners thought of them as livestock feed. That day in 1863,  the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, outlawing slavery and these peas were consumed. From then on, they’ve been considered good luck for the future.
Thinking that BEPs are tied not only to good luck but also to a major milestone for freedom and justice in our country makes me even more committed to eating them and looking ahead on the year and what it can bring! Read on for yet another way to have your luck (and for a generally warm, hearty soup for winter time!)
Lucky Soup
What you need:
1 bag  of dried black eyed peas soaked overnight (or 2-3 cans)
4-6 Cups of washed and chopped greens like turnip or/and kale
one jalepeno, diced
2 celery ribs, diced
1 green pepper, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
3-5 strips of bacon
2 cans of diced tomatoes
2 tablespoons of tomato paste
salt, pepper
1 /2 Tablespoon of ground thyme
1 teaspoon of red pepper flakes
Optional: A splash or two of red wine or balsamic vinegar

 

What to Do:
If you’re using dried black eyed peas, the first step begins the night before you plan to make the soup…dump the peas out and sift through them for any beans that have been eaten through or are a darker or redder brown… i don’t think they’ll hurt you  but it’s better to get rid of them in the beginning. Once that’s done, rinse them in a collander and then soak the dried peas in enough water to cover them and then a little bit more. The peas will soak up the water and hydrate, making them soft enough to cook and eat. If you use canned or frozen peas you can skip both of these first steps… and if you forget (heaven forbid!) to overnight soak your peas, then you can do a “quick soak” by putting them in a pot of salted, boiling water for 5-10 minutes. Honestly, I worried that I hadn’t used enough water in my overnight soak, so I did about a 2 minute boil of the peas anyway… the “quick soak” method doesn’t really hurt anything, BUT, beware, it does mean that you’ll end up with more half-peas or peas without the thin casing that holds the two halved together since the boiling water tends to rub that off more easily.
Once your peas are softened or softening, it’s time to cook the bacon! Pork has some sort of lucky significance for Germans, plus bacon just goes SO WELL with peas and turnip greens that it makes sense that we’d cook our veggies in all that flavor. Put the bacon in your pot and cook until brown…
While that’s happening, take the time to dice up your vegetables. Celery, onion, garlic, green bell pepper, and jalepeno pepper were what I used, but you could substitute red bell pepper and chipotle pepper if you wanted a litte bit different look and flavor here..

TIP:  did you know that whole jalepeno peppers freeze really well? If your garden grows more than you can handle, or you just accidentally buy too many at the store, you can drop them in a plastic bag and freeze them until you need them! These came from my aunt’s garden, and thanks to her I have all the peppers I need for a year!

 

Ok, so your veggies are chopped and your bacon has crisped in the pot. Take the bacon out and put it on a paper towel to cool for a bit. Then, dump in your onions into the bacon grease in the bottom of your pot and cook until their translucent.

Add in the garlic and cook briefly until tender, then add in the other diced vegetables. Stir them and cook them until they are a little tender and add in your salt, pepper, thyme, and red pepper flakes. (I gave my approximate seasoning measures above, but I was being conservative this time. feel free to liberally season this soup to your liking!)

Add in your peas, your canned tomatoes and tomato paste.

While that’s all simmering a bit, you’ll want to prepare your greens if you haven’t already.

TIP: I like to clean mine ahead of time and then store them after rinsing them and pulling the leaves off of the stalks (because those kale and turnip green stalks can be TOUGH) in a damp paper towel in a large zip-lock bag. This keeps the greens from wilting and can keep greens (and lettuces, too) fresh for nearly a week. If you haven’t prepped your greens in advance, rinse them thoroughly and pull the leaves from the stalk, then chop or rip up the greens into smaller pieces.

Dump those into the pot (and if you’re adding vinegar or wine, now is the time to do it) and stir around until everything’s all mixed together and let simmer on low for at least one hour so all the flavors mix together. I cooked mine for about 1.5 hours, then let it sit for another 2 hours, then reheated it and tasted for salt and pepper.

 

Serve it with bread and a side salad and you’ve got LUCK for the whole year! Happy new Year!

Fluffy Sour Cream Cornbread

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I have a cornbread addiction.

I love it in ALL of it’s forms… muffins, hot water cracker cornbread, jalepeno, crispy cornpones, cornbread sticks… I just can’t get enough.
Therefore, it made perfect sense that for my first Cookbook club a few months ago I’d pick out the recipe for Sour Cream Cornbread to make for the group. It also may have had something to do with the fact that we were moving the next week and had packed up almost all of our cookware and didn’t have a ton of groceries…but, no matter.

What resulted was a cornbread recipe that was PERFECT to bake ahead and serve to a large group…one with a soft, fluffy texture, a little crispness around the edges, and one that didn’t dry out (even two days later!) If you’ve got to make something for a party, or are having people over for chili (superbowl party, maybe?) but need to make a few things in advance, this is your cornbread recipe. You can thank the Junior League of Birmingham, Alabama from their Tables of Content, Service, Settings, and Supper cookbook AND my fun Delta Cookbook club for the find. (What’s cookbook club, you ask? A fun group of gals who choose a cookbook to make things from for a year, and then have a monthly potluck as we cook our way through! That way, we know what recipes are delicious and which ones are just so-so. Plus, we get to have a girls’ night once a month.) Read on for this cornbread recipe you DEFINITELY need in your repertoire…

Sour Cream Cornbread
Makes about 16 squares

What you Need:
1 Cup All purpose Flour
3/4 Cup Yellow Cornmeal
1/4 Cup Sugar
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
3/4 teaspoon Salt
1 cup sour cream
1/4 cup milk
1 egg, beaten
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil

What to do:
Preheat your oven to 375 degrees, and get out a 9×9 baking dish. Grease it well, then start on the dry ingredients!

Combine the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda in a bowl and mix well.

Mix the sour cream, milk, egg and oil in a bowl and stir in the flour mixture slowly.
Once everything is mixed well, put the batter into your baking pan and bake for 30-40 minutes or until the corn bread tests done.(stick a toothpick or fork into the center of it… if it comes out clean like a cake, it’s done. Also, it’ll be a light golden brown…)

Voila! Once it’s cooled a bit, you can slice it up and serve it (or seal it in an airtight container until you’re ready. If you don’t over-bake it, my experience tells me it’ll stay moist for at least a day and a half!) with your favorite soup or chili!

 

 

New year News!

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Oh wonderful friends,

it’s been  A WHIRLWIND of a 7 months…. since my last post, we bought a house! (with an AMAZING kitchen with FANTASTIC natural light but kind of icky-green formica countertops), I became a mostly one-woman show at work (last year I was part of a fantastic duo), I joined a fun cookbook-club to make some new friends and do some collective cooking, AND, best of all….

We’re expecting a baby boy in just over 2 months!

Obviously our little guy arrives pretty soon, (!!) so things are only going to get crazier, but I WILL NOT be as bad as I’ve been since July. It’s not like I’ve not been cooking and eating ALL the time (one look at my enormous, basketball-shaped baby-bump will tell you that I’ve not missed a meal in nearly 6 months.)

 I promise I’ve taken SO many photos and had the most serious intentions to blog about some super amazing cornbread that stays moist for days, a new black-eyed pea and greens New Year’s Day soup recipe, and a chocolate-bourbon-pecan pie that was TO DIE FOR, but the time to sit down and post about them never materialized. I’ve got some time this week, though, so look-out mess of greens readers! I’ve also got big plans this year to try out a kale and turnip green cashew salad that I read about in Bon-appetit, and to learn more about cooking wild game…

What was YOUR favorite southern dish that you made in 2013? What ingredient are you most excited about experimenting with in 2014??

Summer Squash Souffle’ from the OK Cafe

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One of my all time favorite (and diet-busting) things to do with summer squash is to make a souffle’. The OK Cafe in Atlanta (and I’ve learned, so does Connie’s Kitchen in Leland, MS) both make to-die for versions. The first one I ever had was in Atlanta, so I’d searched around for the OK Cafe’s recipe for awhile, and came across the one they actually use every day for their customers. I mean, 66 pounds of squash and 2 quarts of green onions is a little bit more than I usually buy at the farmer’s market, so I (I mean, boone) did a little math and worked out the proportions for our family. I’ve made this so many times now and I’ve tested it out with a little less mayo or a little more cheese and this is the version that tastes THE MOST like what I remember from the ATL. It’s best served with creamed corn, speckled lima beans, fresh tomatoes, or turnip greens… or really, whatever your favorite combination for your vegetable plate!

Summer Squash Souffle’ from the OK Cafe
Serves 4-6

What you need:
2-3 lbs of squash, cut into half rounds about 1/2″ thick
1 1/2 cup of grated cheddar cheese
1 cup hellman’s mayonnaise (y’all  know I don’t mess around with other kinds of mayo. also, the recipe actually calls for 2 cups, but I think this is WAY too much)
1/4 cup green onions
1 stick of butter
salt and pepper
1 egg
1 cup Crushed ritz crackers or bread crumbs for topping

What to do: 
First, steam the squash until it’s soft and then mash with a potato masher so that you don’t have chunks of squash. Cut the onions and made your breadcrumbs or crush the ritz crackers while you wait to maximize your time.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Melt the butter and sautee’ the green onions in the butter until limp. use a fork or whisk to whip up the raw egg. Once the squash is steamed and mashed and has cooled entirely (the fridge speeds up the process!), mix in the onions with the butter, the egg, the mayonnaise, the cheese and then salt and pepper it to taste.

Pour into a 9″x11″ pyrex dish, top with the bread crumbs or ritz crackers, and bake for about 30-45 minutes or until bubbly. Serve it with your favorite other vegetable sides and savor!

I may or may not have eaten this for 3 meals in the span of 5 days… so, so, so good…but better eaten as a special summer treat once or twice a year for staying on my swimsuit diet!

Considering Paula Deen…

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So, I haven’t written about Paula Deen because I’m not really ever incredibly eloquent when it comes to indignation, anger, and race. After exploring my own background, personal biases, and systemic racism in our country and my home state of Mississippi… after spending countless conversations having my mind opened, ideas challenged, and commitment to justice confirmed… after crying with friends, asking for forgiveness from strangers, and reflecting on what it means to be white and southern in a place with a hateful history and  more than difficult present when it comes to justice, race, and equality… I really have so many thoughts and feelings that I can’t really express them.

…

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Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Rosemary Browned Butter

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My friend Zach recently introduced me to the delicious world of homemade gnocchi… he brought over all of the ingredients to make beet gnocchi and regular potato gnocchi and we celebrated the end of his first year of teaching. (he’s a rock star) Although I loved what we made, the whole time we were cooking (which was a long time since TWO different kinds of gnocchi and a salad for 4 people means that I used nearly every pot in my house, the blender, several cutting boards, and more mixing bowls than you could imagine)  I just kept thinking, “well now, wouldn’t this be AMAZING made sweet potatoes?”  I mean, what isn’t made better by the south’s very own superfood?
 Thankfully, I didn’t have to invent the recipe since other cooks although thought this would be a great combo. I did, however, made a few changes and combine a few different recipes, given what I had on hand and what flavors I wanted.
Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Rosemary Brown Butter
Serves 4
What you Need:
For the Gnocchi
 2 pounds sweet potatoes
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 egg
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese (1/4 for dough, 1/4 for serving)
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus 1/3 cup for the work surface
For the brown butter
1/2 cup salted butter (1 stick)
2 fresh rosemary stalks
What to Do:
Some recipes I looked up tell you to bake the sweet potatoes, but I was a little bit under the gun since I was hosting two friends/coworkers/fave gals for a summertime dinner and only started cooking about 30 minutes before they were to arrive. Since I’d just tested out regular and beet gnocchi, I knew making this stuff was a pretty involved process, and that meant I needed to cut time in whatever way I could. Rather than bake or roast them, I boiled the potatoes instead, which didn’t really sacrifice flavor as far as I could tell. You could do either, depending on the time you’ve got! (in fact, I’d say if you’ve made gnocchi before, this recipe could take about 75 minutes..but if you’re new to this fun culinary experiment, then allot 90-95 minutes or so from beginning to end)
once I’d gotten the potatoes boiling, I put the flour, egg, and seasonings together in the mixing bowl. When the potatoes were ready, I cooled them in an ice bath, pureed them in a food processor, and mixed it all in with the flour mixture.

 

 

Once the potato and flour mixture have been fulyl incorporated, and the texture of the dough is smooth and not too wet or sticky, I dumped the dough out onto a floured surface, separated in into about 5 equal sized hunks, and rolled each into a long, thin cylinder about the width of a thumb.

Once that’s done, I boiled a pot of water. Then, I started to cut the dough into small rectangles (about 1″ by 1 1/4″).

To give the gnocchi the little characteristic ridges, use a fork to roll the little pieces of dough… mine honestly never turn out perfectly, but they still taste GREAT. Drop the dough into the boiling water and wait until it pops up to the top..about 1 minute (when it floats, it’s cooked all the way through…if it’s still on the bottom of the pot it may need a minute or so more).

 

 

To make the browned butter sauce, take the stick of butter in a sauce pan or skillet and cook over medium high heat, swirling it around the pan a little, and waiting until the bubbles/foam goes down a bit. the butter will start to turn brown, and at that point, drop in the whole rosemary pieces and let simmer for 1 or 2 minutes to infuse the butter with the rosemary flavor. Other recipes call for sage browned butter, or pecan browned butter, or balsamic browned butter… I figure you can’t go wrong with any of them. I chose rosemary because I have a HUGE rosemary plant outside my kitchen door, and I thought the two flavors would mix well together… they DEFINITELY do.

Once every thing is ready, serve the gnocchi with the Parmesan cheese, the browned butter, and a sprig of rosemary and enjoy!

 

Blackened Catfish and Spicy Pinapple Salsa

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 It’s spring time, which means that Boone and I try to eat as much fish and fruit as possible…also, on springtime Sunday afternoons, all I want is a homemade frozen margarita for some reason, and spicy food goes just great with that.Plus, when we went down to the Fla Keys last fall I think every single meal I had something blackened, so it was time to try our hand at that. On top of that, since I’m back on the weight watchers wagon (whooo!!! or booo! depending on who you ask…) and since we may or may not have eaten chinese food on Saturday night, we wanted something light.You may have seen the catfish tacos that I posted last year, and this is a similar idea with different flavors. If you liked those, read on for your own spring time blackened catfish feast.
 
What you need for the catfish
a cast iron skillet
4 catfish fillets
4 sprays cooking spray
For the Rub
 2 1/2 Tablespoons Paprika
2 Tbs Salt
2 T garlic powder
1 T black pepper
1 T cayenne pepper
1 T dried oregano
1 T french poultry seasoning (in place of thyme)
What you need for the salsa
1 can of pinapple rounds (or one fresh pinapple, peeled and cored), diced
1 medium fresh tomato, diced
1/2 red onion, diced
1 jalepeno chile (diced fine)
Juice of 2 fresh limes
salt to taste
we didn’t have any, but I’d also recommend cilantro.

Serve with Greek Yogurt and cilantro!

What to do: 
Start by dicing all of the fruit and the onion and jalepeno and combining in the large bowl.
 
once everything is diced in about the same size pieces, juice the lime and pour it over the fruit. Salt to taste. Let this stand and marinate for at least 30 minutes, if not longer so the flavors meld together and it gets spicy and sweet.
Once that’s ready, start preparing the fish by mixing the spices together to make the rub. Once that’s taken care of, set aside and heat the cast iron skillet on high for  6 minutes. it may smoke, but you need it to be hot enough to blacken…but not hot so hot that it cracks (because you can do that to a skillet, btw).
pat the fillets dry, and then cover them in about 1 tablespoon of rub per fillet. You can use more, but 1 tablespoon does the trick. Once you’re ready to blacken, spray the skillet with cooking spray.

place the catfish in the pan making sure that the fillets don’t touch. If they touch, the meat steams rather than crisps…which just isn’t the same as blackened. Cook for 3-4 minutes on each side, until the fish is firm and flakey… you’ll know it’s ready because there’ll be a nice black crust on the top.

 

VOILA! serve with tortilla chips  or saffron rice and black beans and a dollop of plain greek yogurt on the top for a tropical-ish treat using my favorite southern fish!

 

Dining Out Delta: Juke Joint Crawfish

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it’s FINALLY crawfish season here in the ‘Sip, and we’ve been eating the hell out those spicy little things. At festivals on picnic tables, in our own backyard over a washtub, over newspaper on the kitchen counter… wherever we can find some space (and have an opportunity), we’ve been taking full advantage of the time of year. not everybody likes mudbugs (something about looking your dinner square in the face while you peel their shell away makes some folks queasy, I guess..and other people can’t take the spicy slow-burn of the Old Bay, crab boil, and salt that seasons the water) but I can’t get enough of them. I’ve heard that getting them shipped live out of their native lands MS and LA and Texas can cost CRAZY amounts, so it’s probably better to just make a trip down south if you’ve never tried them before.

 

In fact, my most favorite people in the whole world came down last weekend for our favorite Festival of all time.. the Juke Joint Festival in Clarksdale, MS. (That’s a lot of favorites, I know… but truly, I’m not exaggerating!)  Blues music everywhere, local folks, visitors from around the Delta, along with European tourists milling around the downtown, funnel cakes, hot tamales, booths and booths of artists’ wares, and all of the juke joints in town open with great live music… if you’ve not been here for it, you should make a note on your calendar RIGHT NOW for next year’s festival…the 3rd weekend in April.

Anyway, every year we eat crawfish until we burst…. it turns out that 30 pounds of cooked crawfish for 8 people may just have been a few too many, but we sure did make a solid effort to eat them all. Sometimes we get them at the Delta Amusement Cafe (worth it!) but this year we worried they’d run out before we arrived, so we ordered them from a great place down the road from our house… Fratesi’s Grocery. They make them just spicy enough to make your lips tingle, but not spicy enough that you have to stop eating them… perfect.

If you want to cook your own, you’ll either have to buy them at a store (if you live between Texas and Florida) OR, if you live in other parts of the country and are dead set on it, you’ll have to order them, which I’ve heard costs an arm and a leg since you have to order them LIVE. If that’s your lot, I’d recommend just coming down to Juke Joint or making sure to visit deep south in spring time!

We didn’t cook our own this time, but the next time we do, I’ll share the secrets with you! For now, let your mouth water at all the spicy goodness…

Crawfish Bisque

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I LOVE LOVE LOVE boiled crawfish and it’s FINALLY the time of year when you can get them EVERYWHERE. (see tomorrow’s post). but just BEFORE crawfish season,  I got a taste for some and decided to try my hand at a bisque. I mean, obviously I prefer fresh ones just out of the pot on a springtime afternoon, but sometimes that’s just not possible.
 During the months of about July- February you can enjoy this little delicacy by way of the freezer section of your grocer, and honestly, if you’re going to make a soup, bisque, or etoufee’, why on earth would you want to go through the trouble of boiling THEN peeling enough of the little guys for everyone at your table? trust me, you wouldn’t…which means the little frozen packages are a godsend, if not as juicy and fresh as the ones you’d cook yourself.
My bisque was a pretty basic attempt, but it hit the spot for me and told my tastebuds spring was on it’s way. Here’s how you can replicate it (and make it even better with your own additions) if you’re interested!
Crawfish Bisque
Serves 4 (or 3 if you’re like me and have a portion control problem)
What you need:
1 tablespoon of oil (or less..just enough to saute’ the vegetables)
one red bell pepper, diced
one white onion, diced
two ribs of celery, diced
1 or 1/2 lb of frozen, cooked crawfish, roughly chopped
1 can of corn, drained
1/4 cup of white wine
1 1/2 Cups of chicken stock  (OR 1 cup of chicken stock and 1/2 cup of lobster/seafood stock)
3/4 Cup of heavy cream (or whole milk if you’re cutting calories)
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp of cayenne pepper
1/2 bunch of green onions or parsley for presentation
What to do:
Chop the celery, bell pepper, and onion. Saute’ the the onion until translucent, and add in the celery and pepper. Saute’ for 1-2 minutes. Add in the cayenne, salt, and pepper. I feel like the heat releases more flavor and cooks into the vegetables more evenly than when you add it in afterwards.
 

Drain the corn and add it with the crawfish into the pot. stir for 1 minute. Pour in the white wine and let that cook down for about 3 minutes.

Pour in the stock/broth  and add the bay leaf and let simmer for at least 30 minutes (but longer is usually better for flavors to meld together)

Just before serving, add in the cream. this will lighten the color and give it a really lovely richness… viola’! you’ve got a southern seafood bisque that tells you spring is on the way (or already here!) serve with crusty bread and sprinkle it with green onion for a little color… and your good silver if you want it to feel like more than a regular old soup. I did. 😉