Weekly Dish

My mom has been making this breakfast casserole for as long as I can remember. For baby showers, brunch, or simply for a nice Saturday breakfast, this recipe is a simple way to feed a lot of people. I remember Mom often making it the day before she needed to take it somewhere, so the morning of whatever event we were attending or hosting, all she had to do was tuck it in the oven.

The key to the flavor, in my opinion, is the sausage. My favorite version is with Jimmy Dean maple-flavored breakfast sausage, but I’ve had a difficult time finding it in the grocery store here. When I made the casserole over the holidays for my sister-in-law and her parents, I added a tablespoon of maple syrup to the sausage as I cooked it. Not quite the same, but still good.

Once the sausage is cooked, it’s really just a matter of assembly. Shred the bread, beat the eggs, layer everything into a casserole, and you’re all set. With fresh fruit and a cup of coffee, this breakfast is hard to beat, especially if you have company coming. My one caution is not to be tempted to overdo it on the cheese: the texture is light and fluffy, so you don’t want to weigh it down. Other than that, I find this to be a pretty no-fail recipe. Plus, it makes me think about my mom. Isn’t she cute?

Mom’s Breakfast Casserole

1 lb. maple-flavored breakfast sausage
9 eggs
2 cups milk
1 1/2 tsp. ground mustard
1 small loaf French bread
3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cook and drain the sausage. Grease a 3-quart rectangular casserole dish and line the bottom with shredded French bread (I just tear it into small pieces with my hands). Beat the eggs and milk together; add the ground mustard. Season with salt and pepper (I use about 1/2 tsp. of each). Spread the sausage on top of the bread; pour the eggs evenly over. Top with the cheese, and bake for about an hour.

Whenever I visit my parents in Mississippi, the first thing my dad wants to know is what I want him to cook. For our holiday visit over Christmas, I thought it was high time that I learned to make a proper etouffee, seeing as how I now live in the land of fabulous Cajun cooking. Dad complied, and so I am pleased to share the recipe with you, as I diligently took notes during each step of the preparation.

One of the things I noticed as I was watching him (and we’ll see this later on when my Grandmother teaches us to make dressing) is that I come by my “cook by feel” method quite honestly. There’s very little measuring that goes on in the kitchens of these folk. I did insist that we measure some things, as you will see from the recipe, but both Dad and his mom say that the best way to figure out what your dish needs is to taste it and then add some stuff. Not very scientific, I know, but the more you cook, the more you learn this trick.

When I first started cooking regularly, I tried to follow recipes exactly because I was afraid of screwing up our dinner. If the recipe called for celery, I’d use celery, even though I don’t usually like celery that much. Since then, I’ve become more confident at making substitutions and leaving things out entirely. All I can say is that it comes with practice. Of course, having these techniques in the family doesn’t hurt either. You just have to pay close attention.

Dad’s Shrimp Etouffee

3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup butter
4 stalks celery, small-diced
1 bell pepper, small-diced
2 medium onions, small-diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 green onions, white and green parts minced
3 bay leaves
3 small tomatoes, chopped
2 pounds shrimp, in their shells
Tony Chachere’s
Salt
Cayenne pepper

First, peel the shrimp. Put the shells into a large stockpot to make the shrimp stock. Add the trimmings from the onions and celery; cover with water. Season with Tony Chachere’s. We didn’t measure here, but my guess was about a tablespoon. Bring the mixture to a boil, and let it simmer until you need it. Put the peeled shrimp into a bowl; season them wtih Tony’s as well (dust lightly). Set aside.

Next, make a roux with the butter and flour, stirring them together in a large saucepan or cast iron dutch oven over medium to medium-high heat, until the mixture begins to turn golden. Dad agrees with Emeril: the roux takes 2 beers to brown. Just keep stirring, so that the flour doesn’t stick to the bottom and burn. When it’s ready, it should look like this:
Once the roux has browned properly, add the celery, bell pepper, and onion; coat the vegetables with the roux. Cook until all vegetables are very soft and translucent. Season with salt and cayenne pepper (a good bit of salt, and as much cayenne as you can handle; Dad likes it hot! Just remember that the Tony’s has both salt and cayenne in it too.) Add the garlic, tomatoes, bay leaves, and green onions (reserve some of the green onion for garnish). Stir into the roux-vegetable mixture.

Here’s where the measuring goes out the window. You add the stock, a little at a time (maybe a half cup per addition), stirring so that the roux and the stock become thoroughly blended. You have to wait until you think the mixture has come back up to temperature before adding more stock (it should simmer a little–that’s how you know). All in all we ended up adding one quart of stock for this amount. The key is consistency: you don’t want it to be too thin (like gumbo), but you also want it to be pourable, so not too thick. Cream sauce consistency is what you’re after. When the thickness is right, add the shrimp. Dad also added some worcestshire sauce and Tabasco while I wasn’t looking, so I have no idea how much. He topped ours with crab meat, but that’s not really necessary. Right before serving, taste for seasoning. Serve over rice, and garnish with the leftover green onions.

Roasting a whole chicken (or two) is a fabulous way to make a meal that lasts all week. We’ll have the plain old chicken itself with crispy roasted potatoes the first night, and then there will be meat leftover for at least two more meals in the week, plus stock. What’s not to love about that?

Who gets to actually cook the chicken on the other hand is a whole different matter.

The right to roast the birds in our family has often been the source of controversy. My aunts have fought long and hard over who’s roast chicken is best, but the truth must finally be known.

Here’s my confession: the best roasted chicken in my house has been made, not by me (who follows the aunts’ recipes), but by my husband. In the days when he worked in an office, he made the Thanksgiving habit of roasting turkeys every year, and apparently, over the years he learned a thing or two. His roast chicken is DELICIOUS. It’s usually much moister than mine (even though he had an off night the other night and it cooked too long, his record is still pretty good), and the flavor is the perfect balance of lemon and piny rosemary. So, when he put together his perfect creation over the weekend, he agreed to dictate the instructions to me so I could share them with you. Let me reiterate that I quote verbatim. These are not my words, I tell you, but his. Got that? THESE ARE NOT MY WORDS. Okay. Here are his instructions:

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Broccoli has never been one of my favorite foods. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure I really ate much broccoli until I was in my twenties (unless you count the kind that comes in a casserole dish smothered with cream of mushroom soup and cheese).

In the first six months we were married, David and I lived in a small apartment downtown in the small Mississippi suburb where I grew up. My soon-to-be sister-in-law Hannah lived just a block away, and during those months, we shared many a meal (and many a load of laundry–Hannah was the only one of us with a washer.) She made this broccoli for us one night, and I have not fixed it any other way since. I love the tangy sauce, the crunchy cashews, and the texture of the not-soggy-but-not-too-crisp broccoli. Most of all, though, I love to make it because it reminds me of the delight of being within walking (and meal-sharing) distance of one of my favorite people (she and David’s brother now live far, far away in Pasadena, California).

If you’re noticing a trend with my vegetable preparation, it is true that I need a bit of sauce to make the vegetables go down smoothly. But in my defense, it makes me enjoy eating them, rather than forcing them down because they’re good for me. And if I were really honest, I would tell you that I’ve not done much forcing since I’ve been cooking for myself. So the sauce is getting me to eat more vegetables, and that’s always a good thing. Right?

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Over the holidays, David and I spent about 2 weeks travelling in Mississippi to see family. Part of the fun, for me at least, is to have lots of people in the kitchen. I hope to recount some of those family kitchen adventures for you in the coming weeks, while sharing the family recipes I’ve gathered or shared along the way. One of the favorite snack items among David’s family is salsa I’ve been bringing to Christmas for the past few years. This year, since our travels were so prolonged and our packing space limited, I decided to wait until we got there to make the salsa. To my delight, my niece and nephew, Abigail and Jacob, were excited to help with the process.

At home, I use a food processor, but in my mother-in-law’s kitchen, we improvised with a blender, and it worked just fine. This recipe is one I make over and over and over again, but I don’t measure the spices (usually), so it always comes out a little different. I quantified the spices once, for friends who wanted the recipe, but these amounts are really just guesses. I add and taste and add and taste until it tastes right to me. I had salsa like this one once in Peru, and this recipe here represents my attempt to replicate it. Fresh cilantro, lemon, and garlic are the non-negotiables; I like to serve the salsa with lime-flavored tortilla chips.

Peruvian Salsa

4 cloves garlic
1 bunch fresh cilantro, stems removed
Juice of 1 lemon
1 jalapeno pepper
1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes
Kosher salt, start with a teaspoon (I probably end up adding 2 more, but I like things salty)
Ground cumin, about 2 teaspoons

In a food processor, mince the garlic cloves and jalapeno pepper together by pulsing several times. If you like your salsa spicy, add the pepper whole (minus the stem of course), but if you are sensitive to heat, you can remove the seeds for a milder flavor. Then, add the cilantro through the feed tube with the motor running, and process all of the vegetables are very finely minced. Add the lemon juice, salt and cumin, and tomatoes, and pulse a few times to combine. Be careful not to overprocess here, though, or the salsa will be too runny and not chunky enough. Unless, of course, you prefer your salsa juicy; then, process away.

Note: If you don’t have a food processor, you can process everything in the blender with about a tablespoon of the crushed tomatoes. Then, pour the blender-mixture into a bowl with the remaining tomatoes and stir to combine.

This is my sister. She is holding a piece of the apple pie she made when she came to visit. Doesn’t she look happy? I am trying to convince her that cooking is a delightful hobby for us to share. Of course, she lives in the dorm at the moment, so she doesn’t have much of a need to cook. But she will one day. Or so I keep telling her.

Really, I think, there are very few things in life quite like having a sister. I was 9 when Elizabeth was born, and I already had two brothers. And I liked them okay, but, well, they were. . .you know. . .boys. When my mom told us she was having a baby I just knew it would be a girl. I knew because I prayed every single night before I went to sleep that it would be. I have some pretty hilarious diary entries which reveal these facts (apparently I’ve been writing most of my life).

Of course by the time she was about 3, I was convinced that the joke was on me. By the time I was into wearing make-up and jewelry, she was into smearing my makeup all over her arms and legs and scattering the earrings for my newly pierced ears from one end of the house to the other. By the time I was into watching movies with boys in my parents’ living room, she was into spying on us. Or opening the front door to some unsuspecting boy only to slam it in his face. Or parading around in little to no clothing. We shared a bedroom my last three years of high school, and by the time I left for the dorm, I was pretty sure we would never have anything in common.

But growing up has mysterious effects on sibling relationships. As each year goes by, I think we are more and more alike in some ways and different in some really complementary ones too. We like a lot of the same foods, for instance, and I am trying really hard to persuade her that we both also love to cook it. Whenever she comes to visit, we spend a lot of time in the kitchen. This last time, I put her in charge of the apple pie. And, she did a fantastic job. See how tasty it looks?