Weekly Dish

(the last of the Oscar-night series, I promise)

For the main course of our Oscar-night dinner, David and I chose ribs, purely for the appropriateness of the name. I’d never cooked babyback ribs before, and to be honest, I’m usually not a huge barbecue fan. Sure, I like to eat it every now and then (and of course whenever I’m in Memphis), but it just isn’t something I crave.

So I wanted more than just a plain barbecue sauce for these. Traditionally, ribs are either dry or wet, meaning the flavor comes from a dry spice rub or from a sauce. I decided to combine these methods, cooking the ribs at a high temperature for a brief period of time after they’d been coated with the spices, and then covering with sauce to cook at the lower temperature. Most rib preparations take hours and hours; the cooking time for these was reduced to about an hour and a half.

The sauce is by far the best part about this recipe–I love the smoky flavor of the chipotle combined with the marmalade, garlic, and molasses; the spice rub added an extra layer of depth that was nice too. The salad is a simple early spring-time one I make a lot with strawberries and goat cheese; the ingredients follow the rib recipe.

Brokeback Ribs

2 1/2 pound slab of babyback ribs

Spice rub:
1 t. Kosher salt
1 t. brown sugar
1/2 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. ground cloves
1/2 t. allspice
1/4 t. cayenne pepper

Sauce:
2 T. butter
4 cloves garlic
Zest and juice of one orange
2 T. cider vinegar
2 T. cane syrup or molasses
1/4 c. oyster sauce (hoisin sauce would work too)
1/4 c. chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
1/2 c. orange marmalade

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Cut the ribs into sections of 4, cutting close to the bone to separate. Mix the spice rub ingredients together. Rub the mixture evenly over the ribs on both sides. Arrange the ribs on a broiler pan or rimmed baking sheet, and slide into the oven. Bake for 8 minutes; turn them, and bake for 10 minutes more. Reduce the oven tempreature to 300 degrees.

Meanwhile, prepare the sauce. Melt the butter in a skillet over medium. Add the garlic and orange zest; cook until golden brown, about 4 minutes. Increase the heat to medium-high, and add the vinegar and the orange juice. Let it reduce for a few minutes, until some of the liquid has evaporated. Reduce the heat to medium-low, add the remaining ingredients, and let them cook until the mixture is thick and syrupy.

Pour the sauce evenly over the ribs and cover tightly with foil. Cook at 300 for about an hour (ours were done at this point, but you’ll need to check; you want to make sure that the meat is falling off the bone and that no pink remains). Because our sweet potatoes needed to cook at a high temperature for another few minutes, I uncovered the ribs and slid them into the oven too at 450 degrees. This step is probably not necessary, but it helps to seal the glaze, making the sauce into a dense, sticky coating, which we liked. Let the ribs rest for a few minutes after they’ve finished cooking.

I spent those minutes throwing together our Constant Garden Salad, which consisted of greens, strawberries, green onions, and goat cheese drizzled with basalmic vinegar, olive oil, honey, and salt.

Thanks to everyone who has patiently endured my Oscar dorkiness; it has been fun, but now it’s time to retire the tiara until next year. Until then, Good Night and Good Luck. (how could I resist?!)

To celebrate our Mardi Gras vacation from school (we’re off until Thursday!), I decided I should make a meal using the rich culinary heritage of southern Louisiana. Crawfish season is well underway here–they usually become widely available in January–so they seemed an obvious choice. Having already learned how to make the more traditional etouffee, I wanted to try something a little different.

When I worked at the Brick-Oven Cafe in Jackson, we served a crawfish pasta dish that was one of our most popular. The sauce was laden with cream, butter, and cheese, and I didn’t want anything quite that heavy, but the distinct Louisiana flavoring, I remembered, came from the combination of the crawfish and the Cajun-spiced ham called tasso.

After finding tasso in the deli at my neighborhood grocery store, David and I set out for the famous fish market here in town, Tony’s. This was our first trip there, and it was quite an experience. We entered a loud, concrete-floored room and met a tank of fresh lobsters on our left and catfish swimming in water-filled troughs on our right. On the back wall are two counters–on the left side you can buy already-prepared dishes like crawfish pie and jambalaya, and on the right, you buy crawfish, shrimp, and other fresh fish. I wanted to buy the crawfish live, so that we could boil them ourselves, but only the already-boiled ones were available.

To make the pasta, I peeled the crawfish, tossing the heads and tail shells into a large stockpot, and the tail meat into a separate bowl. I boiled the shells with a lemon and salt to make stock, and then gathered the other ingredients to make the sauce.

Two tricks make this dish full of flavor: the first is that you cook the tasso in a little olive oil in the pot you are going to use for the roux. The ham gives off its spicy flavor and provides a little bit of fat so you don’t have to use so much butter. The second trick is to boil the pasta in equal parts water and crawfish stock. The stock is rich with the spice from the crawfish shells and imparts that flavor to the noodles.

The results were delicious, if I do say so myself. The ridges in the rigatoni provided the perfect place for the sauce to stick, and the consistency of the sauce worked well to evenly coat the crawfish, ham, and noodles. Add a piece of crusty bread and a glass of dry white wine. . .and we had ourselves a very happy Monday-before-Mardi Gras indeed.

Cajun Crawfish Pasta

3 pounds crawfish, cooked
1 lemon
1 pound rigatoni
1 t. olive oil
1/2 pound tasso
2 T. butter
1 T. olive oil
1/4 cup flour
1 yellow onion
3/4 cup chopped tomatoes
1 T. Kosher salt
2 cups stock

For the stock: Shell the crawfish, piling the heads and shells into a large stockpot. (Reserve the tail meat). Add a quartered lemon and a palmful of salt and cover with water. Bring to a rolling boil, reduce the heat, and simmer for at least 20 or 30 minutes (the longer you simmer, the more flavorful the stock will be). Strain off the liquid and discard the solids.

Cook the pasta in equal parts stock and water (I used 2 cups of each for a pound of rigatoni). Drain when al dente and set aside.

Heat a teaspoon of olive oil in a large pot or skillet over medium (I used the same pot I cooked the noodles in). Add the ham and cook, stirring until the pieces are a golden brown, about 10 minutes. Remove the ham, but reserve the fat. Add 1 tablespoon of olive oil and 2 tablespoons of butter. When the butter has melted, stir in the flour. Cook over medium-low, stirring, until the roux turns a light brown. This step took me about 10 minutes. Add the chopped onion and stir to coat with the roux. Cook over medium until very soft, 15-18 minutes. Add the chopped tomatoes and cook for another couple of minutes. Season with salt.

Stir in 2 cups of stock and cook, stirring, until smooth. Stir in the crawfish tails, the ham, and the pasta. (Note: If you want the pasta to be saucier, you can always add more stock; I wanted a thick consistency that would coat the noodles and meats rather than a thin sauce.) Cook for about a minute until everything is nicely blended and warmed through. Serve immediately.

My love of all things Ina is no secret to those who know me well. I have learned much about cooking from the Barefoot Contessa, and her cookbooks remain my most-often referenced.

For Christmas, my dear sister-in-law, who shares my love of the Contessa, gave me Barefoot in Paris. The reason I haven’t posted about it yet is because I believe in getting to know a cookbook before I commit to a full-blown evening with it. Call me old-fashioned, but I tend to take things slowly, reading the book through over a cup of coffee once or twice, getting a feel for what it has to offer, before I settle on my first recipe.

As the weather has been truly stew-worthy and as I thought my foray into French cuisine should start with something simple and classic, I began with Beef Bourguignon. Not the most photogenic dish, mind you, but don’t be fooled by its humble appearance. This stew is well worth the time you must wait for it to come to full flavor and the price of the wine and brandy you must put up to coax the homely beef, carrots, and onions into saucy decadence.

One of the things I most like about the dish is its versatility. The first night we ate it over garlic-rubbed bread, as the Contessa instructs. But rice and egg noodles also made good accompaniments, and thinned with some beef broth, it makes an excellent soup. The best thing about it, though, is that I made it on a Monday and it provided at least 3 other meals for us throughout the week (that’s 8 servings altogether), and I thought it was even better each time I ate it again, which doesn’t usually happen with me and leftovers. For a busy, cold week, this beef stew was my perfect match. Definitely worth the wait.

Beef Bourguignon
adapted from Ina Garten’s Barefoot in Paris (thanks, Hannah!)

Olive oil
1/2 pound bacon, diced
2 1/2 pounds beef chuck, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 pound carrots, sliced thickly on the bias
1 yellow onion, sliced
1 red onion, sliced
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 cup brandy
1 bottle dry red wine
1 14 1/2-ounce can beef broth
1 T. tomato paste
1 T. chopped fresh rosemary (or thyme or sage)
3 T. butter
3 T. flour

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees. Heat a teaspoon or 2 of olive oil in the biggest skillet (with a lid) you’ve got or in a Dutch oven.  Brown the bacon until it’s done, but not crispy. Remove the bacon, but leave the fat; return to medium-high heat. Add the cubes of beef in batches, making sure not to overcrowd the pan. Turn the pieces quickly to brown the meat on all sides; remove to the plate with the bacon.

When all the meat is seared, add the carrots and onions to the pan and cook for about 12-15 minutes, until the onions are golden brown. Add the garlic, and cook for another few minutes. Season with plenty of Kosher salt and cracked pepper. Now comes the fun part. Have the half cup of brandy and a match or lighter. Add the brandy, and light it on fire, standing away from the stove. It will burn off in less than a minute, but it’s fun to watch!

Stir in the beef and bacon pieces, and pour in the wine. Stir and season with salt and pepper. Add the beef broth; make sure that the meat is sufficiently covered. Stir in the tomato paste and rosemary. Bring the mixture to a boil, then pop it into the oven to cook for about an hour.

Remove the pan from the oven and return to the stove top. Mash the butter and flour into a paste, and stir into the stew to thicken. Bring it to a boil; reduce and simmer for about 10-15 minutes. To serve, layer thick slices of crusty bread, rubbed with cut garlic, into bowls; ladle the stew on top.

Note: Ina’s recipe calls for small frozen onions and sauteed mushrooms, to be added after the stew has been cooked in the oven. I was too hungry to slice and cook mushrooms by the time the stew was ready, but I’m sure they would make a nice addition. In my opinion, the stew is onion-y enough, so I left out the frozen ones altogether.

I’ve decided to take my battle with the cold weather to a new level. Making hearty food that warms me and standing in front of a hot stove are certainly tactics worth their salt. There’s nothing quite like the sensation of being warmed from the inside out, as hot or spicy food fills you up and radiates its magic.

But, what if, instead, I asked myself, I simply pretended it wasn’t cold at all? What if I channeled the warmth of spring by cooking springtime food? This sounds crazy, you say. You can’t trick yourself into a season!

Usually I wouldn’t be in favor of such trickery because it would probably mean cooking with out-of-season vegetables, which I don’t like to do (mealy tomatoes, anyone?) But perhaps it’s no accident that citrus is in season in the dead of winter. Perhaps the lemons and oranges on the trees this time of year are meant precisely to coax us out of our cold-weather slumber, to give us a glimpse of the light, bright flavors of spring, to tide us over until warm air returns.
Springtime in Mississippi has always been my favorite time of year. The whole green world seems to come to life in a matter of days, and the temperature is balmy and pleasant, not too hot like summer. This coming spring will be my first in Louisiana, but I’m already a bit disconcerted. The Japanese magnolias and pear trees have already bloomed out, and the azaleas are starting to show their vibrant pinks in full flower. And it’s 40 degrees outside!

Well, instead of complaining about it, I decided to channel the warm spring air from my kitchen. Last spring, as soon as it was warm enough, David and I spent many a Sunday afternoon with our friends Jerrod and Jessie and Lydia in a park not far from our neighborhood. We packed whatever food we had on hand that seemed appropriate, tossed a blanket in the trunk, and headed outdoors.

This pasta salad recipe is one Jessie gave me a long time ago, and it reminds me of springtime, picnics, and most of all, good friends.

Jessie’s Pasta Salad
I made this with leftover chicken from one of David’s Roasted Birds; it comes together in a snap and tastes even better the next day.
1/2 cup sour cream
juice of 1 lemon
6 T. olive oil
2 T. Cavender’s Greek Seasoning
1/2 T. lemon pepper
3 1/2 cups cooked chicken, chopped (I don’t think I use quite that much)
Olives, either a small can of the sliced black ones or a handful of your favorite fancier ones (I used Greek ones this time because I had them)
4 green onions, sliced
1/2 red bell pepper, diced (I omitted this, but I bet the color would be nice)
12-ounce package bow tie pasta

Cook the pasta until al dente; drain and set aside. Mix up the dressing in a large bowl by whisking together th sour cream, lemon juice, olive oil, and seasonings. Toss in the pasta and stir to coat. Add the chicken, green onions, olives, and bell pepper if using. Mix well, until everything is coated with the dressing. Eat immediately, or refrigerate until you’re ready for your (pretend) picnic.

I know I shouldn’t complain about the cold. I live in southern Louisiana for crying out loud. But I tell you, when we bought our house (in July when it was 100 degrees), we didn’t really think to check the insulation or ask about the efficiency of the heating system. Boy do I wish we had. The conventional foundation means we’re up off the ground (cold), and the 1920s windows and doors are not quite as tightly sealed as they were, say, 80 years ago (drafty and cold). Plus, it’s humid, which makes the cold colder.

And I, friends, am not a cold weather kind of girl.

The cold affects my culinary senses one of two ways: either I crave standing in front of the hot stove making something hearty and satisfying or I simply want to stay in bed, food or not (it’s really the only warm place in our house besides in front of the stove).

Fortunately for David, I’m coming out of the stay-in-bed-with-my-books-and-computer slump and working towards spending as much time in front of the stove as possible.

This soup is an old standby, and it hits the hot spot on both counts: spice and temperature. The soup is rich and garlicky, thick with the tomato puree and chunky because of the chopped ones. After a big bowl of this (and the time I spend cooking it) I sometimes can even take my coat off and not be freezing.

But only sometimes.

Spicy Tomato Soup

4 slices bacon
1 yellow onion, chopped
6-8 cloves garlic, chopped
1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes
1 16-ounce can chopped tomatoes
1-2 t. Kosher salt
2 cups chicken stock or canned broth
1/4 t. cayenne pepper
Cracked black pepper
Half and half or heavy cream (optional)

Cook the bacon in a large pot until brown and crispy. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside. Cook the onion in the bacon fat over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes, until just tender. Add the garlic, and cook for another 5-8 minutes, until both are very soft and the garlic is beginning to turn golden. Salt and pepper well. (I don’t measure my salt, but with soup, I’ve found that if you season as you go, instead of all at once at the very end, you’ll end up with a nicely enhanced flavor, rather than a salty soup.) Stir in the crushed tomatoes, then add the chopped ones and their liquid. Add the broth, and season again. Bring the soup to a simmer,then reduce the heat and add the cayenne. Taste and adjust seasonings if needed. The soup is ready to serve at this point, but I usually leave mine on the stove on low heat for a while, to let the flavors mingle a little longer. When ready to serve, spoon into bowls and top with a few drops of half and half or cream and a crumble of bacon. Focaccia bread makes an excellent vehicle for dipping, if you’re so inclined. This soup could easily be vegetarian: substitute olive oil or butter for the bacon fat and vegetable broth for the chicken stock.
This recipe is my submission to this week’s ARF Tuesdays over at Sweetnicks.

I am not a lover of controversy. In fact, I hate confrontation of all kinds. Probably one of the main reasons I did not make a very good middle school teacher, in fact, was my reluctance to incite any ill feelings in my (12-year-old) students by confronting them. (They, of course, did not practice the same kind of restraint). This personality is much better suited for college teaching; I have had to have the occasional confrontation with a student, but very seldom.

Due to my non-confrontational-ness, I have been hesitant to post about or respond to any of this week’s food blogging controversy (involving this article about food blogging in Food and Wine magazine).

The sandwich pictured above has cheese on it, though, and it is, in fact, what I had for dinner last night, which is usually what I write about. Those of you who read regularly know why I write this blog, and it certainly isn’t to impress any professional journalist. I did my stint with a glossy magazine, and frankly, I’ll take writing about real food that real people might eat and cook any day. And, when I’m looking for writing about food to read, or recipes to use, I follow the same principles.

Take this Philly Cheese Steak sandwich, for instance. Earlier in the week, I made pizza dough, and baked a round of focaccia bread with what I had leftover. So, exhausted when I got home from class at 8 pm last night, I made a quick supper by slicing up some sweet potato fries to go in the oven, and then sauteeing some red onions, adding some thinly sliced steak, and stirring in some cubed cheddar cheese to melt. Is dumping this mixture on the focaccia and serving it with the fries (on a paper plate, to boot) worthy of professional food magazine snobbery?

No, and that’s exactly why I’m posting it. Because I simply don’t buy into the dichotomy: the choices cannot be reduced to either frozen already-prepared dinners or fancy-schmancy food that takes hours and hours. There is a happy medium: good, simple, not-processed food that anyone can make at home.

That space is the one this blog seeks to fill, and if, by entering into that space, someone finds something worth making for dinner, then I consider it well worth my time. I hope it’s been worth yours too.
Tagged: Pete Wells Loves Cheese Sandwiches

Apologies for my long absence–life has taken over.We have managed to eat here and there in the midst of that life, so this week I hope to share more of the busy-life dinners that have become so much a part of our routine. One of the ways I’m surviving this tornado of grading papers, writing, reading, discussing, tutoring, planning, committee-sitting, and teaching is by spending a little time in the kitchen to prepare for (at least) two meals at a time. This focaccia recipe doubles as a homemade pizza crust, and the dough is freezable. If I make two batches at once, then I have two nights of pizza and two nights of sandwiches (look for it to appear on Thursday or Friday as part of the cheese sandwich protest movement), plus some leftover to accompany soup or salad.

Having dinner on the table every night for me is not a matter of culinary brillance but of efficient time management: this bread recipe is one of my secrets. For this pizza, I topped it with glorious Meyer lemons, which the lovelies Rorie and Darla have both waxed poetic about in recent weeks (and if you are unfamiliar with these huge, thin-skinned, most flavorful of lemons, please go and read their posts about them), garlic, jalapeno peppers, and plenty of good olive oil. The topping sings with a zippy tart spice that suits the smooth, mild focaccia in perfect pizza harmony.

And, if you’re lucky, you’ll have a piece or two leftover to grab for lunch the next day.

Basic Foccacia Bread/Pizza Dough

1 pkg. yeast
1 t. sugar
2 cups very warm water (like for a bath)
5 cups flour (I use 3 cups all-purpose and 2 cups bread flour)
2 t. Kosher salt, plus more to sprinkle on top
2 T. olive oil, plus more for the top

In the bowl of a electric mixer fitted with a dough hook, stir the yeast, water, and sugar together. Let the mixture stand for about 5 minutes; it should be fizzy on top. Add the flour, salt, and olive oil. Knead with the dough hook for several minutes. The dough should come together in a ball and start trying to climb out of the bowl. Let it knead like this for a few more minutes. Knead with your hands for a minute more, working out any knots of flour. (A trick here: coat your hands with olive oil.) The dough should feel smooth and elastic. Return to the bowl, cover, and let it rise in a warm place (I put it in my pantry) for at least an hour. At this point, you have a few options: get it ready to bake, refrigerate if you’re planning to use within a few days, or freeze it for a later use.

To bake as focaccia: divide the dough in half and form into rounds. Place on cookie sheets and allow to rest for about 15 minutes, covered. Preheat the oven to 475 degrees. Dimple the dough with your fingers, drizzle olive oil on top, and spinkle with Kosher salt (and chopped rosemary if you so desire). Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the top is just beginning to turn golden.

For the Meyer Lemon Pizza:

2 Meyer lemons, thinly sliced and seeds removed
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
2 jalapeno peppers, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 sprigs rosemary, minced
Zest of one lemon
Olive oil
Parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 475 degrees. Heat about 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the lemon slices. Cook for about 10 minutes, turning occasionally until the rinds begin to soften. Add the pepper slices and garlic, and cook for 10 minutes more, or until the garlic and pepper are very soft. Stir frequently to make sure the garlic doesn’t brown.

Spread one half of the dough thinly over a cookie sheet, stretching it with your hands. You may have to be forceful, but try not to tear it or leave any holes. Drizzle the dough with olive oil, salt, the crushed garlic, lemon zest, and minced rosemary. Bake for 5 minutes. Remove from the oven, and spread the lemon topping evenly over the dough. Grate Parmesan cheese (about 1/2 cup?) evenly over the pizza. Bake for 10 minutes more.

Refrigerate the other half of the dough, freeze it, or bake it as bread to have the rest of the week.

Pasta is such a staple around here that it’s hard for me to remember whether I’ve shared certain pasta recipes or not. Several are good solid stand-by dishes–I’ve made them so often no recipe is necessary, and I know they will turn out to our liking.

This sausage pasta is one such dish. But before I convince you of how good it is, I have to tell you something about it. Are you ready? Here comes my confession:

The original recipe for this pasta comes from Rachael Ray (gasp!)

Are you still with me? Okay, so the food community seems to love Rachael or hate her (and my southern aunts are among the hate crowd), but I am completely ambivalent. Do I like some of her cooking ideas? Yes. Do I dislike some of her cooking ideas? Yes. Do I think she’s a culinary genius? No. But I don’t remember her ever claiming to be one.

In all fairness to the 30-minute meal queen, I picked up several useful tips from watching her show when I was a new wife, working a stressful full-time job, and trying to learn to cook edible meals. This pasta dish comes from that phase of my life, and I still really like it. For those of you who count yourselves among the Rachael-loathing readers, I’ll try to write my recipe instructions in such a way that could not possibly come across as obnoxious, and I’ll try to leave out measurements like “a big glug.” But I must give credit where it’s due. Love Rachael Ray? Hate Rachael Ray? I really don’t care. But this pasta is good, fast, and super easy. So there.

The Anisette or Pernod is probably not something you normally have on hand, but I can find it pretty cheap, so I just keep a bottle just for this dish. The flavor enhances the sweet licorice of the fennel in a way I can’t imagine anything else would. Oh, and if you’ve never cooked with fennel, please try it. I don’t much like it raw–too bitter–but it has a lovely sweetness when cooked that I find fresh and unique. It’s actually fennel month over at A Veggie Venture, so if you’re in the mood to try this feather-topped vegetable, head over there for Alanna’s round-up of fennel recipes. And, of course, if you’d prefer a slower, less committed introduction, this pasta might be just the thing to win you over. It did me.

(more…)

As regular readers of this site will know, I am not a person who counts carbs. I have been known to count calories if I want to lose weight, but I simply can’t give up bread or pasta. I tried Atkins for about a week when it first became popular, but I was miserable. I thought I would never want to see another scrambled egg or piece of bacon again.

But I have had friends who were careful about their carbohydrate intake. Our friends in Jackson, Laura and Randy, were on the South Beach diet for a while, and we dined with them often. Through learning to cook low-carb for them, I also learned that it’s important to have a variety of meals in my culinary arsenal. This frittata is both low-carb and gluten free, so if ever I have friends coming for dinner who fall into either of those categories, I at least have one option.

And, if they’re coming for Sunday brunch? Even better. This frittata is quintessential brunch food: it’s fast, easy, goes well with both coffee and juice, and the possibilities are endless. Put another way, you could throw in the kitchen sink, and a frittata would take it.

Well, okay, maybe not. But it soaked up my almost-expired goat cheese and quickly ripening green tomatoes with gusto. I used rosemary to add an herbal kick, but basil would provide a better, milder flavor; the rosemary was a little overpowering for my taste. Red tomatoes might work fine too, but the green ones are not as juicy, so there’s less chance that the frittata will be runny. Although tomato season is still a few months away, a farmer at our market grows them in a greenhouse. The flavor is definitely not the same as a tart green tomato at the height of summer; to minimize the difference, I salted the tomatoes and let them sit for a bit before tossing them in to the skillet. The salt also seems to absorb some of the tomatoes moisture, again reducing the possibility for a runny frittata.

Going low-carb? Cooking gluten-free? Just want a light, bright dish for brunch or lunch? Frittatas are the way to go. Here’s how I made this one, but the method is an open palate. If you try the kitchen sink, please, by all means, let me know how it turns out.

Green Tomato, Garlic, and Goat Cheese Frittata

1 large or 2 medium green tomatoes
Olive oil and butter
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
2 ounces goat cheese, or more to taste
Chopped rosemary (I used too much, but if you like the flavor, use it sparingly.)
6 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper

Preheat the broiler. Slice 4 thin slices from the tomato; salt, and set aside. Chop the remaining tomato, and salt it too. Heat about a tablespoon of olive oil in a broiler-proof skillet with a small pat of butter over medium heat. Add the garlic slices and saute until fragrant, about a minute or two. Add the chopped tomatoes, stirring to coat them with the garlic and oil. Cook until the tomatoes are very soft; salt and pepper. Meanwhile, beat the eggs and milk together; season them with salt and pepper too. Pour evenly over the tomatoes. Reduce the heat to medium-low, and crumble the goat cheese on top of the eggs. Cook the eggs slowly, but without stirring. When the top is just beginning to set, lay the tomato slices on top, and sprinkle with the Parmesan cheese. Place the whole skillet under the broiler to finish. Broil for a minute or two, or until the top is golden brown. Slice into wedges to serve. Serves 4-6.

This recipe is my contribution to Sweetnicks’ weekly event, Antioxidant Rich Tuesdays.

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.