Smothered Okra

I love okra just about every way I've had it. The only style I don't appreciate is pickled okra, and that's because I don't do pickled. Blegh. But otherwise, I love the stuff! That being said, I recognize that others might not like it. It has a special consistency and texture that might put someone off, but I feel that if given a chance, the flavor of the okra overcomes any qualms over its consistency.

Smothered okra is most likely not the best way to win people over to Team Okra. It's a bit.. moist (some might say slimy, but I wouldn't). But it's such a stereotypical Cajun dish and I'm just diggin' all the food I've been missing, so I have to post it.


Smothered Okra

• 1 lb okra, cut into 1/2 inch slices, or 1 pkg (1 lb) frozen cut okra
• 4-5 medium tomatoes, chopped (you want a pretty even okra to tomato ratio)
• 2 medium onions, chopped
• 1 bell pepper, chopped
• 4 tbsp butter
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1/4 tsp cayenne
  

In a large pot over medium heat, saute onions and bell pepper in butter. Once they are tender, add the okra and tomatoes. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and Chachere's. Reduce heat to medium-low and cover the pan. Stir ocassionally, (frequently enough so nothing sticks to the bottom). Simmer for 30-40 minutes. Season to preference. Some like the dish salty; some like it with a cayenne kick. I choose the middle ground. It is such a delicious ground to tread.

You can serve this as a side to a variety of dishes. Its juices are delicious with rice.

Small-scale Seafood Boil

One of the great things about being back in Louisiana is that when hubby and I crave seafood, we can just hop in the car, drive to any grocery store or local market and have our pick of delicious, fresh seafood. Four years without fresh shrimp was devastating, so I feel the need to eat it all the time now that I can.


Now, there isn't any recipe to go along with this post; just a bit of food-worship. The kitchen is my cathedral after all. I suppose that makes southern Louisiana my parish? Which is apt, as southern Louisiana is a heavily Catholic area, so much so that instead of counties, we have parishes. But anyhoo. Seafood rules here, so much that instead of BBQs, we do seafood boils. Crawfish, shrimp, crab. Whatever seafood you want. And if you're boiling seafood, you HAVE to throw some potatoes, corn on the cob, and onions into the pot! It would be heresy not to.


Now, waking up with a craving for seafood and only having 3 people in the house, there's no reason to do a full scale boil outside with the turkey fryer/crawfish boilin' pot. You can do it on the stove top in a big pot. Well, a couple big pots. All you need is some Shrimp Boil and you're set. An easy, SCRUMPTIOUS meal in surprisingly little time.

And yes, there are scallops in that photo. No, we didn't boil them. I pan-seared them; they're hubby's favorite plus my dad loves them and the market nearby had rather large ones. We splurged. Such a tasty, tasty decision.

My yankee friends, please visit south Louisiana. Cajun country will not disappoint you. It's gorgeous, has amazing food, and the friendliest people you will ever meet! C'est bon, mes amis.

Cookie Cake

Well now. Sorry for the absence; last week, my sister's baby had to return to the hospital (quite suddenly) for his second heart surgery. So I've spent the last week and a half going back and forth between home and New Orleans, where he's hospitalized. He is doing amazingly well and should be home soon. I can't wait!!

My latest trip to New Orleans was to celebrate my sister's birthday. She really wanted a cookie cake (she had been scheduled to get one at work before we knew about the surgery) so a cookie cake she would have!! First, I thought I would use my white and milk chocolate chip cookie recipe, but I was worried about it baking correctly. I googled cookie cake recipes and came across this one from Emeril. What better recipe to use while my sister is holed in up New Orleans? In fact, the hospital isn't very far from one of his restaurants. Anyhoo. The recipe called for bittersweet chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, walnuts, and macadamia nuts. I generally try to avoid baking with nuts, since so many people have allergies or just don't like them. Now, my sister LOVES these new Hershey nuggets that are milk chocolate with toffee and almonds. When I say she loves them, I mean it. And they deserve the love. They are amazingly delicious. Sadly they are difficult to find. No worries though; Mama Sarah is dedicated to her baking! Once I found a bag (and then bought two), I chopped those up and used those instead of all the mix-ins Emeril used.


Since this cookie cake was for a birthday, it had to be decorated, right? Right. Unfortunately, I have horrible handwriting (which I *unfairly* blame completely on being a lefty) so I just used icing tips to decorate the edge and then create a heart in the center. Not too bad for a first time.


Everyone LOVED the cake. It was a great recipe, but the chocolate with bits of toffee seemed to make it. Everyone ate twice as much as they initially planned. Which, after gorging ourselves at the casino lunch buffet, means a lot. You should definitely make this recipe; cake form or cookie form doesn't matter.

Cookie Cake

• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 cups + 2 tbsp flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 package Hershey's Creamy Milk Chocolate with Toffee and Almonds Nuggets, chopped into chips

Preheat oven to 375F. Line a baking stone or pizza pan with parchment paper, then grease the paper. Alternatively, you can use a disposable tin pizza pan (that's what I did).

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugars. Add the eggs one at time, beating thoroughly after each addition.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Add to the wet ingredients and mix until thoroughly incorporated. Mix in the vanilla. Stir or fold in the chocolate pieces.

Spoon on to/ into prepared surface/pan. Evenly distribute the batter and smooth the surface. Don't forget the cookie dough will rise; mine filled up a 13 inch pizza pan and hung a tiny bit over the side.

Bake approximately 20-25 minutes, until the edges are golden and the cookie is set, but soft. Let cool ten minutes before removing from the pan and placing on a cooling rack. If using a disposable pan, you can leave it in the pan and just place it on the rack.

Cool completely before decorating.

Icing

• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 1 cup shortening
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• food coloring, optional

Using a mixer (if you don't have a mixer, buy icing. It isn't worth stirring by hand), cream together the sugar and shortening until light and fluffy. Slowly add milk and vanilla extract. Beat until stiff. Mix in food coloring.

Corn Pudding

YAY! We finally have awesomely fast internet! Now to start posting again.

Today, we have corn pudding, or as my sister lovingly calls it, corn cornbread. I first made this recipe a few months ago, but failed to take pictures. Bad Mama Sarah. I decided to make it again for our fourth of July BBQ after hearing my dad and brother-in-law rave over a dish they had while staying in New Orleans for my nephew's first heart surgery. It was called a corn souffle, though by their description souffle was a bit of a stretch. But they talked about it so eagerly that I really wanted to recreate that for them. Plus, I love this dish and had been craving it for quite some time.


This stuff is amazing. It's both savory and sweet, and the kernels of corn interspersed throughout the dish add a necessary little crunch to the dish's softness. It's divine; I want to eat bowlfuls.

A few things to note about the recipe: the ingredient sizes are weird - as in, can sizes I've never seen in the store. And the second time I made it, I approximately doubled everything, which made it a bit too dry. Still delicious though. So, my warning is this: be prepared to tinker around a bit.

Corn Pudding
(Adapted from Cooking Light September 2007)

• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 1 can (8 3/4 oz) whole kernel corn, drained
• 1 can (8 3/4 oz) creamed corn
• 1 package (8 1/2 oz) corn muffin mix (I use honey cornbread mix. yum yum)
• 1 carton (8 oz) fat free sour cream

Preheat oven to 350F. Spray an 8x8 pan with cooking spray.

In a large bowl, combine all ingredients. Mix until well blended. Pour/spoon into prepared pan.

Bake 45 minutes or until golden and set.

Sugar Cookies

Mmm sugar cookies. Who doesn't love them? Really, they're sweet, soft, crisp rounds from the heavens. Today, neither my sister nor I had anything to do, so I thought we could do nothing together. She mentioned having a sweet tooth, and I, of course, decided I had to make her something. Thus the sugar cookies. I had to sift through some recipes to find one that didn't require cream of tartar, which my sister didn't happen to have; luckily, I came across this one. The recipe is quite simple (as sugar cookies should be) with a delicious result.

Sugar Cookies

• 2 3/4 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cup sugar
  
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• additional sugar for rolling
  

Preheat oven to 375F.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and baking powder.

In a separate bowl, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy (approximately 2 minutes). Beat in egg and vanilla until well combined. Add dry ingredients slowly, mixing well until thoroughly incorporated.

Sprinkle a small layer of sugar in the bottom of a plate. Roll approximately one tablespoon of dough into a ball, then pat onto the sugared plate. Flip, then pat more until the dough is about 1/3 inch thick and round. Place on baking sheet.

Bake approximately 10 minutes or until edges start to get golden.

Enjoy warm.

Homemade(ish) Root Beer

I've run into a tiny blogging complication; I won't have internet until Friday! We can pick up a few wireless signals, but never well enough for me to update. Sad times, right? I have been cooking a fair bit and trying some new stuff, so I'm starting to get a queue of things to post. Luckily, my awesome sister doesn't mind my hanging around her house.. though, the sugar cookies I'm baking for her probably sweeten the deal.


One of the great things about being back in South Louisiana is all the local stuff in all the grocery stores. Tons of rice, tons of seafood. As hubby and I were appreciating all the shrimp and crab boil, I noticed a tiny little bottle of root beer extract.


I knew that people did make root beer at home (hubby's grandmother did when he was young) but I had never actually seen the stuff in the store. Needless to say, we bought it.


The verdict? Homemade root beer is really easy and super tasty. You can modify the level of sweetness as well as whether it's carbonated or not. (I prefer it sweet and carbonated!) And more than just being cheaper than buying it, how cool is it to offer someone some homemade root beer?

Black Bean and Corn Salsa

I've just gotten back from a fourth of July celebration at my sister's house, and just have to post the divine salsa she made for us. What's great is that she predicted that I would want the recipe and emailed it to me this morning before I even arrived at her house. We believe it's a Weight Watchers recipe, though we're not sure. My sister got it from her sister-in-law who we think got it from her mom.. and who knows where it came from before then. Regardless of its origin, it is DELICIOUS. I love non-traditional salsas with black beans or tomatillos. (My aunt makes a fabulous tomatillo salsa.) This is a great recipe to pull out to impress your friends.


Black Bean and Corn Salsa

• 1 can black beans, drained
• 1 can whole kernel corn, drained
• 1 green bell pepper, diced
  
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
  
• 1/2 purple onion, diced
  
• 2-3 jalapenos, diced
• a few green onions
• 1/3 cup lime juice
• 1/3 cup lemon juice
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp red pepper

In a large bowl, combine vegetables.

Mix together lime juice, lemon juice, and olive oil. Add to vegetables and toss to coat. Sprinkle with cumin, salt, and red pepper, then mix thoroughly.