Red Beans and Ricely yours

Here is the famous New Orleans favorite.  My favorite.  And this is just one of a hundred different ways to cook them… Red Beans and Rice.  Each time I’ve posted about Red Beans and Rice it’s been a different recipe – and this ones no different.

The flooded walkway of Lafayette Cemetary No.1.

On my trip to New Orleans, we took the streetcar along St. Charles Street to the Garden District.  We walked down Washington Street to Lafayette Cemetary No. 1.  It’s an eerie looking place just from the outside of the walls.  As we stepped in, as she introduced herself to the tour group, she called herself a Creole Woman.  He skipped out on the walking tour so we could go at our own pace.  She warned us of the flooding from the previous nights storm.  The aisle ways in some sections were covered with water.  It’s showed the good reason why the gravesites are above ground.   He tooked to the dryer sections of the old, ominous cemetary.  This was mid-morning, I couldn’t imagine this at night.

After the walk, we headed over to the Garden District Bookstore.  I could have spent the entire day there looking at all the books I have only seen the covers to online.  I wanted them all.  History books, nonfiction books, the cookbooks… I bought a couple.  One book was RED BEANS AND RICE-LY YOURS by Christopher Blake.  It’s the “recipes from New Orleans that Louis Armstrong loved”.  The books from the Southern Food and Beverage Museum.  This is the Red Beans and Rice recipe along with a few changes made by myself.

It’s more of a small pamphlet then a book with it only coming in at 24-pages.  The rectangled soft covered booklet has the red beans and rice, gumbos, three different po’ boys, dirty rice, jambalayas, fried chicken, shrimp remoulade plus much more.  The booklets just recipes with a couple paragraph note from the author.  It would have been nice if there where stories of Louis Armstrong and some of the recipes or stories from close friends.  Otherwise it’s a nice little book to have.  It fits in nice with my collection of New Orleans cookbooks.

RED BEANS AND RICE

Ingredients:

• 1 lbs reb beans
• 3 quarts water
• 1 lbs smoked ham, diced
• 1 tbsp garlic *
• 1 yellow onion, diced
• 1 cup celery, diced *
• 1 cup ketchup
• 1 tbsp vinegar
• 1 bay leaf *
• 1 tsp Tabasco
• 1/4 tsp thyme
• creole seasoning *
• salt and pepper to taste
• rice
• parsley for garnish *

( the “*” marks ingredients that I added to the original recipe)

Soak the beans overnight to soften.  When ready to cook, drain off the water.

In a dutch oven, add the 3 quarts of water along with the reb beans and turn heat on the burner.

The red beans cook in on pot as the ham and vegetable mixtures heats up in the other. Once mixed, the two are combined.

In another pot, heat oil and saute the onions, celery, garlic and ham for about 10 minutes.  Add the ketchup, vinegar, thyme, tabasco, creole seasoning and salt and pepper and mix well.

Add the ham and vegetable mixture to the pot of red beans and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and let simmer for 3 hours.

Serve with rice, smoked sausage and pickled beets.  Garnish with parsley.  Don’t forget the hot french bread.  Enjoy!

Chicken Creole – one pot cooking

There are so many excellent foods of New Orleans. I have a few that I like to make pretty often. Chicken Creole is one of them. The only reason that I post it so often is that each time I make it differently. The last version was made with a crock pot. Before that was a different one pot recipe that was one of the first recipes I posted.

This is from a recipe from a cookbook I recently bought in New Orleans. I’ve altered it some by adding the rotel tomotes, using jalapeno peppers and serving it with noodles. In New Orleans, I had the Shrimp Creole at the Gumbo Shop in the French Quarter. It was excellent!

This may not be the right meal on a 90-degree day, it’s a bit spicy, but it is so good. It’s one way to learn how to make a meal the way you like it, by trying it in different styles and frequently. I think it’s a great way to perfect a meal to a way that I like.

CHICKEN CREOLE

Ingredients:

• 1 lbs boneless chicken breast, chopped to bite size pieces
• 4 tbsp butter
• 3 tbsp flour
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 bell pepper or jalapeno pepper, diced
• 1 cup celery, diced
• 1/2 tbsp garlic
• 3 cups chicken stock
• 1 14-oz can tomotoe sauce
• 1 can rotel diced tomatoes with chile, drained
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1 tsp brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp basil
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/4 cup parsley
• 1/2 cup green onions, chopped
• creole seasoning to taste
• either rice or noodles

Melt the butter in a large pot and saute the chicken until cooked. Remove the chicken and with the flour make a light brown roux. Once you get to the light brown roux, add the onions, celery, pepper and garlic. Cook until the onions turn transparent.

Add the chicken stock, sauce, rotel, thyme, brown sugar, basil and bay leafs. Bring to a boil then simmer for 10 minutes. Place the chicken in the pot along with the parlsey and green onions. Simmer for another 5 minutes.

Serve the Chicken Creole over rice or noodles. Serve with bread. Enjoy!

New Orleans Hot Dog

It was the last night in New Orleans, a Thursday.  I had the day packed with shopping and sight seeing.  The plan was to see Paul Sanchez at City Park in the evening to cap off the day and the trip.  Each day we were there I’d keep checking my iPhone for different things that might pop up or something I may had missed.  The day before we were going to see The Dirty Dozen Brass Band but once we got to Lafayette Square we found out that the show was canceled due to the fact that a “storm may hit”.  It never rained.  So as plan “B”‘s I kept a look out.

Thursday morning I checked my phone.  I read about “JAZZ IN THE PARK’ at Louis Armstrong Park at the border of the French Quarter and the Treme.  I wanted to go to the Treme.  I wanted to go to Louis Armstrong Park and see Congo Square, were jazz was born.  I wanted to see James Andrews.  This was the first show in the “JAZZ IN THE PARK” concert series – James Andrews was the first performer.

It was out of a television show, a season finale.  I was there on the last night in New Orleans.  James Andrews was up on stage singing the “TREME SONG” in the Treme!  It really made me fall in love with New Orleans again.  The atmosphere of people dancing and having a great time.  I saw James Andrews in Ann Arbor Michigan last November.  He’s an amazing performer and a big ambassador of New Orleans, but it was something special to see him there and when he pointed out that John Boutte was there it made it all the more special.  John Boutte wrote the song, which is the theme song to the hit HBO show, TREME.  John Boutte is called “The King of the Treme” and it was an honor to talk to him for a moment.

It was an excellent plan “B” that I still think about…

…and I still think about that hot dog that I had.  In my trip there I had Shrimp Creole, Red Beans and Rice, a Muffuletta, Jambalaya, a Roast Beef Po’ boy and one of my favorites was a hot dog!  It was all amazing food as you know but that hot dog, which I call a New Orleans Hot Dog only by the fact that that’s where I ate it.  It could be called something else somewhere else.

I stood there, in the crowd, watching James Andrews sing in the Treme at Louis Armstrong Park snacking on a great simple hot dog.  My New Orleans trip was coming to an end.  I didn’t want to leave.  I didn’t want it to end.  But it had to.  So, until next time…

NEW ORLEANS HOT DOG

• hot dogs
• buns
• 1 onion, cut into strips
• bacon
• creole mustard or yellow mustard

In a large pan, start with cooking the bacon.  In the bacon drippings, cook the hot dogs for about 10 minutes.  Also in the drippings saute the onions.

Place the onions in the bottom of the bun.  Place a strip of bacon down then the hot dog.  Add the creole mustard or yellow mustard to the top.  Enjoy!

If you live in the Detroit area, on Labor Day Weekend is the Detroit Jazz Festival, there you can see James Andrews along with Big Chief Donald Harrison, Preservation Hall and others.  No times have been posted yet.  I’ll keep you posted.

Beef and Ham Gumbo

In New Orleans, I picked up a few cookbooks, one being THE LITTLE GUMBO BOOK by Gwen McKee.  The book is “twenty-seven carefully created recipes that will enable everyone to enjoy the special experience of Gumbo”.  The book contains a step-by-step gumbo recipe that provides detailed instructions that will enable anyone to create a great pot of gumbo!

One recipe really stuck out to me was the Burgundy Beef Gumbo.  I’ve only made a gumbo with chicken and sausage or seafood, so the thought of using beef sounded intriguing.  Now if you go to Amazon.com and search for the book, on the books page you can select to Look Inside!  A feature Amazon has to check out some of the pages of the book – a preview before you buy.  This recipe shows up in the preview pages also.

This is the first recipe I made from the book.  It’s really well written and informative on the process of making a gumbo.  It tells of time-freeing ways of cooking using a microwave or crock pot along with using cast-iron pots.  Need a low-calorie gumbo or a recipe for fifty people?  It’s in the book!

One change I made was with the Burgundy Wine.  From what I found online, Burgundy Wine was a red wine made in the Burgundy area of France.  I couldn’t find it at the store I was at buying groceries.  I went with a sweet red wine.  So the gumbo is called Burgundy Beef Gumbo but it’s minus the Burgundy…

NON-BURGUNDY BURGUNDY BEEF GUMBO

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 stew meat, cut into cubes
• 1/2 lbs ham, diced
• 1 (20-oz) bag of frozen okra
• 2 tsp creole seasoning
• 3 quarts hot water
• 1 beef bouillon cube
• 1/2 tsp kitchen bouquet
• 1/2 cup burgundy wine (I used a sweet red wine)
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 2 tbsp flour
• 2 onions, chopped
• 1 bell pepper, chopped
• 1 tsp minced garlic

Brown the meat in 2 tablespoons of oil in a large pot.  Add the ham and cook for about 5 minutes.  Remove the meats and add the okra to the drippings, stir until the okra loses its ropyness.  Put the meats back in the pot and season with the creole seasoning.

Boil the water.  In 1 cup, dissolve the bouillon cube.  Stir in the one cup of bouillon water to the pot.  Now add the kitchen bouquet, wine then the remaining boiling water.  Lower the heat, cover and simmer for 1 hour.

In a separate pan, I use a cast-iron skillet, make a roux with the flour and remaining oil.  Once it’s a nice brown color, add the onions, bell pepper, and garlic.  Stir until the vegetables are soft.   Add the roux to the meat pot.  Simmer for another hour.

Cook your rice.  Once everything is finish.  Serve the Beef Gumbo with the rice.  Offer Gumbo File’ at the table with french bread.  Enjoy!

If you own the book THE LITTLE GUMBO BOOK and made a recipe from it, or this one, let me know what you thought or recommend.

Pulled Pork leftovers? Yaka Mein

Here is an extra recipe to the Wednesday Big Easy Recipe of the week, a lagniappe… Yaka Mein!

I know I’ve posted about this a few times but I love making this after making Pulled Pork.  It’s just my wife and I eating the Pulled Pork sandwiches so I have quite a bit leftover and I make the extra just for this reason.

You can make it many different ways with what you have on hand, but this is pretty much the traditional way.  You could use Angel Hair Pasta or and another type of noodle.  Use Pulled Chicken if that’s what you made.  Use whatever but this is a great way to not let food go to waste.  If you’ve never tried this, you might be surprised.  Let me know if you do!

YAKA MEIN

Ingredients:

• leftover pulled pork
• spaghetti noodles
• beef stock
• hard-boiled egg cut in half
• parsley or green onions
• soy sauce, ketchup, tabasco sauce

Hard boil the eggs.  Boil the noodles.  Bring the stock to a boil.  Reheat the pulled pork.

In a bowl, place the noodles.  Add the pulled pork.  Pour the stock over.  Place the half egg on top.  Garnish with the parsley or green onion.  Add the amount of soy sauce, tabasco and ketchup you want.  Enjoy!

Crock pot Pulled Pork Sandwich

The Big Easy Wednesday recipe of the week is… a Crock pot Pulled Pork Sandwich!

This version is a bit different from the previously posted Cochon de Lait Pulled Pork Sandwich.  A New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival favorite, the Cochen de Lait is becoming a new favorite sandwich of New Orleans.  This recipe doesn’t use a “suckling pig” but it’s still a very good pulled pork sandwich.

This weekend is the final weekend of the JazzFest in New Orleans.  Though the music is the attraction, the food is just as popular.  Check out the food section on their website and see the listing of food.  Po’boys galore, muffulettas, and the Cochen de Lait – pulled pork sandwich along with gumbos and jambalaya.  I wish I could be there!

So, place some John Boutte on or the new cd from The Dirty Dozen Brass Band and pretend you are there while you enjoy this weeks Big Easy Recipe of the Week:

CROCK POT PULLED PORK SANDWICH

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs pork butt
• 1 1/2 to 2 cans Barqs Root Beer
• 3/4 cup ketchup
• 4 tbsp brown sugar
• 1/2 cup onions, diced
• creole seasoning
• pickled jalapeno peppers
• hamburger buns

Place the pork butt in the crock pot.  Cover with the Barqs Root Beer, ketchup, brown sugar and onions.  I shook some creole seasoning across the top leaving a light coating.  I placed the crock pot on low for 10 hours.  You could go at a higher temp like 6 hours if you needed.

Top with a couple jalapeno peppers.  Enjoy!