BOOK: Louisiana Cookin’ Magazine

Being in Michigan, the book shelves at my local Barnes and Noble isn’t filled with Creole and Cajun cookbooks.  There is a Chef Paul Prudhomme book along with the latest by Chef John Besh, but nothing else.  There is not a section devoted to Louisiana cooking, but there is LOUISIANA COOKIN’!

Every two months I stop in at Barnes and Noble, and I purchase my copy of LOUISIANA COOKIN magazine.  I know, I should get a subscription along with a subscription to LOUISIANA KITCHEN AND CULTURE.  They don’t sell LK&C up here, yet atleast, since that magazine is less then a year old.  LOUSIANA COOKIN magazine, however, has been around for 15 years!

 

The magazine features articles just on the food of Louisana.  The current flavors of the state along with New Orleans.   It offers book reviews, the marketplace, what the upcoming food fairs and festivals are, along with maybe 50 recipes!

In the September/October issue, it featured some “real fall comfort” foods.  7 “must-try” New Orleans dishes, plus some tailgating favorites.  Including one of the recipes I tried, HAM and CHEESE SLIDERS.  The recipes calls for making 2 dozen miniature ham sandwiches covered in a finely chopped onion, poppy seeded, Tabasco dabbed mixture that’s drizzled over the sandwiches.  I’ve made a similiar version of this before, but this by far was a better version.

Also, included in each magazine, is the READER RECIPE page.  This issues was New Creole Potato Salad.  A remoulade sauce adding to a potato salad.  I did as the featured reader states in the magazine, she “likes the serve this potato salad with gumbo.”  I made a gumbo and had bowls of the potato salad with it and it was amazing!  If you search the website, you may be able to find the recipe, or look for the magazine.

The magazine is great for the recipes and it’s just as good for the articles.  There’s always a recipe to try in each of the magazines.

 

BOOK: A Street Car Names Delicious

One thing I get asked time to time is, what cookbooks do I own?  And, what cookbooks do I recommend?  I’ll start posting some of the cookbooks I love to read and look at, one’s I’ve learned valuable tips from, and some I subscribe to.  The end of this month marks the one year anniversary of this blog.  Maybe a few months before I started the blog, is when I really started trying to learn Creole and Cajun cooking.  I started collecting and looking for Creole cookbooks.  I searched websites and magazines.  Book stores and the library.  After one year, I hope I’ve helped someone learn something new about New Orleans and Creole cooking – I’m still learning myself and I love passing that information on.

This is my first entry into my recommendations list, with his newest cookbook coming out in the next few days, titled A TASTE OF TREME, Todd-Michael St. Pierre wrote a cookbook named A STREET CAR NAMED DELICIOUS.  It’s one of many cookbooks by St. Pierre who also writes children’s books.

From St. Pierre’s website:

Todd-Michael St. Pierre, Cajun & Creole Foodie and New Orleans’ native, is the author of popular cookbooks, like Taste of Tremé, A Streetcar Named Delicious, The Mardi Gras Cookbook, Who Dat Cookin’ &  Jambalaya, Crawfish Pie, Filé Gumbo! And of Children’s picture books,  including, A Piece of Sky, Aidan and the Anteater, Who Dat Night Before  Christmas, Fat Tuesday, Nola and Roux & The Crawfish Family Band! He  has served as a judge for The Reading Rainbow Young Writers and  Illustrators Contest & has developed recipes for Cooking Light  magazine.  Todd-Michael’s books have been featured in The San Francisco Chronicle,  The Denver Post & on AOL Food. He also contributes, as a writer, to  elementary & middle-school textbooks published by Oxford University Press.

It’s a nice little cookbook of 144-pages.  It’s packed with recipes from cover-to-cover with little, if any, information on the recipes.  Each recipe, by the way, has a fun name!  How can you go wrong with recipes like “Foot of Canal Street Oyster Po’ Boy”, or “Mardi Gras Indian’s Seafood Jambalaya”, and “After Mass Glazed Crown Roast”!  That’s just to name a few of the well-named recipes.  It’s neatly written with simple, easy to follow instructions.

On Todd-Michael St. Pierre’s website, I posted this review of him and his book:

“Todd-Michael has done so much in promoting the foods of New Orleans by way of his many welling written cookbooks.  ‘A Street Car Named Delicious” is an excellent book filled with many great recipes you’ll be making over and over.  I’m from the Detroit area, and I’ve been learning to cook the Creole New Orleans way and I refer to T-M for many great recipes.  I can’t wait for his upcoming book “Taste of Treme”! 

I highly recommend T-M’s cookbooks.  He allows you to experience New Orleans in your kitchen no matter where you are!”

A couple of the recipes I have made from the cookbook were “Magnolia’s Magnificent Muffuletta” and “Tante Zizi’s Pasta Jambalaya”.

I love the muffuletta.  I have a personal recipe I’ve been making for years, but I love to try something new.  It’s a long list of ingredients with a simple explanation to making one of New Orleans signiture sandwiches.

My wife is more of a fan of pasta noodles then rice.  Go figure, huh?  Jambalaya is with rice, but even once in awhile I’ll make it with noodles, for her.  I was excitied to try this “Tante Zizi’s Pasta Jambalaya”.  She raved about the meal.  It is now one of her favorite meals.  Just wait until you try jambalaya with cheese!  Amazing.

He is truely a talented writer.  On his website, you can search for his books and purchase them there or through Amazon.com.

Swedish Pea Soup with pancakes

In New Orleans, Monday became the day to do the wash, and out of that tradition came the famous Red Beans and Rice.  In most homes throughout the New Orleans area, I’m sure you’ll find a pot of it cooking every Monday even though that day may no longer hold the custume of doing the laundry.

In Sweden, back in 1577, King Eric XIV was imprisoned.  He was wanted dead.  It’s said, on a Thursday, the King was given a bowl of pea soup.  The bowl of pea soup was laced with poison.  He died.  According to Wikipedias page on King Eric XIV:

Eric XIV was held as a prisoner in many different castles in both Sweden and Finland. He died in prison in Örbyhus Castle: according to folklore, his final meal was a poisoned bowl of pea soup. A document signed by his brother, John III of Sweden, and a nobleman, Bengt Bengtsson Gylta (1514–74), gave Eric’s guards in his last prison authorization to poison him if anyone tried to release him. His body was later exhumed and modern forensic analysis revealed evidence of lethal arsenic poisoning.

From that event, the people ate bowls of pea soup in his honor on Thursdays, and it has become a tradition in Sweden.  To this day, on a Thursday in most Swedish homes, you’ll find a pot of pea soup cooking.  That may not be the real reason, but it does make for good folklore.

The Swedish pea soup is usually eaten with some form of pork or sausage.  The pancake is the dessert.  With the Swedish pancake thin, on the inside I spread peanut butter and ligonberries (a Swedish berry similar to a cranberry, you can order it online or find jars at a nearby IKEA) and fold the pancake up like a burritos.  I top then top it with syrup.  Another favorite way is without the peanut butter, but adding cream cheese instead.  I grew up on Swedish pancakes and I still make them quite a bit.  Below is my mom’s simple recipe for the pancakes.

Cultures have traditional meals at different times on different days for different reasons.  This is Sweden’s.

SWEDISH PEA SOUP

Ingredients:

• 2 cups split peas
• 8 cups water
• 2-3 ham hocks or ham bones
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 carrot, grated
• 1/2 pound slivered ham
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp ginger

SWEDISH PANCAKE

Ingredients:

With the pancake open, spread toppings inside, like peanut butter or cream cheese along with Swedens famous jam – ligonberry jam! Then fold it up and top with syrup or whipped cream.

• 2 cups milk
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cup flour
• 3 tbsp melted butter
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp sugar
• Peanut butter, syrup, ligonberry jam, cream cheese, whipped cream, what ever your favorite pancake topping is

Mix all the ingredients together.  Pour a 1/3 cup scooping in a buttered pan.  When the mixture begins to bubble, flip.  Each pancake will take about a minute to cook.  This recipe will make about 12 pancakes.

FOR THE PEA SOUP…

Rinse pea and discard the bad ones.

In a large pot, bring the 8 cups of water to a boil.  Add all the ingredients to the pot.  Lower heat and simmer for 3 hours.  Stir occasionally.

Once finished, remove ham hock/bone, and discard.

Serve with Wasa Bread, a crisp rye bread, or with regular crackers.  Pancakes are served with the soup.  Enjoy a nice Swedish traditional meal.

Creole Gumbo

The fall season is a great time for gumbo.  I love-making it while I’m watching the football games.  Once winter really hits here in Michigan, I make it a lot more.  This weekend has been on the colder side, so what better excuse than to make a traditional New Orleans gumbo to get ready for the up coming season!

What’s in your favorite gumbo?  What’s the craziest way you’ve made it?

As the New Orleans Saints game starts soon and the HBO show “Treme” comes on at 10:00 eastern time, it’s time to get the gumbo bowls going!

 

CREOLE GUMBO

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp bacon grease
• 4 cups fresh or frozen okra, sliced
• 1 1/2 cups canned tomatoes, diced
• 1 lbs boneless chicken breasts, cut to bite sized pieces
• 1/2 lbs smoked sausage, thinly sliced
• 10 cups chicken broth
• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2 onions, diced – divided
• 1 green bell pepper, diced
• 3 ribs celery, chopped
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/4 tsp dried thyme
• 1/4 tsp sage
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 lbs meduim shrimp, peeled
• green onions, chopped, for garnish
• parsley, for garnish
• cooked white rice

Heat bacon grease over medium-high heat and brown the okra.  Stir constantly for 15 minutes for okra to brown.  Once okra is ready, add tomatoes and heat through.  Set pan aside.

While okra is browning, in another pan, cook chicken pieces and sausage.  Cook until slightly browned and cooked through.  Once they are finished put in a bowl and set aside.

In a large pot, start to bring the 10 cups of chicken broth to a boil.

While chicken broth is in the process of coming to a boil, start making your roux with the cup of flour and the cup of vegetable oil.  Constantly stir until you get a nice dark brown.  Once you get to the darkest color you are comfortable getting to, add 1/2 of the diced onions (or one onion that was diced).  Keep stirring the roux until the onions have softened.

Carefully add the roux mixture to the boiling chicken broth.  Cook for 30 minutes.

Add the okra and tomatoes to the broth and cook for another 30 minutes.

Add the remaining onions, bell pepper, celery, bay leaves, thyme and sage.  Cook for 20 minutes.

Now, add the chicken and sausage.  Cook for 10 minutes.

If you are using shrimp, add the shrimp at this point.  Cook for another 10 minutes.  The shrimp should turn opaque.  Also at this point, stir in the salt, black pepper and cayenne pepper.

Serve over the rice.  Garnish with green onions and parsley.  Enjoy!