Zydeco Sweet Potato Crab Chowder

I received a great gift from my mother awhile back...Louisana Cookin' magazine. It has some of the best recipes, and this one was a hit with my family. It's a little bit of work, but well worth it.

Ingredients:

2 pieces bacon, cut into 1-inch pieces
4 ounces andouille, ground or chopped (approximately two 4-inch links of andouille)
1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper
1/3 cup chopped shallots
1/4 cup chopped celery
1 tablespoon minced jalapeño, seeded
1 15-ounce can cream-style sweet corn
2 15-ounce cans low-sodium chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon Creole seasoning
1/2 teaspoon fresh cracked black pepper
2 cups, drained and diced Princella Cut Sweet Potatoes in Light Syrup
1 cup whole milk (I used 2%)
8 ounces cooked Louisiana lump crabmeat
2 tablespoons chopped Italian parsley, in all

Cook the bacon in a large stockpot over medium heat until it begins to crisp. Remove bacon. Add the andouille to the bacon drippings. Sauté for about 3minutes or until the andouille is crispy.
Remove 2 tablespoons of the andouille and set aside for garnish. Add the bacon along with the red bell pepper, shallots, celery, and jalapeño. Sauté for about 5 minutes or until fragrant and vegetables are tender.
Add the cream corn, chicken broth, Creole seasoning, and black pepper. Simmer uncovered for 10 minutes. Next add in the sweet potatoes, stir to incorporate and let simmer 5 minutes, then add the milk and all but 2 tablespoons of the crabmeat, let simmer another 5 minutes or until mixture is heated through.
Stir in 1 tablespoon of parsley. Adjust seasoning if necessary. In a small bowl toss the remaining parsley, crab, and andouille together and use as garnish.
Ladle into bread bowl, individuals bowls, or a soup tureen. Garnish with the reserved andouille/crab mixture.

MoMo´s Strawberry Pie

Note: To make this in Denmark, you have to bring a few things over from the US.... otherwise, it´s just not quite right.....

Ingredients:
Graham cracker crust
2 cups of freshed, sliced strawberries
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
3 TBSP cornstarch
3 TBSP strawberry jello (powder)
Cool whip

Cook sugar, cornstarch and water over medium heat until sugar is dissolved and the mixture is thickened. Remove from heat, add Jello and allow to cool completely.

Add sliced strawberries to the mix and pour into the prepared Graham cracker crust. Set in the fridge overnight (or several hours) until set. Just before serving, top with Cool Whip and a few more sliced strawberries. It is SO easy, but your guests will think you worked all day on this!

Shrimp Creole....the Viking´s fave Cajun dish

Ingredients:
1 large yellow onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped (I use red....mom uses green)
1 can Rotel tomatoes (chopped with green chiles)
1 stick butter
cornstarch for thickening
slap ya mama (or other Cajun seasoning)
2 lbs shrimp, peeled, deveined and seasoned, sitting in the fridge, waiting!


Saute the onion, celery and bell pepper in the stick of butter until veggies are soft and onions are almost clear. Season them with your favorite Cajun seasoning while cooking. This would be a good time to put on a pot of white rice in your rice cooker.
(You know a Cajun kitchen should have one! None of that "rice in a bag" nonsense!)

Add the can of Rotel tomatoes and 2 cups of HOT water. Simmer for about 20 minutes so all your spices come together. Sample your sauce. Each can of Rotels is different...some hotter or milder than others. If it is too warm for your family´s taste, add another ½ cup of hot water and simmer 10 minutes longer. Add the shrimp to the mix. Cook until they are done----about ten minutes.
Now you must determine how thick you want your Creole to be.... that determines how much cornstarch to add. Start with a small amount as it thickens quickly! Just make sure that your Creole remains a sauce, not a thick gravy.

Serve over the cooked white rice and top with chopped green onions before serving.

These leftovers are the best...an extra day sitting in the fridge really melds the flavors together!

Cabbage Casserole

Ingredients:
1 small head of cabbage
3/4 cup raw rice
1 1/2 lbs ground meat
1 onion
1 stalk celery
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1/2 soup can of water
2 cans tomato sauce w/ 1/2 can water

Brown meat with onion and celery. Lightly oil 9 x 12 baking dish. Shred 1/2 cabbage in bottom of pan. Layer meat, raw rice, cabbage, meat, raw rice, etc. Mix the soup, tomato sauce and water together and then pour over the top layer. Cover with foil and back for approximately 1 hour. Uncover and bake additional 15 minutes. Delicious and this will be a hit with guests who don't even like cabbage.

Crawfish Etouffee

Chop 1 yellow onion, 2 stalks celery, and 1 red bell pepper.

Saute in ½ stick of butter and 4 or 5 shakes of Slap ya Mama Cajun Seasoning (or your own favorite brand) until tender.

Add 4 heaping TBSP of ROUX and blend into the sauted vegetables.



Add 2 cups of boiling water (yes, BOILING!) to the mixture until it is not too thick, but not runny like a soup either. It needs to maintain a little thickness. Add more or less boiling water, depending on the thickness of your roux. Cook on low heat for at least 20 minutes, allowing all the flavors to blend together.



Season your crawfish tails with your favorite Cajun seasoning and add to the sauce. Cook 10-12 minutes.



While all this is going on, you should have a batch of rice cooking in your rice cooker so you can serve the Crawfish Etouffee over rice. Chop a few green onions (tops) on top of each serving.

MoMo´s Blueberry Muffins

MoMo NEVER used sour cream for anything in her life until she created this recipe for the best blueberry muffins I have ever eaten! They are a perfect addition to any breakfast or brunch!


Mix together the following ingredients.
2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
½ tsp baking soda
2 eggs, beaten
1 ½ cups sour cream
½ cup oil
1 tsp vanilla


Gently fold in 1 ½ cups blueberries, drained, as the last ingredient.


Mix (without breaking the blueberries).

Grease a muffin tin and fill each cup with the batter. Sprinkle ½ tsp of sugar on top of each cup´s batter. Bake at 350. Bake 12 minutes for mini muffins and 15-18 minutes for standard sized muffins. (or until set and golden brown)

Batter makes 12 standard or 24 mini muffins.

Shrimp Chowder

A perfect dinner for cold winter night!

Even if this batch sounds too big for your family, make it anyway because this freezes GREAT and tastes even better the second time around!



Ingredients:
1 bag whole kernel corn (or 3 cans)
½ pound bacon
1 large yellow onion, finely chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
3 cloves garlic, pressed
3 TBSP flour
Slap ya Mama Cajun seasoning (or your own favorite brand)
4 cups chicken broth
2 cups milk
½ pound potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 bay leaf
1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 cup cream

Directions:
In a soup pot fry the bacon in 3 TBSP of oil until crisp. Chop into small bite-sized pieces and set aside, reserving the oil. Add onions, celery, and bell pepper to the "bacon" oil and saute until tender. Add garlic until fragrant. Sprinkle in the flour and several shakes of Slap Ya Mama Cajun Seasoning, stirring for about a minute. Slowly whisk in the chicken broth and milk. Add potatoes, bay leaf, bacon bits, and corn, bringing to a boil. Then reduce to a simmer. Cover and simmer until the potatoes are tender. Stir in the shrimp and cream.


If your chowder is too thin, add another TBSP of flour. If it is too thick, add additional milk.
Cook until the shrimp are pink. Taste before you serve in case you need another shake of Cajun seasoning!



Remove bay leaf before serving.
Goes great with warm french bread.

ROUX ... the basic for most Cajun recipes

Find a Sunday afternoon when you have a couple of hours to spend in the kitchen. This is the perfect time to make a batch of roux! (Although some Cajun cooks would tell you that the roux you can buy in a jar is just as good, MoMo Fontenot would vehemently disagree!) She believed that a good Cajun cook should always have a batch of roux waiting to be used in the back of the fridge!

In a heavy saucepan, over a medium heat, begin to heat 1 cup of vegetable oil and 1 cup of flour, constantly stirring. Add flour or oil as necessary so that it is not too dry and not too wet. There is no specific way to measure this other than the eye of the Cajun cook.

You cook a roux till it "looks right".

Continue stirring and stirring until it turns brown... Can´t tell you what shade of brown other than "roux colored".

Again, you cook a roux till it "looks right"!

Remove from the stove when the color and texture are right. Add 1 cup of chopped yellow onion, stirring into the mixture.


Refrigerate in a plastic container and pull out what you need for each recipe.

A look into our kitchens

On August 13, 2008 Judy Fontenot, our mother and grandmother, went to heaven leaving behind a legacy which we strive to carry on every time we walk into our respective kitchens.

"Kiss the Cajun Cooks" is the electronic recipe box of 3 Cajun girls, all living in different corners of the world. Some of our recipes come directly from MoMo Fontenot, while others are our own unique creations. Some are experiments, and others are tried and true favorites with our families.

But regardless of where our inspiration came for each recipe, we promise that each and every one is made with a little bit of Cajun love!