Crawfish Ratatouille

A while back I was looking for some type of side dish that used crawfish because you know that a good Cajun cook will find a use for Crawdads in ALL parts of the meal! (still working on dessert! LOL)

So I found 3 different recipes and did not like any of them as they were, so I took a piece of each and came up with my own recipe for Crawfish Ratatouille. (yeah, I made the name up too! But Ratatouille is French so I think it works!)

It is a great side dish, or you can serve it as a "one dish dinner" with some warm French bread!

Ingredients:

2 pounds Crawfish tails

1 stick butter

3/4 cup chopped red bell pepper

3/4 cup chopped purple onion (same thing as red onion, but I call 'em purple!)

3/4 cup chopped celery

Your favorite Cajun Seasoning (of course, I use Slap Ya Mama)

3 cans/1 bag fresh sweet corn

3 TBSP sugar

1 cup cream (the "madlavning creme" in Denmark works great!)

Saute the veggies in the butter with a generous amount of your Cajun Seasoning until veggies are soft. Add the corn and sugar (and a bit more butter if it looks like you need it. I usually put in another TBSP just to keep everything from drying out.) Once everything is well-blended, add the cream and cook on low for about five minutes, while stirring. This is important to get all those flavors really blended. Remove from heat and set to the side.

In a skillet saute your seasoned crawfish tails in 2 TBSP butter for about 5 minutes. Add the tails to your veggie base and blend well. Cook all of this together for about 10 minutes... or once you add the crawfish tails, throw all this into your crockpot and let it cook on medium heat until you are ready to serve. This is a great dish to cook ahead of time and let it just simmer for an hour or so because the longer it sits, the better those flavors come out! It is especially good on the second day as leftovers!