Category: recipe

We had the most wonderful Chanukah / New Year Day party last night! We got and gave lots of great presents, supper was awesome, and we all laughed and giggled all night.

Everything we made last night turned out really great. We started with a chicken and beef sausage gumbo, then had lamb chops, collards, black-eyed peas, deviled eggs, and latkes, and for dessert I made cupcakes and Southern sufganiyot – beignets.

The best thing I made for supper was my chicken and beef sausage gumbo.

First, you start with a roux, and this gumbo needs a dark roux (the pic below is about 75% of the way there). The dark roux is 3/4 c. vegetable oil and 1 c. flour (I always use White Lily). Heat the oil until it’s very hot, then add the flour little by little until it’s all incorporated. Put the heat down to medium-high, and keep stirring – you have to stir the entire time, no stopping for anything. The roux starts out an ivory color, and several minutes later, when you’re sick of stirring, it will change to tan, light brown, brown, and when it starts to look like the shade of a Hershey bar, take it off the heat, stir for a while longer, and you’re done. The roux will be about 8 zillion degrees hot, though, so be super careful when you pour it into a bowl to use a bit later.

Here are the ingredients for my chicken and beef sausage gumbo:

2 cans chicken stock (or if you have homemade, same amount, even better)
2 medium yellow onions, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
okra – as many or as few as you like, chopped
1 package beef polish sausage, chopped into small bite-size pieces
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, chopped into small bite-size pieces
the roux (above)
cayenne, black pepper, and salt to taste
rice (cook separately, for serving with the gumbo)

Directions:
* Saute the chicken in a little oil, cook and set aside in bowl.
* Saute the beef sausage in a little oil, cook and set aside in bowl.
* Saute onion, bell pepper, okra, and celery until onion starts browning. Add chicken and sausage back to the pot.
* Pour chicken stock into pan. Bring to a boil, then simmer. Season well.
* Add the roux a bit at a time so it gets incorporated easily. Bring that to a boil, then simmer for about an hour so that the flavors get more concentrated. Stir several times over the course of the hour.
* Serve over rice.
Yum! This was a *huge* hit.

Av made the lamb chops with a rosemary/parsley/garlic rub, and it was great, as were the latkes he made. I made the black-eyed peas and the collard greens. The collards were sooooo good…that Av even liked him (I would have encouraged him to have them anyway, since traditionally you eat black-eyed peas on New Year Day for coins in the new year, and collard greens for cash)!

Here’s how I made the collard greens:
1 package beef bacon, chopped into good-size pieces
2 red onions, chopped into good-size pieces
1-2 cans chicken broth (homemade is even better)
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1 bunch collard greens (I just fold each leaf in half and tear them that way, by hand – the ribs are thrown out)
salt, pepper, brown sugar, cayenne to taste

In a big pot, add all the bacon, and cook until done but not yet crispy.
Add onions to pot and cook them through.
Add the broth, vinegar, and collards (I just tear the leaves right over the pot)
Season with the salt/pepper/brown sugar/cayenne once it’s cooked a while.
Put the pot down to simmer, and let them cook however long you like – some people like them more firm (30 minutes or so), but I cook them for two or three hours, because I like them really soft and delicate.

Everything was *so* great, and we had a nice time covering the living room in giftwrap taken off all the presents. I’ve still got four more loads of dishes to do, but after such a great time I sure don’t mind! BTW, I spent all day cooking to my new cd, the Our New Orleans 2005, A Benefit Album. It has Allen Toussaint singing ‘Yes We Can Can’ (I can listen to that ALL DAY LONG!), Preservation Hall Jazz Band (doing ‘Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans’), Davell Crawford, Dr. John, Buckwheat Zydeco, Irma Thomas, Wild Magnolias, Randy Newman – who we saw in concert a couple of months ago – doing ‘Louisiana’, and a bunch of others. It’s at Amazon here.

I hope everyone had a great New Year’s Day, and to all my friends and everyone that reads my blog, I hope that every single one of your wishes for 2006 come true.

My latest Donna Hay magazine is issue #23, Spring ( Spring is from September to November in Australia, where the magazine is published). One of the lighter dishes is for ‘salmon with salsa verde mayonnaise’, so I made that for supper tonight.

Here’s the recipe for the salsa verde:
1/2 c. dill leaves
1 c. flat-leaf parsley leaves (although I used curly)
1/2 c. mint leaves
2 tbsp. capers
4 anchovy fillets chopped, optional (I used the whole can of Roland anchovies, which I think had 8 inside)
1 garlic clove
black pepper
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 c. olive oil

…then, just chop all the dry ingredients into small pieces, and add the olive oil and lemon juice. I really liked the way it tasted ‘bright’ and fresh.

I cooked two types of salmon for my and Av’s supper. We had two fillets of bourbon salmon (it’s just marinated in a little pineapple juice, soy sauce, and bourbon with some green onion tops) and one fillet of just regular salmon. I broil this on high about five minutes, then turn over and broil another three or four minutes. The worst thing you can do is overcook these, so watch them carefully to make sure they come out really nice and perhaps if anything, a little underdone.

Below is a pic of the cooked salmon going on the plate. I’ve put some of the salsa verde mayonnaise on my half of the regular cooked salmon filet. To make the salsa verde into a mayonnaise, just add a little regular mayonnaise (I like Duke’s) to the mixture – soooo easy. Very nice!

I have really been cooking a lot the last two weeks – and much of it has been new recipes. I guess when Av and I are home for a while I get back into the homekeeping groove that I like so much…when I can just putter and craft and cook and read, etc. etc. etc. This recipe based on a ‘tomato and pesto tart’ from the August 2005 issue of BBC Olive Magazine.

The original recipe calls out for a sheet of puff pastry, but instead, I used a box of Pepperidge Farm puff pastry shells, which made individual servings (and worked out really well).

Here’s my version of the recipe for tomato and pesto tart.  It’s not at all the original, but it’s really great.

1 box puff pastry shells (or you could use a sheet of puff pastry, either way)
1 roma tomato, sliced thinly
pesto
mascarpone

Preheat the oven to 400*, and bake puff pastry for about 15 minutes.  Just pop off the shell tops once they are finished baking:

In the meantime, slice the roma tomato into thin slices, put pesto into the bottom of the shell (as much or as little as you like), dot the top with the mascarpone cheese, put a slice or two of roma on top, and it’s ready to bake again:

Bake for 10 or so minutes, until the cheese is melted and the tomatoes are cooked well.

All done! They were really good, and one or two of them is a perfect size for lunch.