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Roast Chicken with Lemon Herb Pan Sauce

  I love roast chicken.  During the week, I pull together a simple family meal by roasting legs or legs and boneless thighs.  For those quick dinners, all I do is sprinkle the chicken with Creole seasoning, salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil.  I then stick the pan in the oven and roast until all the fat has melted away and the skin is deep golden brown and crispy.  It’s a simple process for dark meat perfection.  I approach a whole chicken a little differently.  Because it contains both dark and white meat, I punch it up with more [ ... ]
Category: Chicken, Main Dishes, Sauces  Tags: ,  Comments off

Finger Food Friday: Grilled Artichokes with Provolone and Sun Dried Tomato Pesto Sauce

Globe artichokes get a lot of table time in the Crescent City thanks to the French settlers who brought them to Louisiana from the Mediterranean back in the 1800s and the Creole-Italians (among many others) who knew how to cook them.  Interestingly, it’s been said that Louisiana was home to the first commercial artichokes fields.  They flourished in and around various parts of South Louisiana including a small patch of land in New Orleans currently known as the Warehouse District.  In the early 1940s, the crop mysteriously disappeared from these parts and today nearly 100% of all the country’s globe [ ... ]

Finger Food Friday: Cajun Corn Dogs with Honey Mustard Ale Sauce

Friday has finally arrived.  Whew!  It’s been a hectic week and I’m so ready for the weekend.  The hubby and I are tackling some long-over-due house renovations, so let me apologize now for any untimely posts.  I don’t have adequate access to my kitchen or the computer.  Hopefully, the craziness will end in about two weeks.  Amid the chaos, though, I was able to sneak into the kitchen late last night for some much needed cooking therapy and a home-cooked meal.  But I have to confess, I didn’t prepare a full-fledged dinner.  It was a finger food.  That’s right. [ ... ]

Finger Food Friday: Blackened Tuna Tostadas

Back in November, I shared with you my Blackened Shrimp recipe which included a quick inside blackening process using an electric griddle or grill pan.  While that technique is fine for cooking small batches of shrimp, I don’t recommend it for blackening big fillets of fish.  In order to cook blackened fish properly, it needs to be done outside in a cast-iron skillet over very high heat.  Cooking the fish indoors under these conditions could cause a fire hazard (the melted butter meets blazing hot skillet equation) or severe “spice inhalation” (the inability to breathe due to mass quantities of [ ... ]

King Cake Bread Pudding With Whiskey Sauce

Let’s talk desserts. As in classic New Orleans desserts. Two in particular: Creole Bread Pudding and King Cake. Both have storied histories, are deeply rooted in New Orleans tradition and are equally delicious. Creole Bread Pudding is what I consider an everyday, homey dessert prepared by thrifty New Orleans cooks and restaurant chefs who have plenty of day-old French bread on hand. The stale bread is given new life when soaked in a creamy, cinnamon-infused custardy bath. The pudding is then baked plain or embellished with raisins, nuts, canned fruit salad or even [ ... ]

Rosemary-Garlic Pork Chops with Dijon Pan Gravy

One of the easiest ways to dress up everyday dinners is with a marinade. A good marinade can be thrown together in minutes with generous amount of herbs, spices and other seasonings, some form of acid to carry those flavors into the meat and help tenderize it and oil to keep the meat moist and prevent it from sticking while cooking. For maximum flavor, it’s best to plan a day ahead and marinate whatever you’re cooking (except seafood) overnight. But if you don’t have that luxury, a bold marinade can work its magic in thirty minutes. [ ... ]
Category: Main Dishes, Pork, Sauces  Tags: ,  2 Comments

Chimichurri

The first time I made chimichurri was sometime back in 2006.  I cannot recall specifically where and when I stumbled upon it and I’ve scoured all of my recipe journals in an attempt to retrace my steps. But nothing.  What I do recall is that the first time I made this sauce is was to accompany a juicy London Broil.  I’ve been hooked ever since.  The fresh herbs, pungent garlic, fruity olive oil, spicy jalapeños and acidic vinegar worked magic on that otherwise mediocre meal. For the uninitiated, chimichurri is an Argentinean condiment.  Down in South America, they serve it [ ... ]
Category: Sauces  Tags:  One Comment