New Orleans Chargrilled Oysters!

Ingredients:

Oysters, freshly shucked and loosened (on the half shell) - 24
Salted butter - 1 lb. or 4 sticks
Green onions, chopped fine - 2 bunches
Garlic Pureed - 20 toes
Crushed red pepper - 1 tsp.
Fresh thyme and oregano each chopped fine - 3 tbsp.
Fresh lemon juice - 3 tbsp.
Worchestershire sauce - 1 tbsp.
Tony Chachere's Creole seasoning - 2 tbsp.
Romano cheese, grated - 8 oz.
French bread - 1 loaf, sliced thin


Directions:  Prepare all ingredients.

In a large saute pan add 2 sticks (or 1/2 lb.) of butter over a medium heat.

Add prepared green onions, garlic, red pepper, thyme, oregano, lemon juice, worchestershire sauce and creole seasoning.

Stir ingredients continuously for 2 minutes until green onions are softened; remove from heat and allow to cool for 3 minutes.

In a large mixing bowl (before the mixture is completely cool) add remaining butter (which is 2 sticks or 1/2 lb) and blend until the rest of the butter is folded into the sauce.

Final product should be a creamy consistency. Set aside.

Grilling Oysters:  Pre-heat grill to 350 degrees.

Place freshly shucked oysters on the half shell on the center of the grill. When the water in the oysters begins to bubble and the oyster begins to rise and curl, ladle 1/2 ounce of the butter garlic sauce on top of each oyster.

Top with a 1/4 ounce of grated romano cheese. Allow cheese to melt.

Oysters should brown slightly around the curled edges.
Remove oysters and place on a heat-resistent plate or platter.

While still hot add more butter sauce to the top of each oyster.

Serve immediately with warm french bread for dipping.

Chargrilled Oysters

Serves four / makes 24 oysters.  Bon Appetit!

Chicken Soup!

How many times, did I feel, that I just didn't have the strength to get up during the winter months, when a cold or flu had taken it's grip on me!  Well, here is one of the best things to get you through the blahs when you are shuffling around in your jammies and feeling poorly.

1 3 to 4 lb. chicken rinsed
1 bunch of parsley, chopped
2 1/2 qts. water
2 cubes chicken bouillion
2 tsp. salt
1 onion, chopped
2 celery ribs with leaves, chopped
2 carrots, sliced
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper to taste

Cut chicken into quarter pieces; place in a large stock pot. Add the water, bouillon cubes, salt and bay leaf. Cover the pot and bring to a boil. Uncover and skim off the top froth. Allow to simmer, heat on low, for 2 hours. Remove and debone the chicken. Discard the bones. Replace meat into broth. Add the onions, celery, carrots and parsley. Allow to simmer another 45 minutes. Ladle the soup over cooked noodles or rice.

Bon Appetit!
This is from Page 5 of Roux, Simple Cajun Recipes

The Story of New Orleans Pralines

This candy was first known as Creole candy.

There are many variations on the story of how the praline came to be, but most of them revolve around the manor house of the 17th-century French diplomat Cesar du Plessis Praslin.

A chef in the kitchen here developed a technique for coating almonds in cooked sugar. 

In France and elsewhere, the word praline is still used as a generic term for any sort of candy made with nuts.

These early confections traveled with Frenchmen to their new colony on the banks of the Mississippi, a land where both sugar cane and nuts were cultivated in abundance.

In local kitchens, Louisiana pecans were substituted for the more exotic almonds, cream was added, giving the candy more body, and a Southern tradition was born.

Even before the Civil War and Emancipation, pralines were an early entrepreneurial vehicle for free women of color in New Orleans.

In 1901, the Daily Picayune (a predecessor to today's Times-Picayune newspaper) described in nostalgic terms the "pralinieres," or older black women, who sold pralines "about the streets of the Old French Quarter." They were often selling pralines on Canal Street near Bourbon and Royal streets and around Jackson Square in the shade of the alleys flanking St. Louis Cathedral.

And in the 1930s, the Louisiana folklorist Lyle Saxon, writing in the book "Gumbo Ya-Ya," documented praline sellers "garbed in gingham and starched white aprons and tignons," or head wraps, fanning their candies with palmetto leaves against the heat and bellowing the sales pitch "belles pralines!" to passersby.

Excerpt taken from I. McNulty who is a freelance food writer and columnist, a frequent commentator on the New Orleans entertainment talk show “Steppin’ Out” and editor of the guidebook “Hungry? Thirsty? New Orleans.”

Recipe for New Orleans Pralines

1 cup light brown sugar, packed

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2  cup light cream

1 ½ cups pecans, halved

2 tablespoons butter

Directions:

1. Combine sugars and cream in a heavy 2-quart saucepan and bring to boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon, until mixture forms a thick syrup.     

2. Add pecans and butter and continue to cook over medium heat, stirring frequently. 

3. Remove sauce pan to a heatproof surface (such as a wire rack) and let cool for 10 minutes.

4. Use a tablespoon to drop rounded balls of the mixture onto sheet wax paper or foil, leaving about 3 inches between each ball for pralines to spread. Allow to cool. Makes about 12 candies.

  

Recipe for Cajun Pralines

1 cup dark brown sugar 1 cup white sugar 1/2 cup evaporated milk 2 tablespoons butter 1/4 teaspoon vanilla 1 cup pecan halves

Directions:

1. Combine the sugar and milk and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally.
2. Add the butter, vanilla and pecans. Cook until the syrup reaches the soft ball stage (238° F).
3. Let cool five minutes, then beat with a wooden spoon until the mixture begins to thicken.
4. Drop by tablespoons onto a well-greased flat surface (aluminum foil works well). The candy will flatten out into large rounds, about three to four inches in diameter. Store in an air tight container.

New Orleans Praliniere circa 1900

Seasoning Mix (Dehydrated)

All ingredients are dehydrated.
1/4 cup Parsley
1/4 cup Green Onion Tops
1/4 cup White Onions
1/4 cup Bell Peppers
3 TB Celery Flakes
==
Mix all of the dehydrated ingredients in a bowl. Place mixture in a sealed, glass, decorative canister.
To use: Scoop 1/4 cup of seasoning mix into 1/2 cup of warm water. Let soak ten minutes; add to gravy or soup and simmer.
This makes a perfect gift for cooks!
You can use this seasoning blend in many gravies and soups. This blend has been used in some of the ROUX recipes.
Bon Appetit!

Pesto Pasta Salad

 

My card social is Friday night and we all bring a little dish to share.  I am going to bring this delicious Pesto Pasta Salad.  Bon Appetit! 

Ingredients

• 4 cups uncooked spiral pasta
• 1 cup basil pesto 
• 2 Tbsp chopped green olives, olive tapenade or Italian Salad Mix
• 1 cup of frozen peas, defrosted
• 12 cherry tomatoes, halved
• Several fresh basil leaves, coarsely chopped
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• 1/4 cup pine nuts (optional)

Instructions:

Cook pasta according to instructions on the package. Make sure the water is salted (at least a half teaspoon per quart). Remove pasta from heat and strain when pasta is cooked, but still firm (al dente).

Put pasta in a big bowl. Mix in basil pesto, green olives/olive tapenade/Italian Salad Mix. Add pine nuts (optional).

Gently mix in cherry tomatoes, peas, fresh basil leaves and olive oil. Salt and pepper to taste. Chill or serve at room temperature.

Serves 6-8.

Eating breakfast at home...

So I have decided that  I would start eating breakfast at home.  This was simple to do and a delicious way to start the day.
1 slice of bread with a hole cut out in the middle
1 pat of butter
1 egg
Place the slice of bread in the skillet on med/high.
Place the pat of butter in the center of the bread hole, as it melts move the bread to coat the pan.
Place the egg in the hole; when it is quite firm, flip it over.
The center piece of bread is to be browned on the side of the "toad".
Dust with black pepper and salt.  Bon Appetit!