Crawfish Veronica

Ingredients

  • 1 pound rotini pasta, cooked according to package directions but not rinsed
  • 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
  • ½ cup unsalted butter
  • 1 cup chopped yellow onion
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 ½ teaspoons Creole seasoning (we used Zatarain’s Creole seasoning)
  • ½ teaspoon blackened seasoning (we used Old Bay with blackened seasoning product)
  • ½ teaspoon kosher salt
  • ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • ¼ cup white wine (we used Seaglass Sauvignon Blanc)
  • 1 1/3 cups heavy whipping cream
  • 2/3 cup whole milk
  • 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
  • 1 (16-ounce) package cooked crawfish tails (we used a frozen 16-oz. package that we thawed)
  • ½ cup thinly sliced green onion
  • ¼ cup chopped fresh parsley (we used Italian parsley)
  • ½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
  • Garnish: shaved Parmesan cheese (we didn’t use any)

Directions

  1. Add the cooked pasta and oil to a large mixing bowl, tossing so all the pasta gets coated in the oil. Set the pasta off to the side for now.
  2. Add the butter to a large Dutch oven, setting the heat to medium-high. Once the butter’s melted, add the onion in, stirring frequently for 5 minutes or until the onion’s tender. Add the garlic, Creole seasoning, blackened  seasoning, salt and cayenne to the Dutch oven, stirring constantly for 1 minute. Pour the wine in, cooking it off for 3 minutes or until it’s almost evaporated. Slowly stir in the cream, milk and lemon juice, stirring constantly for 5 minutes or until the mixture’s slightly thickened. Add the green onion, parsley and crawfish into the Dutch oven, stirring for another minute.
  3. Add the pasta into the Dutch oven, stirring to coat for about a minute or until the pasta’s heated through. Take the Dutch oven off the heat and mix in the grated Parmesan, stirring until the cheese has completely melted (at this point we took a bite and decided to add more salt to bring out the flavors more). Take your portion and garnish it with the shaved Parmesan afterwards if you’re using it.
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We’d never heard of Crawfish Veronica and decided to look it up online. Turns out, this dish is actually a version of Crawfish Monica, a dish served at New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. They say it’s a crowd favorite at the festival and we understand why ! This is such a delicious pasta dish, the flavor of the creole and blackened seasoning comes through but it’s not overwhelming. The flavor of the sauce and crawfish work awesome together, we couldn’t get enough of this tasty dish ! While we still enjoyed eating this the next day, we think it’s tastiest when it’s freshly made.

We got this recipe from Louisiana Cookin’ magazine.

We weren’t paid in any form to promote Zatarain’s, Old Bay, Seaglass, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival or Louisiana Cookin’ magazine.

Take care everybody !

Orange Ice Cream Pops

Ingredients

  • 1 cup cold milk (we used whole milk)
  • 2 cups vanilla ice cream (we used Blue Bunny Homemade Vanilla)
  • 1 can (6 ounces) frozen orange juice concentrate, partially thawed (we used no pulp frozen orange juice concentrate)
  • 12 Popsicle molds or disposable plastic cups (3 ounces each) and Popsicle sticks (we used molds)

Directions

  1. Add the milk, ice cream and orange juice concentrate to a blender, putting the lid on the blender afterwards and processing it until it’s blended and smooth.
  2. Pour ¼ cup of the mixture into each Popsicle mold or plastic cup (we poured more than ¼ cup in so that the mold could be fully filled). Once filled, top the molds with their holders or insert Popsicle sticks into the cups. Stick them in the freezer until firm.
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Tasting this, it reminded us so much of those delicious orange creamsicles ! The orange juice keeps this from being too sweet but the flavor of the vanilla ice cream still comes through. This is a really nice, sweet and refreshing popsicle to enjoy on a hot day !

We got this recipe from Taste of Home.

We weren’t paid in any form to promote Blue Bunny or Taste of Home.

Take care everybody !

Citrus-Jalapeño Slaw

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided (we used extra-virgin olive oil)
  • 2 teaspoons minced garlic
  • 2 teaspoons minced jalapeño
  • 2 cups finely chopped green cabbage
  • 2 cups finely chopped purple cabbage
  • 1 ¼ cups finely shredded carrot (about a 1 (10-ounce) bag) (we used a 10-oz. bag of julienned carrots)
  • 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
  • ½ cup fresh lime juice
  • 2 tablespoons honey
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
  • ¼ teaspoon ground cumin

Directions

  1. Pour 1 tablespoon of the oil into a small sauté pan, setting the heat to medium. Once the oil’s hot, add in the garlic and jalapeño, stirring constantly for 3 to 4 minutes or until fragrant. Take the skillet off the heat and leave it off the now.
  2. In a large mixing bowl, toss the cabbage, carrot, and tomatoes together.
  3. Add the garlic mixture (we took that to mean adding in the oil as well from the skillet), lime juice, honey, salt, pepper, cumin and the remaining tablespoon of oil into a small bowl, stirring to combine. Pour the dressing over the cabbage mixture, stirring everything together. If you’re not going to eat it right away, cover the slaw and refrigerate it for up to 2 days.
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We really enjoyed how bright this slaw tasted ! We’ll have to add more jalapeños next time though ‘cause we barely got any heat from this. To get maximum crunch from this slaw, we’d advise waiting to toss the cabbage mixture with the dressing until you’re just about to eat.

We got this recipe from Louisiana Cookin’ magazine.

We weren’t paid in any form to promote Louisiana Cookin’.

Take care everybody !

Ground Chicken & Chipotle Hard Shell Tacos

Ingredients

  • 1 small red onion, very thinly sliced
  • 1 jalapeño, thinly sliced
  • 2 limes, juiced (about 4 Tbsp.) (we ended up using 4 small limes*)
  • 2 tsp. light agave
  • Salt and pepper (we used kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper)
  • 1 Tbsp. canola or vegetable oil (we used vegetable oil)
  • 1 lb. ground chicken
  • 1 small onion, chopped
  • 2 large cloves garlic, chopped
  • 1 tsp. ground coriander
  • 1 tsp. ground cumin
  • A pinch ground cinnamon (we used ¼ tsp.)
  • ½-1 cup chicken stock (we used 1 cup)
  • 2 Tbsp. pureed chipotles in adobo sauce (They say to puree a whole can’s worth  and keep the leftovers in the freezer but we just finely minced 2 tablespoons worth of chipotles in adobo sauce.)
  • 6-8 large flat-bottom hard taco shells (we used regular hard taco shells)
  • For serving: crumbled Cotija cheese or queso fresco or shredded Chihuahua cheese (we used crumbled Cotija cheese), chopped romaine hearts, chopped yellow or green tomatoes (we used green tomatoes), cilantro leaves and green hot sauce (we used green Tabasco sauce)

Directions

  1. Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.
  2. Take a medium-sized bowl and add to it the red onion, jalapeño, 1 teaspoon of the agave and juice of 1 lime (we accidentally juiced 2 limes), stirring to combine. Season the mixture with salt and pepper to taste, tossing everything together. Let the onion mixture sit for at least a few minutes or until juices start to accumulate. Make sure to stir the onions around again one more time right before serving.
  3. While the onions sit, take a large nonstick skillet out and pour the oil in (making sure that the oil covers the entire bottom of the skillet), setting the heat to medium-high. Once you see the oil rippling and beginning to smoke**, add the chicken in, breaking the meat up into bite-size pieces with a spoon. Cook the chicken for 3 minutes or until browned (our chicken wasn’t browned by the 3-4 minute mark but we decided to move on ‘cause we didn’t want dry chicken). Add the onion, garlic, coriander, cumin and cinnamon and stir constantly for a minute to get the spices toasted. Add in ½ cup of the chicken stock, the 2 tablespoons of chipotle puree, and the remaining agave. Once the mixture’s bubbling, turn the heat down to medium-low. Simmer for 10 to 15 minutes (we went with 10 minutes) or until all of the flavors have melded and the sauce has thickened, adding in more stock if the mixture gets dry (we added the other ½ cup during the 10 minutes). Stir in the remaining lime juice (we juiced 2 limes for this part), taking the skillet off the heat afterwards. We took a bite at this point and thought it tasted bland so we added in some more kosher salt).
  4. When there’s only 5 to 8 minutes left for the chicken to simmer, place the taco shells on a baking sheet (we lined our baking sheet with aluminum foil first) and let them bake until golden for 5 to 8 minutes (we went with 8 minutes). Since our shells weren’t flat-bottomed, we flipped them over at the 5 minute mark when we saw they weren’t golden yet.
  5. Fill up the shells with some chicken, adding on the pickled onions, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, cilantro and hot sauce afterwards.

*Since our limes were small, we had planned on using just one lime for the onions and 2 for the chicken but we accidentally used 2 limes with the onions and decided to still use 2 limes for the chicken.

**We added the chicken in when the oil was hot but not smoking.

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This was a delicious taco ! We loved the heat and acidity in this and the variety of contrasting textures as well.

We got this recipe from Rachael Ray magazine.

We weren’t paid in any form to promote Tabasco or Rachael Ray.

Take care everybody !

Sweet Corn and Zucchini

Ingredients

  • 2 cups coarsely chopped zucchini (our zucchini was ¼- to ½-inch thick)
  • ½ cup diced sweet onion
  • 3 Tbsp. butter (we used unsalted butter)
  • 2 cups fresh corn kernels (took 3 ears of corn for us to get 2 cups worth)
  • ¼ cup chopped fresh chives (we sliced a .5 oz. package worth of chives)
  • 2 tsp. taco seasoning mix (we used 3 tsp.* Lawry’s brand)
  • Kosher salt*, to taste

Directions

  1. Add the butter to a large skillet, setting the heat to medium-high. Once the butter’s melted, add in the zucchini and onion, stirring frequently for 5 minutes (by this point our zucchini was tender). Add in the corn, chives and taco seasoning, stirring constantly for 5 minutes or until tender (we just stirred until the corn was heated through). Taste and add salt to taste.

*The food initially tasted a little bland so we sprinkled the salt in to taste and added an additional teaspoon of taco seasoning as well and liked how it tasted by that point.

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This is such a quick and easy side dish to whip up ! This is supposed to make 4 to 6 servings but it’s tasty enough that you’ll be lucky if this serves 3 people !

We got this recipe from Southern Living.

We weren’t paid in any form to promote Lawry’s or Southern Living.

Take care everybody !