patti

Thanks, and yes, it is cornbread.

Cheese tortellini and Italian sausage soup with spinach.

Not a pretty lunch. Smoked sausage with pepper jack. I’m really only posting because of Maggie’s eyes.

If I coulda I woulda. Or waited for my husband’s next trip to the store. I looked up recipes, but masa harina is not in my pantry. Like I said, my imperfect world. 🤷‍♀️

Catfish tacos in my imperfect world.

Not to me, but my husband thinks it does in some things. In my opinion, the best etouffee you can make is with leftover boiled crawfish because you can harvest all the fat to flavor your etouffee. Buying packaged tail meat is fine, but you don’t get as much good flavor. Lots of people embrace carrying the boil flavor into other dishes. After the Boil soup is popular, using the corn, potatoes, and crawfish. After the Boil potato salad, omelets, and so on. After the last two boils we’ve had, I’ve made crawfish bread, crawfish Monica, crawfish cakes, crawfish stew, crawfish pie, and crawfish cornbread. I conclude that nothing beats boiled crawfish. Nothing. I even love cold leftover boiled crawfish. But of those dishes I made, crawfish stew was my favorite.

The guys who work on offshore drilling rigs or production platforms face a similar situation as far as being isolated from the rest of the world, being removed from their families, working physically hard 12 hour shifts and being dependent on food provided by the company. The difference is that they are extremely well fed. One of my brothers worked offshore and raved about the food and the choices they had. I’m so sorry miners aren’t treated as thoughtfully. They do need something to look forward to.

Made crawfish pie last night, using tail meat leftover from the crawfish boil. Even with store bought pie shells, I get “rustic” looking results. Before the top crust is applied, while things still look pretty. After. I also made some crawfish cornbread, but didn’t add enough crawfish, in my opinion. My husband disagreed. Tonight, leftover crawfish pie and a simple salad.

Mother’s Day meal, definitely the best we’ve had this season. Nice size, great price, and my husband seasoned them perfectly.

@Margaret Pilgrim and @Shelby, and Shelby’s step-father, I wish I could feed y’all! Sharing food with my friends is what I miss most from pre-pandemic times.

Smothered okra with shrimp and smoked sausage.

I have made corn ice cream, and it was delicious. Oh, that I had thought to have that presentation!

Leftovers with a fried egg on top.

BLT and Avocado salad. Was aghast to discover we were out of red onion, so I had to make do with green onion.

My husband calls this Hamburger Helper, even though I didn’t use Hamburger Helper. I prefer to call it by the more elevated, “Ground Beef & Potato Skillet.” 😁 The corn is a take-off on Mexican Street Corn. Not authentic, I guess, but good. Frozen corn, mayo, sour cream, lime juice, cumin, cayenne, and it was supposed to be cotijo cheese. I subbed with queso fresco.

Oh! Where do I begin on this topic?! I’ll start with something good. We have both retired this year during the pandemic. A few months ago he decided that one of his retirement duties is to clean the kitchen every night! Yay! I don’t even mention the things I later rewash because he isn’t thorough enough. It’s worth it to remain silent. In 2009 my husband’s employer told him that if he wanted his job, it was now going to be in Houston. He wanted his job. He got an apartment in Houston and drove home on the week-ends. This lasted a year before he told the company he had another job offer and was moving back home. They suddenly decided he could do his job from home, if he was willing to go back for occasional meetings and things. He was. While in Houston, he’d been cooking for himself, probably more often than I was cooking at home, but then he’d always cooked some. On his return, he started telling me how I should cook things. The most infuriating was when he’d start with, “Rachel Ray says,” or “Rachel Ray does...” (He was watching way too much Food Network!) UGH. If I bought a roast for Sunday dinner, I would be so annoyed when I’d walk into the kitchen and he’d already started cooking it. My roast is better! One day we actually did dueling pot roasts. The winner was our son, who took massive leftovers home with him. There will be more to come.

Leftover shawarma and hummus. Didn’t have pita, but the flour tortilla worked nicely.

I took this photo of him at a hotel in Lafayette, LA, in Feb 2018, just a few months before his death. ETA: Thanks to liuzhou for improving the photo quality!

Chicken shawarma and jasmine rice, homemade hummus.

I made a garlic cream sauce, but browned the butter a bit too much, hence the color of the sauce. While it doesn’t look appetizing, the taste was still good.

I hear that cows are often adjacent to plants.

Combo of leftovers from different dinners. Enchiladas and fried grits. Because of the way they were stored, I didn’t have pretty grit cakes. Crispy, fried grit lumps taste pretty good, though!

Catfish and stuff.

Enchiladas and avocado. There were other sides planned, but they did not get made. Tomorrow is another day.

Last night, breakfast for dinner. Goat cheese omelet with Hatch green chiles, bacon, grits, Grand’s biscuit. Tonight, patty melt and onion rings. If the patty had been thinner it would’ve been better. Oh, late night dessert last night! (I’m going to Hell for gluttony.) Homemade dark chocolate peanut tart with potato chip crust, served with vanilla bean ice cream. In order to save myself, I sent the rest of the tart to my son and his wife, along with most of a chocolate peanut butter tart.