patti

In my part of Louisiana, fried chicken is accompanied by dirty rice (aka rice dressing) as well as biscuits. Cream gravy and mashed potatoes, too. We loves us some starch!

Cajun Dirty Rice!

Tastes like (breast o') chicken?

Some of my favorite ornaments are our hand blown glass fruits and vegetable ornaments. We've got purple grapes, a peach, a pear, a tomato, an eggplant, the lucky green pickle, a strawberry, a lemon, a carrot, a bell pepper, a chile pepper, a fruit basket, and others. I forgot how lovely they are until I unwrap them from their boxes each year.

Jason, that potato looks fantastic! Baked potatoes are often a meal for my son, who likes to combine both real bacon bits with fake. <shrug> What can I say, he likes the taste of them, and doesn't consider fake as an alternative to the real, but as an additional topping. My preferred toppings are butter (lots), grated extra sharp cheddar, sour cream, bacon, salt and lots of black pepper. Alternatively, lose the sour cream, bacon, and cheddar, and top with crumbled feta and chopped tomato. One good variant I've had is a crawfish etouffee topped potato.

This furner in Loozyanna calls it Ro-Tel dip. Either tortilla chips or Fritos will do. Love the stuff. Another fave is Olive Pecan Spread. Soften an 8 oz. block of cream cheese and mix it with 3/4 cup of mayo, a drained bottle of salad olives, plus 2 T of the reserved olive juice, 3 or 4 dashes of Tabasco, and a cup of chopped pecans. Chill for a couple of hours. Serve with crackers. People who think they don't like olives love this stuff.

Brooks, this crop IS the size of baseballs, but I can tell you that in previous years the lemons were smaller and not very plentiful. The trees were a gift (given to us in memory of our beloved son, Matthew, who died five years ago today) and I have to admit I don't know anything more than that they are lemons.

We have one satsuma tree and one lemon tree, and I can confirm that the yield has been excellent this year. My husband has been taking sacks of them to work to share with coworkers and we've been eating our fill. The trees are almost five years old and this is the best crop ever.

How long could I expect onion confit to be good, stored in the fridge (and not frozen). Does it taste good after having been frozen?

When I make trail mix, I must have Sesame Sticks. It's my favorite ingredient. I wonder how it would work in the party mix. Damn, I can't ever leave this site without an envie for something good to munch on.

I've gotten some pleasure from Martha's tv shows, though I was never a rabid fan. OTOH, I was never a Martha hater, either. I gained the most respect for her when she made the decision to do her jail time and get it over with instead of waiting for all of the endless appeals to take place. I'd rather get it over with, too, so I could get on with my life, instead of wallowing in all of the muck. Mark Burnett's productions aren't as cheesy as many of the less successful prime time game shows (which is what I prefer to think of them as, rather than 'reality' shows), and I hope he doesn't disappoint with this one.

One of my favorite things at Best Stop are their cracklins. Hmm, I like it so much, I don't think I've ever even tasted their boudin. How sad for me. I might have to remedy that soon.

Damn, my garage sale West Bend must be faulty (plus, no little blue barns and trees on the side). It is rectangular, and a lovely country beige, with a brown floral spray. Anyway, I'd have loved to have had gorgeous confit in seven hours, but it took me 24. Damn, you're good! Next time it's on high (5) all the way.

Looks great, Brooks, and I've got several containers of homemade shrimp stock in the freezer, as well as nice Gulf shrimp, just waiting to be cooked up. Maybe for Friday or Saturday night supper.

I've read the first six of the 12 pages of this thread (and will finish it all later), but wanted to contribute my confit experience. I used: 6 large red onions butter (3/4 stick) EVOO kosher salt freshly ground pepper 3 bay leaves 1 tsp. of dried thyme (out of fresh) It took 24 hours to get it to the right color and consistency. I'm guessing that my old West Bend crockpot needed to be on high the whole time. I put it on low when I went to bed, and that was a mistake. Also, I kept it covered overnight, and next time I'll leave it uncovered. Having said that, I didn't really mind that it took 24 hours to get there because I didn't have any special plans for the confit. However, I just happened to finish making a pot of really rich and good turkey stock when the confit was done, so I put some confit in the bottom of a bowl, topped it with the a ladle or two of turkey stock and some mozzarella (didn't have gruyere), and had a variation of French Onion soup. Mmm, it was excellent! In fact, I had two bowls. I also didn't have any French bread (or appropriate substitutions) on hand, so I made do without it.

I've never put any kind of tomato in my etouffee; maybe that's more Creole style than Cajun style? What I really miss is the little tub of crawfish fat that used to accompany each pound of crawfish tails in the supermarket. What's crawfish etouffee without good crawfish fat? I rarely make etouffee anymore because the end result just isn't as good, unless I've got some leftover boiled crawfish and can glean the fat when I peel them.

Final judgment: Praline-Pumpkin Torte - Excellent! Moist, rich and tasty. Everybody loved it and this recipe is a keeper. Next time will bake a bit longer and be more watchful when testing for doneness. Lucky 7 Coconut-Lemon Cake - Eh. The lemon filling was tart and lemony, but all in all, will unlikely make this particular cake again.

At the movies: Charms lime lollipop into fountain Dr. Pepper. It must be that combination only. Buttered french bread into rich, dark gumbo. And all the usual suspects.

My husband and I made Praline-Pumpkin Torte and Lucky 7 Coconut-Lemon Cake tonight. They aren't perfect, but I won't pass judgment until after we serve them tomorrow. Bad sign: When my husband tried to transfer one cooled praline-pumpkin layer from the rack to the cake plate, a blob of cake fell out of the center. Which answered my previous question to him, "Why's the middle of the cake sagging?" We baked it according to directions, and it even passed the toothpick test, but it was obviously underdone. The cake needs refrigerating, and because it was late and we were nonplussed, we put the layers in the fridge without putting it all together. Anybody have any ideas? Should we put them back in the oven tomorrow and bake them a little longer? (The blob was very tasty, though.)

Damn, I thought I was going to get away with slyly not admitting to using canned yams. Busted. Rats. I'd parboil them.

I have one that is very simple, and perhaps less gourmet than you'd like, but it is tried and true. The topping is enough for a 13 x 9 pan of yams. 1 cup chopped pecans 1 cup brown sugar 6 T flour 6 T butter mini marshmallows optional In a small bowl combine pecans, sugar, flour, and butter, blending well. Sprinkle over yams. Top with marshmallows if desired. Bake for 40 minutes or until bubbly. Simple, reliable, but more importantly, very good tasting.

Irodguy, are you back from your trip yet? Did you find some good eats?

Nice report. I'm looking forward to reading the next installment.

Fat Guy's right, the pork chop brine was a bourbon and salt water solution. I would've liked to have seen more of what Paris was binging on and I got a kick out of her bit about the cheesy bread. "Where's the cheesy bread? I ordered cheesy bread!"

Interesting question, and one I'd have answered differently at different stages of my life. First of all, the word 'Cajun' wasn't in popular use in my childhood years. Growing up, the term was 'coonass' and it was more often than not a derogatory term used for people considered less than intelligent who spoke with a thick, sometimes unintelligble accent. Since I didn't have the accent and I didn't live on the wrong side of the tracks, I didn't consider myself Cajun, nor did most of my friends, despite last names like Chaisson, Breaux, Boudreaux, Thibodeaux, Hebert, Arceneaux, Savoy, and Daigle (sounds like a big group in denial ). I was born in New Iberia and my father's ancestors were part of a group of six families from Malaga, Spain, who settled Nueva Iberia back in the late 1700s, at a time when Louisiana was ruled by Spain. The French Acadians had been exiled from Nova Scotia in 1755, but it was a number of years before the great migration to south Louisiana was complete. Eventually, many settled along the Bayou Teche in the New Iberia area. When I look through the records in my family tree, I can see the obvious intermingling of the Spanish and the French names. Eventually, New Iberia was much more French than Spanish, and my grandparents' first language was Cajun French. At family get togethers when I was a child, my grandparents and all of the old aunts and uncles would converse in French when they wanted to talk about things they didn't want us to hear. I'm not sure why my father didn't speak French, but I have a feeling it was because kids in school were physically punished for speaking it. I don't even know if he ever spoke it, but I know he claimed not to know it when questioned, because for many years, there was shame in being Cajun French. Move forward a few years, and the popularity of Cajun food and Cajun music brought about a change in attitude in south Louisiana and it became more socially acceptable and less shameful to be considered a part of this previously looked down upon ethnic group. I married a guy with not only a Cajun last name, but a bit of a Cajun accent. Despite my Spanish maiden name and my Texan mother (almost an ethnicity unto itself), I cook like a Cajun, I'm married to a Cajun, and I grew up in the heart of Acadiana. So you tell me, am I Cajun?