Quickie King Cake

Sometimes Mardi Gras sneaks up on you. You wouldn't think so, as it is a set day every year - the day before Ash Wednesday, 46 days before Easter, and the whole Mardi Gras season actually starts on Three Kings Day (January 6) so, again, you think you'd have time to plan. Well, Mardi Gras snuck up on us. We managed to (barely) get our crawfish order in on time to have them delivered on Fat Tuesday, but the king cakes were outrageously expensive, if not sold out entirely. 

Amy hemmed and hawed and finally came up with a plan, inspired by a can of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls in the fridge and the vague memory of making some sort of stuffed holiday wreath appetizer with them at someone's Pampered Chef party years ago.

This particular version is simple enough to be worthy of the Big Easy itself, where King Cake rules tables in office lunch rooms and teacher lounges for the first two months of the year. Someone starts by bringing in the first cake, and the person who finds a plastic baby in their slice gets the dubious honor luck of bringing in the next one. Needless to say, King Cake has ruined many a New Year's resolution. 

The colors of Mardi Gras have meaning, so remember that when you are decorating - purple stands for justice, green for faith, and gold for power. And don't forget to put a plastic mini baby doll (or dried kidney bean) somewhere inside for luck.

If Mardi Gras snuck up on you, too, you still have time to grab a few ingredients and make this quickie version before midnight rolls around. 

Happy Mardi Gras! Laissez les bon temps rouler!

Quickie King Cake 

Ingredients:

1 8-ounce container whipped cream cheese

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla, divided

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 cans refrigerated croissant/crescent roll dough

3/4 cup chopped pecans

1 plastic mini baby doll or dried kidney bean

1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

3 tablespoons whole milk

purple, green and gold colored sugar

1. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and preheat oven to 350F.

2. In a large bowl, stir together the cream cheese, brown sugar, 1 teaspoon of the vanilla, and the cinnamon until well-combined. 

2. Unroll each piece of dough in a circle with the flat sides of the triangles on the outside of the circle and the pointed ends of the triangles in the center of the circle, slightly overlapping each other. 

3. Spoon the cream cheese mixture about half way out, then sprinkle with the chopped pecans, if using. Place the baby somewhere on there.

4. Flip each piece of dough over the cream cheese mixture and press on it the seam in the center so it doesn't leak out.

5. Bake at 350F for 30 minutes, until golden brown and allow to cool completely.

6. Whisk together the sugar, milk and remaining teaspoon of vanilla to make the glaze. Spoon the glaze over the cooled cake, allowing it to drip over the sides.

7. While the glaze is still wet, decorate with purple, green and gold sugar.

NOLA BBQ Shrimp 'n Grits

Our niece, P, is heading to New Orleans for spring break this weekend and boy, are we jealous. We haven't been since 2013, and Amy can feel it in her bones. It's an ever-present longing for her. Like Louis Armstrong's song goes, "Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?"

We met P for dinner to give her some trip tips - things to do, places to go, restaurants and bars to visit, must-eat dishes. You know the drill. And a few days later, no surprise, Amy had a yearning for Southern food. Her favorite New Orleans dish, in particular - BBQ Shrimp. 

We've written about BBQ Shrimp before (here, here, here). Amy tries not to make it too often, as it is an exceptionally rich (read: full of butter) dish. But at times like this, it's more of a need than a want. We usually gorge ourselves on shrimp and bread alone, but this time we made them over creamy cheesy grits. Oh yeah.

Note: Start the grits first, as they take slightly longer than the shrimp.

BBQ Shrimp 'n Grits

inspired by the recipe from Ralph's on the Park

BBQ Shrimp

Ingredients:

1 pound large fresh unpeeled (heads, tails, shell left on)

3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

2 tablespoons coarsely ground black pepper

3 teaspoons Creole seasoning (such as Tony Chachere's)

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon dried crushed rosemary

2 tablespoons hot water

1/2 lemon, seeds removed

1 stick unsalted butter, chilled

Place shrimp in a large skillet. Add Worcestershire sauce, pepper, Creole seasoning, garlic, rosemary and water. Squeeze the lemon over the shrimp to add the juice, then put what's left of the lemon into the pan. Cook over high heat, occasionally stirring/tossing, until shrimp start to turn pink (about 2 minutes). Reduce heat to medium, then add butter, one tablespoon at a time, to the pan. Continue to stir and/or toss gently while adding the butter, until all butter is incorporated into the sauce and shrimp are fully, but not overly, cooked (2-3 minutes depending on the size of the shrimp). Serve over grits with crusty bread and lots of napkins. 

Grits

Ingredients:

3/4 cup stone-ground corn meal (aka grits, aka polenta)

2 cups chicken stock

3/4 cup half-and-half

4 tablespoons cream cheese (regular or whipped)

2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese (or to taste)

kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Place all ingredients in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Continue to cook, stirring frequently, until they are smooth and tender (about 10 minutes). 

Mardi Gras Crawfish Desire

Circumstances beyond our control prevented us from having our annual Mardi Gras Madness party. But a 5-pound bag of cooked, frozen crawfish gifted to us by Amy's mom and a desire for the taste of New Orleans made today feel like Fat Tuesday nonetheless.

Amy created this recipe long ago, based on a favorite dish served at Jazz Fest called Crawfish Monica. It can be made with shrimp, but crawfish is much more authentic, so if you can get it, go for it. Even if it's frozen.

Happy Mardi Gras, y'all!

Crawfish Desire

Ingredients:

1 lb. seafood: crawfish (cooked and peeled) and/or shrimp (raw, peeled and deveined)
1 stick unsalted butter
1 pint half-and-half
½ cup chopped green onions
6 cloves garlic, chopped
2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
Creole seasoning to taste (the more, the spicier, and I prefer Tony Chachere’s)
1 lb. pasta (rotini if you’re being authentic)

Put water on to boil pasta and cook pasta al dente. Melt butter and sauté garlic and green onions until fragrant. Add shrimp and/or crawfish and cook for three minutes. Gradually add half-and-half, then the thyme and Creole seasoning, stirring well*. Cook five minutes so that the seafood is cooked through and the sauce becomes thickened. Add cooked pasta and let the dish sit over low heat for five more minutes, stirring often. Serve with crusty French bread, of course!

*It is important to stir often so that the sauce doesn’t break (separate).

New Year's "Challenge" Accepted: Creole Bread Pudding Soufflé

Amy writes:

2014 was a crap year and I'm glad it's over. It started with the death of a good friend of ours and didn't ever really improve that much. There were plenty of problems, lots of losses, and several stresses. I know I could have, should have, turned all that negative energy into creative cooking but I didn't. I stopped caring what, or even if, we ate. We did a lot of heat-n-eat and take-out. I stopped cooking, and I stopped writing about it. 

I, nay we, are in a better place now. Not perfect but better. And I've realized how much I've missed food. I started this blog on New Year's Day 2008 and I'm hereby reviving it today, exactly 7 years later.  I'll admit there have been times when it seemed like work and it added stress to our lives. I'm not going to let that happen again. I'm going to let it be what I meant it to be from the beginning - an online compendium of our recipes, a journal of the time we share in the kitchen, and a fun way to improve my own cooking, writing, and photography. 

What better way to restart than with a seeming challenge from the magazine Louisiana Cooking. The cover shot? "Make it at home: Commander's Palace  Creole Bread Pudding Soufflé." Yeah, I know what you're thinking - a dessert. And a dessert so famous there's an employee at that restaurant who makes only these. Full time. Challenge accepted. 

So on New Year's Eve, A Couple in the Kitchen spent the evening exactly there. We set a menu, we shopped, we prepped, we chopped, we cooked, we enjoyed, and yes, we even cleaned. And the challenging dessert? Creole bread pudding soufflé? The best dessert we've ever made. For rillz. Happy 2015!!! We are happy to be back. 

Creole Bread Pudding Soufflé 

(Adapted for two from Louisiana Cooking November/December 2014)

Ingredients:

Pudding and soufflé: 

Butter for greasing pan and soufflé dishes

1/2 cup sugar, divided

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Dash nutmeg

1 large egg

1/3 cup heavy whipping cream

1/3 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups French bread, cut into 1-inch cubes

1/4 cup raisins

3 large egg whites, at room temperature

1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar

Whiskey sauce: 

1/4 tablespoon cornstarch

1/2 tablespoon water

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream 

1 1/2 tablespoons sugar

1/8 cup bourbon 

Make bread pudding: Preheat oven to 350. Grease a small baking pan with butter. In a medium bowl, combine 1/4 cup sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add egg and whisk until smooth; add cream and vanilla and stir to combine. Add bread cubes, and let soak until mixture is absorbed. Scatter raisins into prepared pan and top with bread mixture. Bake until golden brown and firm, about 25 minutes. Let cool. 

Make whiskey sauce: In a small bowl, combine cornstarch and water. Bring cream to a boil In a small saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in cornstarch mixture and return to a boil while continuing to whisk. Let simmer a few seconds meow and remove from heat. Stir in sugar and bourbon and cool to room temperature. 

Make soufflé: Grease 2 soufflé dishes with butter and set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat egg whites and cream of tartar at high speed until foamy. Slowly add remaining 1/4 cup sugar and continue beating until meringue is shiny and thick with stiff peaks. 

Assemble: Crumble half of bread pudding into a bowl. Gently fold in 1/4 of meringue. Add a portion of this into each prepared ramekin. Crumble the remaining bread pudding into the bowl and fold in the rest of the meringue. Top the soufflés with this mixture. Bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes. Poke a hole in the top of each soufflé and pour in whiskey sauce. Serve immediately. 

Wordless Weekender: Oysters in New Orleans

Wordless Weekender: Pralines by Southern Candymakers of New Orleans

Cinnamon Swirl Bread Pudding

Perhaps it was the news about Pascal's Manale, or looking at that drool-worthy photo of BBQ Shrimp, but once again, Amy finds herself hankering for some New Orleans cuisine. A few-days old, untouched loaf of cinnamon swirl bread got us thinking...how about some bread pudding?

We finally broke out a piece of the Temp-tations Traditions baking set Amy's parents bought us for Christmas and set about making this traditional Southern dessert, only we made it for breakfast. Why not? It has eggs, and milk, and cinnamon bread, and well, we don't have to justify ourselves to you, now do we?

First, we have to say, the bakeware did an amazing job. After devouring our pieces, then divvying up the rest to the neighbors, the empty pan looked already washed. A quick rinse and wipe was all it needed. Secondly,  well, yum. It was scrumptious, particularly with a little swirl of our bourbon sauce over the top. It's five o'clock somewhere.

It seems so decadent, but cinnamon has a ton of health benefits also. Here is a great article by Helen Nicols where she extols the virtues of this super-spice!

Go buy a small loaf of good cinnamon bread and ignore it for a few days. Then come back and try out this classic Big Easy recipe. You won't be sorry!

Cinnamon Swirl Bread Pudding

Ingredients:

1 small loaf stale cinnamon swirl bread, cut into cubes

2 cups milk

5 large eggs

1 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon demerara, turbinado or brown sugar

1 tablespoon butter, cut into small pieces

cooking spray

Preheat oven to 350. Place bread cubes in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the milk, eggs and sugar until well combined. Add the vanilla extract and pour mixture over the bread. Gently fold the bread cubes to ensure all the bread is covered in the egg mixture. Allow to sit for at least 15 minutes, stirring occasionally so all bread is well soaked. Spray a 13X9 baking pan with cooking spray and pour bread into the dish. Sprinkle with demerara sugar and dot with butter. Bake for 45 minutes, until golden brown and set.

Bourbon Sauce

Ingredients:

1 cup granulated sugar

3/4 stick unsalted butter

1 egg, beaten

1/4 cup bourbon

Mix together the sugar, butter and beaten egg in a medium saucepan over low heat. Stir until well combined, taking care that the egg does not cook. Remove from heat once the sugar is melted. Stir in the bourbon and serve warm over the bread pudding.

Congratulations to Pascal's Manale, New Orleans

Pascal's Manale is such a New Orleans standby that it is on Amy's to-do list each and every time she visits. Located Uptown on Napoleon Avenue, a few blocks between the St. Charles streetcar and the river, this neighborhood joint celebrated their 100th anniversary in 2013. To add to that, a couple of weeks ago, the Louisiana Restaurant Association presented the current fourth-generation owners of Pascal's Manale with their Greater New Orleans Chapter Lifetime Achievement Award. A well-deserved honor, in our opinion. 

The restaurant's signature dish, which also happens to be Amy's favorite food on this big green planet, is the "Original BBQ Shrimp." Whole shrimp (shells and heads and tails and all) swimming in a luscious butter sauce spiked with garlic and black pepper, with a hint of umami (Worcestershire, perhaps?) and a touch of lemon. What is not to love?  Served with a loaf of crackly French bread and the requisite bib, this dish is the epitome of New Orleans.

Congratulations to the DeFelice Family on their award, and many thanks for continuing the Pascal's Manale tradition.  

K's "Semi-Homemade" Gumbo

We were in New Orleans over the holidays visiting with our friends K and J when it suddenly occurred to Amy to ask K how she makes her gumbo. In the proud fashion only a Southerner could pull off, K explained that she started with Zatarain's Gumbo Base and then "doctored it up." Now, Amy loves Zatarain's products. In fact, she once served Zatarain's Shrimp Creole to a New Orleans native who claimed disbelief that something so delicious could come from a Yankee's kitchen. (Well, with a little help.) And if Zatarain's is good enough for K, it's good enough for us.

Missing NOLA (and K and J!) already, we decided to make K's "Semi-Homemade" Gumbo yesterday and it was perfect. We don't serve ours with rice, just plenty of crusty bread to soak up the thick, gravy-like stew. And while we used boneless, skinless chicken thighs and andouille sausage in ours, any mixture of meat and/or seafood that you like can be thrown into the gumbo pot. This recipe made eight servings, so there was enough for dinner and a couple of Louisiana-style lunches. Laissez les bon temps rouler! We're going to have to make this for Mardi Gras!

And doesn't it look so good in our NOLA "Soup"-er Bowls?!?!?

K's Semi-Homemade Gumbo

Ingredients:

1 box Zatarain's Gumbo Base

6 cups water 

1 - 1 1/2 pounds pre-cooked chicken or sausage (or raw seafood), cut into bite-sized pieces

3 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil, divided

3 bay leaves

dried oregano, dried basil, dried thyme, salt and black pepper to taste

1 medium onion, chopped

3 celery stalks (including leaves), chopped

5 garlic cloves, minced

12-16 oz. frozen cut okra

1 14-oz. can petite diced tomatoes

In a large pot, combine the gumbo base, water, browned chicken and/or sausage (if using seafood do not add yet), 2 tablespoons oil, bay leaves, and a shake each of dried herbs, salt and pepper. Stir thoroughly and bring to a boil. In the meantime, heat last tablespoon of oil in a skillet. Cook onion, celery and garlic until softened. Add to the pot, then re-season with herbs, salt and pepper to taste. When mixture comes to a boil, reduce heat and simmer over low heat for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. As all of that cooks, put frozen cut okra in the vegetable skillet with 1/2 cup water.  Bring to a boil, cover, and cook on medium until the okra is soft. Then add the okra and tomatoes to pot. Continue to cook until the 30 minutes are up. (If adding seafood, add after 20 minutes of cooking, return to a boil, then cover and simmer another 10 minutes.) Serve over rice and/or with crusty bread.

(Personal) Best of 2013: Best Recipe

Our final Best of 2013 post goes to the recipe we thought was our personal best of the year. It had to come entirely from us - not a Secret Recipe Club post, or a French Fridays with Dorie post, or an adapted recipe, but one we came up with ourselves. We had many this year, and most of them we created in the first half of the year. This isn't surprising, as we were away most of the summer and this fall has been pretty crazy busy. 

Anyway, we narrowed it down to a few. The Pork and Chipotle Pozole was a warm and hearty dish we really enjoyed back in February. April's Yellow Curry Shrimp was excellent but we didn't make the sauce from scratch, so we didn't think it should take first place. Our Potato, Leek and Celeriac Gratin was decadent indeed, but, alas, not quite as good as our Best Recipe of 2013. 

That honor goes to our incredible New Orleans-inspired brunch dish, Bacon, Egg and Cheese Bread Pudding. We could devour that daily. 

Christmas Countdown: Golden Syrup Pecan Bites and One Baking Fail

When Amy lived in New Orleans, her then-boyfriend's family had a pecan tree in the backyard. The nuts would drop around Thanksgiving, and they had a special tool for picking them off the ground. It was a favorite after-turkey-dinner activity, and since then, pecans just seem to say "holidays." We already made some lovely Pecan Sea-Salt Drops, but we had pecans left over from that experiment, so we decided to make some pecan bites. 

You've noticed us using corn syrup in some of our candy recipes, and frankly, we don't have an issue with that. But Whole Foods carries Lyle's Golden Syrup, a iconic product from the UK that we've heard of but never tried. When we tasted it, we thought of pancakes, waffles and pecan pie. And that's where our pecan bites came from. With a crumbly crust and golden, nutty top, these are sure to please. 

Golden Syrup Pecan Bites

Ingredients:

Cooking spray

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup packed brown sugar

2 sticks unsalted butter

5 large eggs

1 cup Lyle's Golden Syrup

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 pinch of salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup coarsely chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350. Spray a 9x11 baking pan with cooking spray. Combine flour and brown sugar. Add butter, a tablespoon at a time, into the flour/brown sugar mixture and crumble with your hands until it looks crumbly. Press into prepared baking pan and bake for 10 minutes. Combine eggs, syrup, salt and vanilla and mix well. Fold in pecans. Pour mixture over crust. Reduce oven to 275 and bake for 50 minutes, until set and golden brown. Cut into large bars or bite-sized squares.

And of course, we did have one baking fail this Christmas. We attempted to make Bon Appetit's Bourbon Sea-Salt Caramels. We are pretty confident we followed the directions but they just did not set up. The most disappointing thing is that we sprinkled ours with a beautiful espresso sea salt our neighbors D and J gave us, so it was a real waste of both time and good ingredients. Here's what a part of it ended up looking like after we tried to cut it into pieces. Yikes!

Nemo Gras!!!

Chef C's amazing King Cake

If we say so ourselves, our annual Mardi Gras Madness party has become somewhat of a legend. Last year was an excellent example of its reputation - read about it here. This year, we spent much of last week prepping for the epic-ness - buying, thawing, injecting (with secret marinade), and rubbing 6 turkeys; boiling 10 pounds of ham in cola; purchasing all the ingredients for muffaletta pasta salad; having Pat O'Brien's Hurricane Mix shipped to the house. You know the drill. Oh, wait, you don't? 

The post-blizzard view from our porch...not good

This party has been happening since 2003. So we were rarin' to go for the 10th anniversary Mardi Gras Madness. 87 people responded "YES," and we were ready. Then came Nemo.

Turkey set-up. That's Amy's car behind it. Yup. It was that bad.

Nemo dumped nearly 3 feet of snow on us the-day-before-into-the-day-of the party. When, at noon on Saturday, the governor declared that ALL roads were closed to traffic, we postponed to the next day. Surely that would be plenty of time for people to dig out, for roads to be plowed, for power to be restored? Maybe not so much.

Chris digs out our back deck

Sunday morning, the Krewe was intact, shoveling, snowblowing, and helping us set up for who knows how many guests. Every year we rely on our Krewe to help us set up, clean up, whatever, and this year, even more so. We even had the neighborhood kids (8 and 3 1/2 year olds) helping out.  Super special thanks to G, S, B, D, J, N, K, W, B and especially, L for all you did. We couldn't have done it without ya'll, as usual!

At 3 1/2, our youngest Krewe member ever!

By 12:45 we had 3 guests at the house (including a strange bearded man - pictured below) and things looked somewhat dim. Over the next several hours, however, the regulars rallied. We ended up with about 40 people, all of whom brought wonderful dishes to add to the fried turkey, cola ham, and muffaletta pasta party. Hurricanes were plentiful, though some people thought they should be called "blizzards" this once. Awesome pastry chef C brought a king cake worthy of the best Big Easy bakery. There was shrimp dip, shrimp and grits, drunken andouille pigs in a blanket,  Mardi Gras meringues, spanokopita, B's best chocolate chip cookies, Mardi Gras cupcakes, and so much more. B even sent her amazing quiche for us to enjoy the next morning. She is the sweetest thing!!!

"Bearded Man"

Cola Ham

(Chris makes the most awesome) Fried Turkey

Drunken Andouille in a Blanket

Muffaletta Pasta Salad with Shrimp

Shrimp n Grits

Around 5, a bunch of us teachers got text messages saying schools and other "non-essential personnel" were not to report to work on Monday. This brought cheers and a round of shots for those of us who are proud to be "non-essential." We ate, drank, visited, and celebrated until around 10, when the party wound down.

Cupcakes

Mardi Gras Meringues

Barb's Best Cookies

Suffice it to say, not even 34 inches of Winter Storm Nemo can stop Mardi Gras! 

Laissez les bon temp rouler!!!

Morning-After Quiche