Cajun Cookin'

As you may, or may not know, tomorrow is Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday. If you don't know much about Mardi Gras, just do a google search. It's pretty interesting to read about the history of Mardi Gras. Back where I'm from in Mississippi Mardi Gras is pretty big deal since I live just a few hours from New Orleans where Mardi Gras is huge. For me, Mardi Gras makes me crave the Cajun food I grew up on, so one of my roommates, Sharon, and I decided to bring a little Mardi Gras to our apt by cooking some Cajun food to satisfy my craving. I provided recipes that met my Cajun food standards and Sharon did the cooking.

We made Gumbo based off Emeril's recipe found here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/chicken-and-smoked-sausage-gumbo-with-white-rice-recipe/index.html

Instead of thighs, we used chicken breasts, and used Tony's original seasoning for the Cajun season. After making the roux, browning the meat, and cooking the vegetables like the recipe called for, everything was dumped in the crockpot and left to simmer through the day. Also, file powder cannot be found around here. Sharon went to multiple stores in search for it, and even called J.Gumbo's to see if they sold it, but no luck. It was still tasty without it though.

Simmering Gumbo:

Final Delicious Product:

We also needed a traditional Mardi Gras dessert of King Cake, but instead of the traditional cake we made mini king cake knots to save time and because we just liked the way they looked. Recipe found here: http://www.plainchicken.com/2011/03/easy-king-cake-knots.html (When it called for the refrigerated french bread dough, Sharon used a bread recipe from Julia Child's cookbook.)

The traditional Mardi Gras colors are green, purple, and gold, but we only had sprinkles in one of those colors, green, so we used what we had. (Anyone who knows our apt shouldn't be surprised that we only had green.)

With the extra dough, we decided homemade bread was necessary to go with the gumbo.

Anytime my dad makes Cajun food he always has the Subdues playing, so I decided that we needed to honor this tradition. 

The food turned out delicious, and it made me happy to bring a little bit of home to Louisville. Thanks Sharon for cooking! I look forward to eating leftover gumbo for the next few days. :)