This was part of the ‘Cajun Birthday Lunch’
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I LOVE pralines. It’s that brown sugar-y sweetness that I just can’t resist. I wanted to put that into a cupcake, yet that wasn’t quite enough…I decided to top it off with a PRALINE COOKIE. Oh. Yeah. What have you got to lose, right?

ingredients:
1-1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) butter
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
3 eggs
1 Tablespoon vanilla
2-1/4 cups cake flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup milk
1 cup chopped pecans

vanilla buttercream frosting
praline cookies (recipe here)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Prep a cupcake pan with liners.

In a medium bowl whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugars until fluffy.

Add eggs one at a time. Then the vanilla.

Alternate the milk with the dry ingredients until combined.

Now I am sort of anti-nuts in my desserts, but these little chopped pecans add SO MUCH to this cake. It’s scrumptious, seriously.

Stir in the chopped pecans, then pour into prepped liners.

Bake 17-20 minutes depending on your oven.

Let cool on wire racks.

When cool, frost with vanilla buttercream. You could stop there. You…could. OR…

…you could make a batch of Praline Cookies!!

Just add a praline cookie on top and you’re good to go! Totally unecessary? YES. But it looks so good and you get a cookie AND a cupcake. Hooray for overload.

This was part of the ‘Cajun Birthday Lunch’
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Once again John Besh to the rescue. His My New Orleans cookbook has a gorgeous recipe for Crabmeat stuffed tomatoes. I simplified it because cooking the tomatoes seemed unecessary – here in Los Angeles the Romas are near perfection year ’round so I figured why not accentuate that.

ingredients:
6 ripe Roma tomatoes
1/2 cup mayonaisse
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon Creole seasoning (recipe here)
2 cups jumbo lump crab meat

Wash the tomatoes and slice them in half. Using a spoon scoop out the insides so you get a nice little cup.

Turn the tomato cups over onto paper towels to dry out.

In a bowl combine the mayonaisse, lemon juice, dijon and the crab meat. Add the creole spices and stir to combine.

Turn the tomato cups over and fill with the crab salad.

This makes a great party dish, it looks good and has it’s own serving dish!

This was part of the ‘Cajun Birthday Lunch’
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I am one of those people who LOVE olives. The salty brine, green, black, kalamata, garlic stuffed, I love them all. These are your basic sandwiches until you add an olive salad to the mix. You can buy it in jar but it’s packed with oil, which frankly – sickens me. So I made this one up quick and I think it complemented the meats nicely. Like with the rest of the Cajun meal, there were NO leftovers for this!

ingredients:
6 ounces pitted green, chopped
6 ounces black olives, chopped
6 ounces green olives with pimento, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped fine
2 teaspoons garlic, minced
1 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon celery seed
2 tablespoons red-wine vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tsp. fresh lemon juice
Salt
Pepper

Mix all the ingredients together.

Seriously. That’s it. I have nothing more to say. I like to make this the day before I serve it so that all the flavors really mix up nicely but other than that – yeah. You’re done.

Oh, you want to know how to serve it? Place it on a nice soft roll with the following:

provolone cheese
prosciutto
coppa
salami
ham
mayo
mustard

I set it up so people could build their own sandwiches – it came out great and it was minimal work for me, YAY.

This was part of the ‘Cajun Birthday Lunch’
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Quite obviously this is not traditional red beans and rice, think of it as a shortcut version – but still tasty! Although I made it as more of a side dish for the Cajun birthday party, everyone seemed to to enjoy it as a main dish – it was gone in no time.

ingredients:
1 onion, chopped
1 stalk celery
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 clove chopped garlic
2 (15 ounce) cans red beans, drained
1 (16 ounce) can crushed tomatoes
2 bay leaves
1-1/2 teaspoons Creole seasoning (recipe here)
1 ham steak, chopped

rice

Now see, the reason this is sort of a ‘cheater’s recipe’ is because I used canned red beans instead of soaking dry ones…blah blah, I don’t have the time. When I have the time, I will, but for now – I’m draining the canned beans, ya dig?

In a pot on medium high, start with the ‘holy trinity‘ – onion, celery, bell pepper. Add the garlic until soft.

Pour in the beans and add tomatoes. Then add the Creole seasoning and stir to combine.

Lower the heat to medium and simmer for 10 minutes.

Another ‘cheater’ quick step, instead of boiling down a hamhock I just chop up a ham steak. It works. I promise. Stir in the chopped ham, and simmer for 15 minutes.

Serve with cooked rice and you have a quick fantastic southern meal.

This was part of the ‘Cajun Birthday Lunch’
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When I don’t have a lot of time I make ‘Cheater’s Jambalaya’ in a crock pot. But reading John Besh’s awesome My New Orleans cookbook inspired me to take one for the team and stand up at the stove for a bit. However unlike his recipe suggests I did not use a giant ’spade’ to stir my pot. Yikes. That’s a lot of jambalaya.

ingredients:
1 pound of bacon, chopped
4 boneless skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1″ cubes
1-1/2 pounds smoked sausage, diced
3 onions, diced
2 bell peppers, seeded and diced
5 stalks of celery, diced
5 cloves of garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 dried bay leaf
1-1/2 Tablespoons paprika
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1-1/2 teaspoons celery seed
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
1-1/2 teaspoons fresh ground black pepper
3 cups canned crushed tomatoes
3 cups chicken stock
2 pounds cooked shrimp, peeled and deveined

Heat a large stock pot cook on medium high. Cook the bacon until slightly crisp. Pull the bacon out to drain, and set aside. Make sure you leave the fatty oil in the pot. Oh yes. You will need that.

Now add the chicken (still on medium high) and the smoked sausage – cook until the chicken is browned. Add the onion and cook until carmelized a bit.

Then add the bell peppers, celery and garlic. Cook until softened, just about 5 minutes.

Add the thyme, bay leaf, paprika, cayenne, salt, pepper and celery seed. Cook and stir well, about 4 minutes.

Turn up the heat to high and add the tomatoes and chicken stock. Once it reaches a boil, lower the heat and simmer for about 30+ minutes. Check and stir now and again, you really want the flavors to mix up.

Remember that bacon you cooked and set aside? Yeah, throw that back in and while you’re at it add the shrimp and simmer for another 10 minutes. Serve over rice and you are ready to EAT! (Also goes REALLY good with Sweet Cornbread Muffins…)

This was part of the ‘Cajun Birthday Lunch’
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When I made plain old Tater Tots, I didn’t think they could get any better. But this is it. THIS. IS. IT! These came out so good, I made them for the Cajun lunch and they were WIPED OUT – totally gone by the end of the party. I will admit, I used my fryer this time and they came out extra crispy and delicious!

ingredients:
2 sweet potatoes
2 russet potatoes
1/3 cup milk
2 Tablespoons butter
1/4 cup sour cream
kosher salt
pepper

1-1/2 cups flour
kosher salt
pepper
paprika
3 eggs
2 Tablespoons milk
1-1/2 cups panko

oil
Creole seasoning (recipe here)

Set a pot of water to start boiling. Peel and wash the potatoes. Cut them into cubes and put them in the heating pot of water. Once it starts to boil, let them cook for 12-15 minutes until soft.

Drain the potatoes and transfer to the bowl of an electric mixer. Add the milk, butter and sour cream to the potatoes. Mix until just combined. Don’t go overboard or you will just get a gummy mess.

Start to heat up your oil in the fryer. If you don’t have a fryer, start up your skillet on the stove.

If the mixture is a little soft, place it in the fridge for about 30 minutes. Then you should be able to start forming them into tots. Using a small scoop make a small sized ball of potato and form it into a tater tot (i.e. marshmallow-ish but smaller) shape, set aside.

Once your tots are formed you can now set up your frying line. In one dish put the flour, salt, pepper and paprika. Stir to combine. The second dish whisk the eggs with the milk. The third dish set up the panko.

Dredge it in the flour first, making sure you tap off all the excess. This is the KEY to making any kind of fry coating stick. (That’s what O.G. told me was her secret anyway).

Then dip it into the egg mixture, again not too heavy on the egg. Then finally the panko.

Set the little Tots into their oil bath. I found that 8 minutes or so gives you a nice crispy texture, which made a world of difference.

Once browned let them drain and cool on a wire rack. While they are cooling I just sprinkle them with a touch of Creole seasoning, this is optional, it just adds a nice kick if you like.

These are so good. Crispy outside, with a nice creamy center. By using half potato and half sweet potato it gave these tots the perfect combination and texture.

These are fairly quick to make, you can even do the mash and form the tots the day before you serve them. Just keep them in the fridge and do the dredging when you are ready to eat!

This was part of the ‘Cajun Birthday Lunch’
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This is a pretty good ‘go to’ for anything really. It’s nice on chicken, ribs – I add it to a lot of things. Just mix it up and store it in your pantry!

ingredients:
2 Tablespoons celery seed
1-1/2 Tablespoons paprika
1 Tablespoon onion powder
1 Tablespoon dried thyme
1 Tablespoon garlic powder
1 Tablespoon sea salt
1 Tablespoon fresh black pepper
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon allspice

Last year I threw my mom an ‘Ina Garten Dinner Party‘ for her birthday. This year I went cajun style and served up some very creole treats…

On the menu:
Muffaletta sandwiches
Sweet Cornbread muffins
Crab salad stuffed tomatoes
Red beans & rice
Sweet Potater Tots
Jambalaya
Pecan Praline cupcakes

When I started planning the lunch I drew up some thumbnail sketches of what I thought would go well together. Turns out I made ALL of the dishes. Yikes. I can’t help myself. But I planned everything out so there was no panic and everything was ready right on time.

I have to say the sweet potater tots were a HIT. They were amazing and creamier than the regular tots I had made recently, not to mention I used a fryer this time which made a big difference.

I’ll start posting the recipes over the next few days. For now, I’m takin’ a break from the kitchen…and eating. Whew, I’m stuffed!

**Sorry for the horrible pics. It was really rainy and dark that day. Bad for picture taking, good for eating!

My mom likes Alice in Wonderland and loves tea so we headed to the Royal T maid cafe in Culver City – on Friday morning, all set to try their new Alice Wonderland themed tea.

Only…they didn’t seem to have any idea what I was talking about. I assured them that their website and the news said it started March 5th, so they went in the back and quickly cobbled together a tray. Oh well. At least I can say I was one of the first!

Royal T is the place that TOTALLY pimped out the Hello Kitty high tea, so I suppose I was expecting the same thing? Hm. Granted there were fanciful colors and a cute little meringue mushroom, but I expected a little more ‘Alice’ and maybe more whimsy. But like I said, perhaps they weren’t quite ready for service when I had arrived.

Regardless, everything was DELICIOUS. There were open faced tea sandwiches on cut out playing card toasts – egg salad, smoked salmon, salmon tartare and lavender chicken salad.

But the sweets tray is always what I go for first. There was a colorful macaron, a blue meringue mushroom, green tea flan, raspberry cheesecake and a brownie.

To top off the tray there was a cheeseburger Kobe beef slider, I’m not sure how it fit into the whole equation but it was really tasty nonetheless.

As usual they had amazing artwork and the store was filled with really unique items. I’m sure will be a big hit and I’m glad we went on a Friday because we avoided any and all crowds that are sure to storm the place on the weekends. I can’t wait to see what Royal T does next!

I was just about to leave.

Proud of myself that there was nothing in the store that I wanted.

Then I turned the corner.

I saw it and immediately said ‘I’ll take it.’

And that is how the world’s cutest stew pot ended up in my kitchen.

The thing is – it was a set! But I passed on the accompanying saucepan. I have some self control, sheesh!

Hm, maybe I’ll go back next week…