holiday – Hungry for Louisiana

Fresh from the Gulf, Holiday, Hors d'oeuvres

Crabby snacks!

Need a quick hors d’oeuvres for the holiday frenzy? Cucumber cups filled with something creamy and wonderful are a great place to start. I filled these with fresh Gulf lump crabmeat blended with a little mayo, lemon juice, capers, some chopped celery and a little salt. I found Persian cucumbers at Trader Joe’s, but you can also use English cukes. The goal is to find a cucumber that’s on the thinner side. Peel it, cut it into manageable widths and scoop out the pulp gently from one side, leaving a “floor” on the other. Fill the cup with the crab mixture and place on a pretty plate. A regular cucumber also works fine. Just slice it into thin discs and serve the crab on top, as shown.

One-bite snacks like these are perfect starters for heavy Christmas day meals or with evening cocktails. Great with rosé or sparkling wine. Enjoy!

Happy Holidays to you and yours!

Fresh from the Gulf, Holiday, Soups

Soup, indeed.

Shrimp and corn. Artichoke and oyster. Gumbos of all sorts. Cozy soups with memorable ingredients add so much to get-togethers with friends and family this time of year. From casual family suppers to Christmas day lunch to New Year’s Eve dinner, holiday meals invite something luscious and warm.

I love soups right now for so many reasons, not least of which is that there are great seasonal raw materials to work with, including game, fresh seafood, root vegetables and leafy greens. But what I also love about soups is their spontaneity. More often than not, home cooks aren’t following instructions by the book when they get out their stockpots. They’re discerning what ingredients to include and what to leave out, and they’re tasting, adjusting and correcting by feel and by gut. Many are mimicking the soup styles of their forbears, while others are diverging in inventive directions. Whatever the case, soup is one of those from-the-heart dishes meant to inspire and soothe. Now is the perfect time to make some for your friends, family and for yourself.

Here’s an easy version of shrimp and corn.

Shrimp and Corn Soup

Serves 6

¼ cup olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

5 stalks celery with leaves, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

¼ cup light roux

2 cups homemade shellfish stock, or one 15 oz. can good quality seafood or shellfish stock

2 bay leaves

1 16 oz. package frozen white corn

¼ cup heavy cream

1 ½ cups skim milk

1 pound large headless shrimp, peeled and deveined

Salt and pepper to taste

Fresh chopped parsley for garnish

In a Dutch oven, sauté onion, celery and garlic in olive oil until soft. Whisk in roux, then add stock and bay leaves and bring to a boil. Continue to whisk until roux is thoroughly incorporated. Add corn and simmer for about 2-3 minutes. Add cream and milk and return to simmer. Add shrimp to hot liquid and watch carefully, ensuring they poach, but do not overcook. This should take about 2 minutes. Remove from heat.

When ready to serve, garnish soup with fresh parsley and serve with warm, crusty French bread.

Desserts, Holiday, Local, Southern, Vegetables

Squash cake gets an update

Family recipes get passed down because they’re meaningful and taste good, but sometimes they include ingredients you’re embarrassed to admit. Especially today, the convenience items that once peppered dinner tables and cookbooks can feel like dorky unwelcomed guests. “It’s got that in it?,” you can just hear your snooty food friends say. New Yorker writer Calvin Trillin has a great reference to this phenomenon in his famed 2002 dispatch, “Missing Links,”—one of several that document the writer’s enthusiasm for Louisiana food. In it, he mentions the secret, anti-gourmet ingredient in the crawfish étouffée recipe of his New Iberia friend James Edmunds: a can of cream of mushroom soup. Delicious nevertheless, but mentioned on the down low.

I have always loved my husband’s family’s squash cake, a sheet cake made with roasted butternut squash that his great aunt “Titta-Lee” was famous for bringing to funeral gatherings. But it, too, includes an in-the-closet ingredient: a box of Jello coconut cream instant pudding and pie mix. Shortly after we got married in 2000, by which time I’d had the cake numerous times, she wrote it down for us.

I was eager to find a more natural approach. And also, the cake was really too sweet, and I believed with a little tinkering I could create version that still said ‘dessert’ while letting the butternut squash shine through. There remains a whole cup of sugar in the adjusted recipe, so fear not, Sweet Tooths, this is no “lite” version.

The result is a really versatile cake that is perfect for the season. It goes well with fresh citrus fruit, dark chocolate and strong cup of coffee. If you’re not a fan of coconut, no worries. Simply substitute almond extract for the coconut and instead of topping the cake with coconut shreds, just shave a little dark chocolate.

As for the squash, if you run short on time, here’s a product I like, which I usually grab at Whole Foods Market.

Recipe

Butternut Squash Cake

Serves 8-10

1 ¾ cup self rising flour

1 cup sugar

3 eggs

½ cup canola oil

½ cup sour cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon coconut or almond extract

1 cup butternut squash, roasted and beaten slightly until fairly smooth

Cream cheese icing (recipe follows)

Coconut or chocolate shavings for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease and flour a 9×13 pan. Mix flour and sugar in a medium bowl. Beat eggs slightly in a large bowl. Add oil and sour cream. Add dry ingredients to wet batter and blend slightly. A wooden spoon should work fine. Add extracts and squash and blend until smooth. Pour batter in pan and bake for 30 minutes. Place on rack to cool and ice immediately with cream cheese frosting and garnish with fresh coconut.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Makes enough for one cake

3 oz. softened cream cheese

2 tablespoons softened butter

1/3 cup confectioner’s sugar

1-2 tablespoons whipping cream

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Blend well cream cheese and butter with a hand mixer or standing mixer. Carefully add sugar. Add whipping cream and vanilla extract and blend for a minute or two until you reach desired consistency.

Enjoy!

Local, Vegetables

Casserole conflict? The green bean solution.

How to serve green beans is one of the more hotly debated holiday meal topics, with some cooks sticking with the classic gooey casserole formula and others going minimalist. It’s not unusual for families to be divided along these lines (mine sure has been) with die-hards staying loyal to that homespun pan of creamy indulgence and the texture-conscious going for beans sautéed quickly and perhaps set off by lemons or almonds. Well, here’s a way to make both extremes happy. Cook your green beans simply, but serve them with a topping bar that will allow guests to get as straightforward or saucy as they like. Green beans, God bless ‘em, pair well with a wide range of flavors and textures. A day or two before the holiday, trim and blanch the green beans, then reserve them in a food storage bag until you’re ready to cook. Saute at the last minute in olive oil, butter and minced garlic. Then let your guests have their way with toppings like these:

Roasted cashews with fresh rosemary
Creamy mushroom sauce with splash of sherry
Sauteed pine nuts with lemon peel
Toasted almonds
Hollandaise sauce
Curls of fresh parmesan
Mornay sauce (Bechamel sauce with added grated cheese, usually Swiss)
Caramelized onions or shallots
Diced avocado, fresh tomato and lime (you can still find Louisiana tomatoes at the farmers market into November)
Local Meyer lemon wedges
Peanut or satay sauce (Amazing with green beans! Really.)
Crumbled bacon
Homemade chow chow
Chutney
Toasted pumpkin seeds
And yes, even canned French fried onions