Maggie Heyn Richardson – Hungry for Louisiana

4 crazy fast and easy weekday breakfast ideas

The weekday breakfast is like your taxes – required, but a big pain to get over the finish line. Despite what we’re told about its nutritional and social importance, it’s often a fleeting and unsatisfying moment in which food is unceremonious forced onto the plates (or into the hands) of young people as their parents suck down coffee and shoo everyone out the door. And now, here across south Louisiana, the daily sprint is further compounded by a post-flood reality with epic traffic, upended schedules and temporary housing. There’s a lot of stress out there.

So this week, I’m offering four easy breakfast dishes that are intended to provide some inspired calm. Yummy and healthy, they intentionally use minimal ingredients, and part or all of them can be put together the night before.

Farmers Markets, Fresh from the Gulf, Hungry for Louisiana, Pasta

Light and right for spring: Penne Primavera with Fresh Gulf Shrimp

This week’s recipe is one of those no-rules ones that’s adaptable at will. Pasta with fresh Gulf shrimp and lightly sautéed seasonal vegetables is something I absolutely love to have around the house this time of year. It’s cozy, healthy and packed with flavor. Change out the vegetables as the season evolves. Clip some herbs from the backyard to make it sing. Serve it with a simple salad and a crusty loaf of bread for an easy dinner. The only labor-intensive part is peeling the shrimp, but it’s well worth it.

Clean-up is easy; I use one large sauté pan to cook all the ingredients except for the pasta.

Crawfish, Hungry for Louisiana

After the boil: Two recipes for leftover crawfish tails

Anyone who has ever boiled crawfish knows that events, after the boil, fall one of three ways:

You ordered the exact amount of crawfish, everyone is satisfied and there’s nothing left to peel.
There’s enough left to peel to justify dirtying up your hands again. You and some really nice friends or family get to work.
There’s no way you’re peeling another tail because you’re fingers are stained and sore, and you really just need to go lie down.

We found ourselves facing #2 this weekend after boiling more than 100 pounds for my husband’s family, so three of us sat down and took on the remainder. It yielded about four cups of tails, plenty for a crawfish-centric main course for 4 to 6, and definitely worth the trouble.

There have been plenty of times when I’ve peeled leftover tails and the haul wasn’t so generous, but I do it anyway. No matter how many tails you’re left with, you can find something fun to do with them, from frittatas and savory pies, to cold salads to classic entrées.

Here are two ways to enjoy crawfish tails after the boil.

Appetizers, Hors d'oeuvres, Local, Louisiana, New Year's, Southern

Marinated seafood: West Indies salad and pickled shrimp perfect for parties

The best party dishes are ones that fit two criteria: you can make them ahead and serve them at room temperature. And marinated seafood, like classic West Indies salad and southern pickled shrimp, fits them both. Think of them as a sort of Gulf Coast ceviche, even though you’re beginning with cooked seafood.

The Mobile, Alabama favorite, West Indies Salad, is made with crabmeat, minced onions and an oil and vinegar solution, and Charleston-born pickled shrimp, involves fresh boiled shrimp riding it out in a tangy marinade for a couple of days before serving. They’re delicious crowd pleasers that offer a refreshing counterpoint to party buffets where the rest of the line-up can be heavy.

Citrus, Desserts, Fresh produce, Fruit, Kumquats

Fresh Kumquat Cake a Great Use of Winter Fruit

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, kumquats are in big supply in southern Louisiana and other parts of the country right now, overloading backyard branches and appearing in the produce aisle in pint-sized containers. According to the LSU AgCenter, we grow two kinds of kumquats in Louisiana, the oblong Nagami and the rounder, sweeter Meiwa.

I have a couple of Meiwa kumquat trees in my herb garden, and every year, I struggle to use the crazy abundance of fruit that won’t stop coming. They’re like sharks teeth. Pick one, and it seems like a dozen more are right behind it in varying stages of ripeness, ready to take its place.

This simple kumquat cake is moist and flavorful and is a great way to use 2 cups of fresh fruit.

Cajun, Crawfish, My Book Shelf, The Writing Life

How Louisiana got to TV writer and “Plantation Shudders” author Ellen Byron

Television writer and novelist Ellen Byron is a Louisiana junkie.

The New York native and Tulane University graduate, who now lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter, can’t get the Bayou State out of her system, admitting that she sheds tears of joy when she visits New Orleans and tears of sadness when she leaves. In 2015, Byron sunk all that residual Louisiana passion into a new mystery novel, Plantation Shudders, a fun and breezy jaunt with nods to classic inn murders (which guest is really the baddie?), except told in modern day Cajun Country. The second in the series, Body on the Bayou, will be released in September 2016.

I especially appreciated the heroine’s name, Maggie, short for Magnolia, bringing back memories of me trying to buffalo college friends in Washington, DC, that my real name was a southern flower and not the truer, dowdier Margaret.

Ellen and I discovered each other recently, and had a great time connecting and sharing notes as writers inspired by Louisiana. I picked up her book and read it over one weekend, relishing her depictions of my zany adopted home. Here’s some of what we discussed.

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