Cajun class Recipes

Come to one of our classes and join in the fun. We talk, we learn, we enjoy ourselves. And we have fun while cooking healthy food and even throw in a few time saving tips and tricks of the trade!

Recipes for Thanksgiving Dinner at the bottom

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Cajun Class Recipes

Easy Brown Rice Jambalaya

Lots of stuff in this, not sure if that is why it is so good or just that this combination of goodies works for just about every culture in one form or another all over the world just with different spices. You can bake this as a casserole; it is just that it will take an hour and a quarter when using brown rice. The pressure cooker shortens it all to about 30 minutes. And makes it more tender than on the stove top in a regular pan or in the oven. Recipe for the Cajun spice mix is on the website under “Class Recipes”

One chicken, cut up. Or use four to six thighs, or two or four breasts, or even a dozen or so wings.
One half cup of Cajun spice mix, home made (the best idea) or commercially made.
dice up one of each of these, an onion, a bell pepper, four stalks celery, and optional, six jalapenos
6 to 10 cloves garlic or more as you like. Smash them on the counter and rough chop
three strips bacon
2 cups long grain organic brown rice
4 cups chicken stock, homemade if at all possible. Or 3 cups stock and a cup of good beer
4 anduille sausage, sliced into half inch slices, Elgin hots make an acceptable substitute
1 can petite diced fire roasted tomatoes
hot sauce to taste

Wash and dry the chicken, then sprinkle the spice mix over all the pieces. You should have about 3 tablespoons of mix left over, if not, get a bit more. Let the chicken sit awhile to absorb the flavors. Overnight is best. When ready, get out your biggest pressure cooker. Cook the bacon in it at about medium high heat. Make it pretty crisp. Remove the bacon and rough chop it. In the hot bacon fat brown the chicken, beginning with the skin side. Turn once and cook a few minutes on the other side. Remove from the pan and then add the vegetables and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the garlic and the rice and stir well, coating all the grains with the mix of the bacon and chicken fat in the pan. Continue to cook the rice and veggie mix for another 4 to 5 minutes to seal each of the rice grains. Add the remaining spice mix and stir well. It should get pretty fragrant about now. Add the stock and beer, tomatoes and sausages. Stir it all in well. Add the chicken back in and bring it to a boil. Add the pressure lid. Bring to pressure and reduce heat. Cook at pressure for 25 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to drop pressure naturally. Open it up and serve. Garnish with some chopped parsley, hot sauce, some shrimp, or something that tickles your taste buds!

Ettouffe

I have tried to make this gluten free, and it is not the same. I have tried to get that same rich nutty flavor that comes from cooking the roux to a dark brown by using tapioca, corn, almond meal, peanut meal, and even corn starch. They all got tossed in the dumpster. It does not work. And, sad to say, it works best with white processed flour and not whole wheat. So, to that end, here we go:

1. 1 stick butter and ¼ cup olive oil

2. ¾ cup organic unbleached non-bromated all purpose white flour

3. finely chop half a bell pepper, 3 stalks celery and half an onion

4. Mince 4 to 6 cloves garlic. Or what the heck, make it 12 or more

5. 1 quarter cup home made Cajun seasoning, or use the commercial stuff

6. 2 cups shrimp, or fish stock. Home made is easy and tastier than the canned stuff

7. 1 pound or so of shelled crawdads, or shrimp. You can even make this with crawfish sausage or some other cool stuff as your imagination goes crazy.

8. half a cup of good sherry

9. bunch of scallions thinly sliced for garnish

Melt the butter with the olive oil in a large stockpot. Stir it a lot and cook it until it turns golden. Add half the vegetables. Continue to cook, stirring a lot, until they all turn dark brown. Add the rest of the vegetables and the Cajun seasoning. Cook another few minutes and then add the stock. Bring to a boil and stir constantly. It should begin to thicken after 4 or 5 minutes. Reduce heat and simmer for another 10 minutes. Add the shrimp or crawfish and the sherry. Heat them all thoroughly or cook for 2 minutes or so if the shrimp were raw. Remove from heat and serve over brown rice and garnish with scallions.

Banana Bread Pudding

You can use your favorite banana bread recipe, or make healthy banana bread from the recipe below

4 cups diced banana bread
2 cups milk
3 eggs
1 teaspoon Frangelico, or vanilla
1 jalapeno seeded and diced finely
1 cup crushed pineapple, drained, reserve juice
¼ cup honey
¼ teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg
1 cup sour cream

Beat the eggs with the milk, Frangelico, honey and nutmeg. Toss the banana bread with the jalapeno and crushed pineapple. Place in large round cake pan. Pour milk mixture over all and allow to soak in for several minutes. Cover with plastic wrap and then cover tightly with foil. Place on trivet inside pressure cooker with ½ inch water in bottom. Place on high heat and when water is boiling, cover and bring to pressure. Reduce heat to low and cook at pressure for 20 minutes. Turn off heat and allow to cool slowly. Remove cover, remove pan, take off foil and serve with sour cream mixed with the reserved pineapple juice. Sounds weird, but add a half teaspoon of good hot sauce to the sour cream and it will add dimensions of new flavors.

Banana Bread

My favorite recipe is a WHOLE lot different than you may be used to. Try it, you’ll like it!

2 ½ cups whole wheat flour, freshly ground in Nutramill
2 teaspoons baking powder (always use non-aluminum brand)
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
1 stick butter
1/3 cup organic evaporated cane juice. Or sugar if you must.
1/3 cup honey
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 ripe bananas, peeled

Mix first 5 ingredients together in medium size bowl. Add the nuts and stir together. In Bosch mixer use whips and beat the butter, sugar or evaporated cane juice, honey together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat well. Add the bananas and mix on low just until broken up into small pieces. Don’t puree them, just lightly chopped up. Dump the liquid into the dry bowl and with as few strokes as possible, fold together lightly. Divide into two loaf pans that have been sprayed with Vegalene to prevent sticking. Smooth out top and if desired grate nutmeg onto top. Bake at 350 for 40 to 45 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cool and remove from pan. Yuuuummmmmmm

Visiting Chef Roy will teach healthy cooking techniques to you, your group, or your company. Just call to arrange Healthy Cooking!

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