New Orleans Corn Bisque with Sausage and Blackberry Cobbler, Oh My!

I. Am. In. Heaven. I just finished a little mug-full of melty, crunchy, tart-sweet blackberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream- the best blackberry cobbler I've ever tasted - and I made it! Ok, so maybe I'm bragging a little. But really, it was that good! I think it tasted even better today than last night. Probably because I was so full and bloated last night after eating New Orleans Corn Bisque with Sausage, rolls and salad that it was a little painful to eat more.
New Orleans Corn Bisque with Sausage was incredibly simple and fun to make. There are only 5 steps in the directions. It felt like the thing just made itself, and it tasted like that, too; just effortless. Creamy, rich, sausage and potato-y goodness! But of course, even though the recipe was extremely simple, I made a big mistake, putting twice the amount of cubed potatoes into the milky broth. Thankfully, I realized there were too many potatoes before the pot overflowed. The dinner "guests", my parents and David, just loved the Bisque. This dish elicited the most enthusiastic reaction of all the dishes so far. As they finished eating, I started making Blackberry Cobbler. I knew I loved the freezer-to-oven kind - the only kind I'd ever eaten. But like a romance novel heroine who finally meets "the one" and realizes how frivolous her previous loves were, when I took the first bite I really and truly realized what it is to love a cobbler.
On top of all this goodness, my parents bought a new set of cookware. In one hour, my mom and I will pick them up from the store. I can't wait to put them to use!

Bon Appetit!
-The Little Chef

I Love Calories, Fat, and Butter!

I love calories, fat and butter! Yes, I proclaim it! Don't bother telling me how "unhealthy" saturated fats and that heavenly substance which is the backbone of most great recipes - butter - are for me. I know. But I don't run from butter, fats, and calories as if they were parts of an ugly, oozing Death Monster as some people do. You know the people I'm talking about. They talk about "calories" like they're the enemy, instead of recognizing that we NEED those little things, and lots of them, for energy. As for fat and butter: we need those, in my estimation, not only to live in the sense that we need them to breath, move, and function, but in the sense that we need them to really live. If you cannot enjoy a slice of cornbread dripping with butter and honey, or a juicy piece of bacon, or even a smoldering hot chocolate lava cake without feeling a pang of guilt in your chest, you are not taking advantage of one of the greatest pleasures God and life has offered us.
But enough ranting. Let's get down to business.
Tuesday night, I cooked two variations of the same main dish, Cajun Chicken Pasta. I was confronted by a little dilemma Monday when I realized that Mom and Dad, chief guinea pigs and enjoy-ers of my dinners, can't handle the spice of a Cajun dish. But Omar and Mary, dear friends of David and I, share our love of spicy food. What could I do but make two dinners? So I made the first variation of the pasta substituting a myriad of miscellaneous spices for the signature Cajun seasoning. I was a little disappointed with the results. I missed the spicy! But my parents loved it. Dad said it tasted like something from Macaroni Grill. This is one of the highest compliments my dad could ever offer. He loves Macaroni Grill.
An hour later, I prepared the second and true version of Cajun Chicken Pasta and served it to a warm reception. I looked around the table and saw my friends and love laughing and conversing while devouring hearty fork-fulls of my food creation and thought, This is why I'm doing this. Food, Friends, and Fun - what could be better?
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Cajun-Chicken-Pasta/Detail.aspx
A few more Cajun dishes, and then it's time to go full-on French!
Thanks for reading!
-Little Chef

Gumbo!

Oh, how I love gumbo. I love eating it, and I just discovered that I love cooking it, too. I cooked "Boudreaux's Zydeco Stomp Gumbo" Sunday night, and it was a hit! I wisely started preparing and chopping the many ingredients - chicken, garlic, celery, tomatoes, onions, red peppers, green peppers, parsley, shrimp, sausage! - around 3pm. And I'm so glad I started early. The recipes says "Done it 2 hours". Hah! Maybe if you're a master with a knife, but I am not and do not pretend to be. It was a bit intimidating seeing the vegetables pile up on one cutting board after another until I completely ran out of space and had to transfer some to a pan to make room to chop. It was also a bit intimidating when I saw that the recipe required me to make a "roux". French. French is scary. But I swallowed my pride and prepared to make a mess of it. Ready to burn the thing or explode something on accident, I bravely made the roux by constantly stirring oil and flour over medium heat. I was mortified, but not surprised, when the thing began to smell like gasoline. Oh, crap! But I went on with the recipe, and the thing turned out so deeeelicious! I let out an audible sigh when I took the first few bites. David, (my fiance) and I sat down to eat it with warm cornbread and I remarked that it was the first thing I'd cooked in a long time that I was really proud of. He in turn said it was "really good" three times. If he says that twice, he must really like it, but three times - That's the equivalent of jump-up-and-down wonderful in David-speak.
I am in love with this dish, and excitedly await another opportunity to make it.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Boudreauxs-Zydeco-Stomp-Gumbo/Detail.aspx

First Adventure

I read a few chapters of Julia Child's memoirs, "My Life in Paris" today in between classes and meeting my aunt for coffee. Her writing is simple and marvelous. You can almost hear her operatic voice laughingly saying every word as you read it. I especially loved a chapter titled, "NEVER APOLOGIZE." Julia says,
"I don't believe in twisting yourself into knots of excuses and explanations over the food you make. When one's hostess starts in with self-deprecations such as 'Oh, I don't know how to cook...,' or 'Poor little me...,' or 'This may taste awful...,' it is so dreadful to have to reassure her that everything is delicious and fine, whether it is or not. Besides, such admissions only draw attention to one's shortcomings (or self-perceived shortcomings, and make the other person think, 'Yes, you're right, this really is an awful meal!' Maybe the cat has fallen into the stew, or the lettuce has frozen, or the cake has collapsed... Usually one's cooking is better than one thinks it is. And if the food it truly vile, as my ersatz eggs Florentine surely were, then the cook must simply grit her teeth and bear it with a smile - and learn from her mistakes."
Well said, Julia! I will never apologize for my cooking again. Had I read this chapter last weekend, I wouldn't have apologized for the first dish I made in this great adventure. The first dish was "Mariu's Spaghetti with Meat Sauce".
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Marius-Spaghetti-with-Meat-Sauce/Detail.aspx
My original idea was to begin with cooking Louisiana syle, Cajun/French dishes, but I made an exception and started with pasta because my fiance and his friend needed to "carbo-load" before their run the next day. The secret to this recipe was the sauce. Instead of containing mostly tomato, the sauce was beef-based and much truer to an authentic Italian taste. It took much longer to prepare than I'd anticipated - about 3 hours - but it was worth it. The aroma in the kitchen was quite nice and beefy, and the sauce turned out great. The only gripe I had about it was that there was not enough sauce in ratio to the pasta. And of course, being the rather timid chef and hostess that I am, I felt bad about this and apologized repeatedly. Julia in heaven - I will never make that mistake again!

The Little Chef begins a great adventure. Well, maybe not SO great.

This is my first attempt at a real blog. I'm not really sure all that I'm supposed to write about here, or how I'm supposed to write it, but I suppose it's whatever I want it to be. And I definitely know what I want it to be.
I am going to cook something at least once a week and write about my experience here. Sounds so clinical when I put it on paper! But I want it to be fun. What sparked an interest in creating this blog? The movie "Julie and Julia", which I recently saw while on vacation, truly inspired me. I saw a lot of myself in the main character, and a lot more of what I'd like to see in myself in Julia Child. So why not try cooking and blogging about it! It'll be an adventure.
Before you join in the triumphs and tears of my cooking adventures, you should know a little about me. I'm a 20-something English major currently attending a community college and I'm shamelessly yearning for the fall semester when I will transfer to University of the Pacific. I'm tired of feeling like I'm in the ghetto at school. A girl told me a few weeks ago that she hates Pacific because of all the snobby, rich kids there. To each their own, but after years at Delta, I'll take the snobs over the gangsters any day.
I work part time at a place I'd rather not disclose at this time. No, it's nothing exciting. I don't work for the CIA or anything. It's just that I don't think it's any of your business where I work. I'd like to get to know you, dear reader, a little better before I disclose that kind of information.
In my spare time, I go on little adventures and excursions with my wonderful fiance, hang out with a few friends, my family, and my grandma. Grandma plays an important role in this blog, actually, because she is the one who first taught me how to really cook. Her wonderfully Italian mother-in-law, my great-grandma ("Nana") taught her how to cook, and as soon as I could hold a spoon, she taught me. There aren't many family recipes that have been passed down. Rather, Grandma taught me that you can find a new recipe and execute it perfectly the first time. But if you don't get it perfect and something doesn't rise, cook all the way through, or sets on fire, you shouldn't be afraid to try it again. (We once set garlic bread on fire in the oven, and it went down in our history as one of our greatest "Lucy and Ethel" moments.) The point is to have fun cooking; to be with, eat with, and laugh with the people you love. Grandma bravely takes on a new recipe at least once a week, and shares the results with her neighbors, friends, and family. She sends my mom home with cinnamon-apple pork chops, shepherd's pie, honey BBQ pork ribs, and rich chocolate cake as only she knows how to make.
I have always loved cooking, and I have more free time than I'd usually like to admit. So in the tradition of "Julie and Julia", and my Grandma, I will attempt to cook something new once a week and write about the experience. I'm hoping it's as fun and do-able as it sounds.

Cheers!
-The Little Chef
P.S. I call myself the Little Chef because I weigh 100lbs. I had a theory for a long time that all good cooks were at least slightly over-weight, but then I realized my Grandma breaks that rule and decided that I must as well.