Hello! How was your weekend?
I got my final day of freedom started bright and early, making pit stops at my parent’s house to chat, then to my brother & sister-in-law’s place to play with my nephew (and didn’t stop laughing once – omg, that child is AMAZING!) and finally to the grocery store to stock up on produce for the week!
1 hour of chopping/cutting/dicing later, and all my lunches and dinners for the next several days were prepped. Taking a little bit of time on Sunday to get dinners ready for the week is SUCH a time saver. Plus chopping produce is my favorite. I know.
It was all sunshine and rainbows too, until a big container of freshly minced garlic fell off the counter and exploded over the entire kitchen. Freshly minced garlic is so sticky and, for Pete’s sake, all that work! Luckily there was still enough for dinner…you’ll see. 
Last week I was hating my life working super hard on the step mill at the gym when Paula Deen’s show came on one of the wall-o-tv’s TV (isn’t it so torturous that they always put the Food Network on one of them?!)
Paula had her NOLA-residing brother-in-law on the show who was making a French Quarter favorite – Crawfish Etouffee. Like I said a couple weeks ago, I’ve been pining after my days in the big easy lately, and this recipe looked too good to resist. I had to recreate!
FYI… "Etouffee is a Cajun dish typically served with shellfish over rice and is similar to gumbo. It is most popular in New Orleans and in the bayou country of the southernmost half of Louisiana." - Wikipedia
It turns out Paula’s recipe got some scathing reviews online, so I made a hop skip and a jump over to another Southern brotha’s etouffee recipe – Emeril’s Crawfish Etouffee.
Now, most etouffees start with a "roux" or a mixture of flour and butter cooked until thick and browned. It’s used to, in turn, thicken whatever dish you add it to. I’ve never made roux, but figured it couldn’t be too hard, so I got to work.
Roux Attempt #1: FAIL
Yeeeeeah…I’m not really sure what happened here… I think I let the butter get too hot, then it burned and clumped and well…I had to start over.
Roux Attempt #2: Better!
Probably because I used real butter! Chef’s out there – don’t hate – but I used a stick of margarine/butter blend in attempt #1, which probably contributed greatly to its demise. I went with the real thing for attempt #2, and got much better results.
Yep, that’d be a whole stick. It’s not a Paula Deen recipe, but it sure starts out like one! 
After the butter melted, I added in 2 Tablespoons flour, then stirred it constantly and vigorously over medium heat until it thickened and became a light beige color.
About 5 minutes.
Next I added the "trinity" of Southern cooking: bell pepper, onions & celery. Emeril threw me for a loop and also added green onions to the recipe!
The veggies were joined by bay leaves, cayenne pepper, salt & some of that aforementioned garlic.
Everybody sautéed for about 10 minutes, or until the celery was no longer crunchy. I cannot HANDLE hot, crunchy celery!
The next step was slightly petrifying…adding clam juice to the mixture. Yes! Clam juice! It was actually super easy to find in the grocery store – right near the spaghetti sauce. (Why??)
Emeril’s recipe called for shrimp stock, but Paula’s called for clam juice so I subbed and hoped for the best.
Now, Emerils’ recipe is called CRAWFISH Etouffee, however, I have a hard time eating something I used to hunt in the creek by my house circa 4th grade, plus I have no idea where to get crawfish around here, so I subbed in a pound of mixed seafood from Trader Joe’s. Shrimp, bay scallops and calamari, oh my!
At this point the recipe says to let the liquid boil and thicken for about 5 minutes, but my seafood was cooked in about 1, so I pulled it out and let the liquid reduce on its own for the full 5.
Finished with a sprinkling of fresh parsley & lemon juice,
then paired up once again with the the cooked seafood.
PHEW! I felt like I had run a marathon after all was said and done! Spilled garlic, burnt roux & nearly overcooked seafood? Sunshine and rainbows felt worlds away! Luckily it was totally, totally worth it. SO worth it! The flavor was light yet rich and the clam juice (which I feared would taste like fish sauce) tasted just faintly of the sea.
The thick sauce was soaked up by some long grain rice and, I’m tellin’ ya’, one bite and I felt like I was back in the bayou.
Plus, hello, there was a stick of butter in there. In the words of Ina Garten:
Definitely recommend this recipe, minus the near epic fails of burning the roux and overcooking the seafood.
ps, don’t you love/hate how seafood has a built in "you screwed up" feature? Aka getting super tiny and shrinky when you’ve cooked the hell out of it?Thanks, seafood.
In other news, my sister-in-law recently started this 6-day a week boot-camp style workout class and looks great – and I just ate about 1/4 stick of butter. Off to pack my bags to hit the gym bright and early tomorrow morning!
Have a great week!
~~~~~
Do you use others to motivate yourself to eat healthfully and/or exercise?
What’s your favorite style of cuisine?
I’m going to have to go ahead and say Asian followed very closely by home-cooked Southern!
I also love Asian! But my all time favorite is Mexican. Mmmm.
I HATE when seafood shrinks after it’s defrosted and cooked. One time I had 5 huge beautiful scallops. After I cooked them, they were the size of peas!!! Okay, more like the size of grapes but stillllllll. So sad.
My favorite is Mexican. I could eat it every single day.
This dish looks great!
I just got done chopping all of my fruits and veggies for the week also and am pooped! It’s so worth doing it on Sunday nights! I get a few extra minutes of sleep this way!
I’m going to have to go with Mexican followed by Italian.
Seeing this recipe makes me miss New Orleans…I think a King Cake is in order soon to help me remember Mardi Gras
ITalian is def my fav, Mexican a close second! You are so good with all your veggie prep!
Mediterranean (falafel, hummus, stuffed grape leaves) is my favorite, followed by German!
…and yes, other people are sometimes my only motivation. Self, get it together!
My fave is Mexican, followed closely by Asian.
I want to get off the couch and prep veggies. But I’m glued to the couch and cheering on the Steelers.
I love Italian, Cajun, and Mexican. In that exact order. My husband is Italian and makes a killer sauce, and I’ve tried five different Cajun recipes in the past month. I’m awesome.
Authentic Mexican is definitely my favorite cuisine!! Great job on this dinner, it looks so buttery & good. I love that seafood mix from TJ’s – great sub in IMO!
Other people at the gym really motivate me to keep working out even when I’m exhausted (as well as other bloggers).
I’m not a big fan of southern recipes like gumbo, or that include fish. I like fish and shrimp, just not with those flavorings. Plus the mix of calamari and clam juice grosses me out
. Do NOT like calamari! I think I love Mexican and Asian food the most!
I know what your saying about the margarine/butter difference. I make homemade gravy for biscuits and gravy and it starts with butter blended with flour, then adding in the milk. When I tried it once with margarine it clumped up terribly and would not smooth out, so I had to redo it!
Indian and Ethiopian are my favorites – oh the flavors!!!
Kristin, You are so funny! I laughed out loud, literally, about the shrinky seafood fail factor.:) Shrimp will absolutely do that! And guess what! I just got crawfish at Walmart! I am going to try an etouffee. It is hard to say what my fav food is. Unfortunately, I like almost everything. Sometimes other people motivate me to work out, but my favorite motivator is a book by Zig Ziglar called “See you at the Top”. Of course, he is a person, but not someone I’ve ever seen in person. He just has a way of making me feel perkier and motivated and I read his book while I use my exercise bike.
asian, and indian…(i’m not sure whether or not it falls under the Asian category). whatever is hottest tastes best to my palate–and asian and indian cuisine is really accommodating for vegetarians.
Oh man… that’s a hard one! Asian/Thai has to be my number one!
If I have to pick I would go with Mexican. My poor husband doesn’t love it as much and with each of the pregnancies I probably made it 3-4 times a week, I just couldn’t get enough. Now I try and limit to once a week, we just had tacos tonight.
Yes, when I see others working out and looking good, it gives me great motivation. But I find it can work backwards too, when you are really trying to eat right and exercise and not seeing any results and others are, can be very hard on your self-esteem.
I always find it funny/kind of odd that the food network is always on at my gym as well…
Mexican is my favorite
Oh, your veggies always look diced so perfect! Do you do that by hand or with one of the choppers that chop the veggies into perfect squares? To get mine like yours, I have to use a chopper, lol. I haven’t mastered the art of chopping perfect squares although I would like to~I just love the way that looks!
There is no comparison between butter or margarine. I use sweet cream butter, extra virgin olive oil or organic coconut oil as my three choices.
I am a bit of a picky eater and don’t like things very spicy or hot so I guess American is what I would say. I do love Italian food followed by Southern Home Cooking however I can’t do both very often; I have a hard enough time controlling my weight, lol. As for motivation to eat healthy, the thing that works the best for me is reading labels-if I see certain ingredients, I won’t buy it. The other motivation is seeing someone who lost a lot of weight.
This dish looks great!
I love how you got all your food prepped. Normally I do the night before for the next day but this makes much more sense.
Mexican has got to be my favorite cuisine!
I love Italian food and Mexican food from actual Mexican restaurants (not chain ones, though they will do in a pinch!). My hubby HATES both. Of course.
Motivation. Well, usually I use photographs of myself as motivation. I knew I was gaining weight, but was in denial about exactly how much until I saw photos of myself. Eeeps!
Is your sis-in-law doing Farrell’s or Kosama? Hmm, I may have to creep on over to her blog!
I signed up for a 12 week program at my gym.
I really love Asian, mainly Japanese, but love all other foods equally!
Don’t be a hater, but it was all sunshine here today! Come see!
P.S. your pictures are beauitiful!
1. Mexican
2. My motivation: I eat for ‘three’ — myself, my family, God (Let me explain: if I didn’t think this way I might always make poor choices and always eat what I was craving — desserts!! instead, I eat thinking of my own health, being there for family, and being able to do what God has planned for me)
Did you ever eat @ Bourbon Street when living in CF? They have the most amazing etouffee!!
I LOVE prepping for the week, because then I breathe a giant sigh of relief when I don’t have to chop up a million veggies when I’d rather be eating:)
Checking out all these great healthy eating and fitness blogs really motivated me to live a healthier lifestyle. I love Italian and Greek food! I’ve actually never tried anything Cajun before, but this dish looks so yummy! Love love love seafood!
my mom recently dropped a whole jar of minced garlic and it smelled so awful! i was visiting after christmas and man, i was glad to get home
bummer that the same thing happened to you!
That recipe looks insane!!! Gosh, how can anything be bad with a stick of butter though.
Glad it was a good weekend hun.
Congrats on the roux! I’ve had one to many sunshine and rainbows explosions in my kitchen
i’m all about classic Italian food followed by either good Southern food or Mexican….depending on my mood
I love Mexican food. I could probably eat it every single day and never get sick of it. A very close second is Italian food but Mexican will always be my favorite
I was reading this entry over again and had to comment! I don’t know why, but I reallllly like watching food shows when I am working out in the gym – haha – I guess I share your philosophy about working out extra to have extra allowance for delish food calories, so it motivates me to go ten more minutes or one more mile, or what have you…haha. =D
Favorite cuisine….Asian. No contest. Fun to see someone else shares my obsession with chopping veggies
love,
cathy b.
Have you ever seen The Princess and the Frog? I think you might enjoy it given how much you love New Orleans.
You can get crawfish at Dahl’s at the meat counter. I was kind of freaked out by them, too (basically a dirty little shellfish), but I went to a crawfish boil once and it was so fun and amazing I’m thinking about having a big party once a year just like it.
P.S. the Clam Juice is by the spegetti sauce because the spegetti sauce is usually by the pasta and the the clam juice is by the pasta because you can make linguini pasta and clams with clam juice!
Did you mention plans to come back to New Orleans this spring? If you are here in the spring, you should definitely eat some boiled crawfish. Crawfish taste like little mini lobsters that are FULL of flavor and quite tasty. You should give them a try. You may be able to find them in the freezer section of your grocery store. Only buy Louisiana crawfish, though- not the chinese ones.
Bernard’s is a brand that we use down here.
If you are planning on coming to New Orleans, email me because I would love to meet up with you and maybe grab a snack with you and give you a local’s perspective on some of the area.
Malaysian, followed by Thai/Indian, esp southern
Did your sister-in-law start Kosama by chance? I didnt know of another boot camp that is 6 days a week, so thought I would ask
I am doing Kosama in Omaha, NE and it is an amazing workout!! Check it out: http://www.kosama.com
Thanks for all your posts Kristin, I love reading your blog everyday!!