Crawfish Pasta

This is another recipe I picked up at work after trying it at a luncheon. The woman who shared it with me only worked at our Institute for a short period of time. She moved to NC, but was a native of New Orleans. I won’t even brag here about some of the awesome dishes she brought to some of our luncheons! Wow! This was the only recipe I was able to beg her for before she left to fill the position she had moved to take. When she made this dish for our luncheon she combined the noodles in with the crawfish sauce and kept it warm in a crock-pot. I usually do the same.

Crawfish’s Pasta

1 stick of butter
1 tsp Italian seasoning; 1 tsp pepper
1 tsp Tony’s Chachere’s (Creole) seasoning (green container in spice aisle of your grocer)
1 clove fresh garlic
1 lb package frozen crawfish tails* (usually easy to find at your grocer — thaw and pat out extra moisture)
8 oz cream cheese
pint of half and half
Bowtie pasta, cook until tender and drain thoroughly

Melt butter and add seasonings and garlic. Add crawfish. Sauté meat in butter mixture for 5 minutes and coat well. Add cream cheese and stir until melted completely. Add pint of half and half and stir until well mixed. Serve over bowtie noodles.

*My kids never liked crawfish, so I always made a variation of this recipe. I would use blackening seasoning (often found in your grocer’s seasoning aisle) and blacken chicken breasts, chop and replace the crawfish with the chicken. It worked beautifully and the flavor was still very rich and delicious.

Easy and Tasty French Dip Sandwiches

Easy and Tasty French Dip Sandwiches

INGREDIENTS:
4 pounds rump roast
1 (10.5 ounce) can beef consommé
1 (10.5 ounce) can condensed French onion soup (NOT cream of onion)
1 (12 fluid ounce) can or bottle of beer
6 French rolls
6 slices of provolone
2 tablespoons butter
garlic salt (optional)

DIRECTIONS:
Trim excess fat from roast, and place in crock pot. Add consommé, onion soup and beer. Cook on Low setting for 7 hours (or on medium for 5 hours or until roast is tender and cooked thoroughly).

Split French rolls, and spread with butter and sprinkle lightly with garlic salt. Lightly grill buttered side of bread on stove top, over medium heat, until toasty.

Slice the meat on the diagonal, place a slice of cheese on each roll, and then place cut meat on the rolls on top of cheese. Serve the broth for dipping.

Apple Butter

The recipe is for when you make your own applesauce as a starting point. If you would rather use store bought, or your own applesauce recipe, then just pick up at the later end of the recipe. I really recommend using the homemade applesauce. It’s taste is far superior to store bought.

It works best with a mixture of your sweeter apples like Macs, Romes, Galas, etc. Wash the apples, peel, core and cut them. Put them into a very large crock pot or two, and cover them with enough apple juice (unsweetened) to keep them from drying out and burning. Cook them on medium high until the apples are well cooked and easy to mash. It can take several hours. If you are using a crock pot instead of cooking them on the stove top then you can cook them on medium heat and cook them over night. You will wake up hungry though! When the apples are done drain well and process them in a food mill or food processor.

Butter:
3.5 quarts of applesauce
6 cups of sugar (I use a combo of white and brown sugar. The sugar is fundamental to the thickening and preservation of the butter… don’t decrease this amount!!)
4 T. cinnamon
1 T. ginger (you can cut back on the amount of ginger… I always use a LOT of ginger because I simply adore it!)
1.5 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. cloves

Cook on high to med heat in the Crock-pot 6 hours or until it is very thick — you may stir this occasionally to keep it from burning. When the butter has reached the right consistency (some like it thicker than others, but I would not cook it any less than 6 hours). As with the pumpkin butter you may process this in a hot water bath. The sugar will help preserve the butter for later use.

Pumpkin Butter

I make pumpkin butter just about every Fall. The recipe below is one that I have modified over the years to fit my needs. I always use a lot more spices than most recipes call for — especially when I working with pumpkin. I love the way the house smells for days after you cook this wonderfully rich butter down in your crock pot. Since this butter is made with enough sugar, the acid content is high enough to all for canning in a hot water bath canner. I will post an article about that in a bit. This butter tastes wonderful on a hot biscuit… it will remind you of a small piece of pumpkin pie!

Pumpkin Butter

3 cups of cooked, pureed pumpkin — canned is just fine if you don’t have fresh pumpkin to work with. I always use Libby, and the ingredients in the car are as follows: pumpkin. That’s it!
1 cup white sugar (you can double this portion if you don’t have brown sugar)
1 cup brown sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon (this is what the recipe originally calls for I use 5 tsp. of cinnamon!)
3/4 tsp nutmeg (I use 1.5 tsp)
3/4 tsp ginger — (1.5 tsp)
1/4 tsp ground cloves – (3/4 tsp)

Combine all ingredients in crock-pot and stir to mix well. Cook on medium to medium-high for 4-6 hours or longer, stirring occasionally. It will thicken as it cooks. You can let it cook longer by reducing the heat for the last hour of cooking and then adding an hour or two on the end. Do not let it burn or stick. It smells heavenly while it cooks!

After it is done, fill your jars and seal. Process in water bath canner (directions to be posted later)

You can use this canned pumpkin butter as a quick pumpkin pie mix as well.

Here’s how you do it…
1 1/2 pints of pumpkin butter
2 eggs
1 12oz can of evaporated milk

Remember how spicy we made it? Well, you do not need to add anything else… sugar and spice and everything nice is already in it!

Mix all ingredients together and pour into unbaked pie shells. Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes then turn the oven down to 350 degrees and bake for 45-55 minutes or until done.