Maque choux with sausage recipe

I moved to Georgia at the perfect time.  Ok, so it's not the best time to be moving stuff (my shirt was visibly soaked with sweat all day Monday after hauling boxes of books into my new office), but as soon as I got here I was inundated with delicious produce.  When I left Michigan I was still eating asparagus, greens, and strawberries, but as soon as I got to Georgia I dove head first into peach season.  And I can't forget about the cantaloupe, tomatoes, okra, corn, figs, blueberries, watermelon, peas, and squash.  I also love that I can now enjoy the fruits (and vegetables) of my grandmother/uncle's garden.  Mom has been making the trek to grandmother's house (over the river and through the woods) every other weekend, and lucky for me, I'm right on her way home.  In addition to the blueberries and figs, Mom brought me cucumbers, tomatoes, and okra last weekend.  She also handed me the most recent issue of Southern Living that features recipes with tomatoes, okra, and corn.  The cover features a bowl of maque choux with sausage, and it looked good enough to try.

I've made maque choux before, and I have to say that I think I liked the other version better for one simple reason.  The bacon is essential.  The sausage is great, but it doesn't permeate the vegetables like bacon does.  So if you make this, please cook the vegetables in bacon grease and then crumble the bacon on top at the end (and maybe use a little less sausage than I did).  One slice will do, and it will make all the difference.  Or, if you want to stick with this recipe, use amazing sausage (something like the medium or hot sausage from Bradley's Country Store in Tallahassee).  I'm not saying this wasn't good as is (it's hard to go wrong with fresh homegrown veggies), and I'm still enjoying the leftovers, but I learned an important lesson.


Maque choux with sausage (adapted from Southern Living)
(Printable version)

14 oz. spicy smoked sausage (I used turkey sausage), diced
1 small onion, chopped
1 small green pepper, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 cups sliced okra
kernels from 4 small ears of corn (about 2 cups)
3 tomatoes, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Brown sausage pieces in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Then stir in the onion, green pepper, and garlic and saute until tender (about 5 min).  Add okra, corn, and tomatoes, reduce heat to medium-low, and cook for about 10 min, stirring frequently.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Serves 4.

Shrimp and sausage jambalaya

I'm happy to announce that the cookbook of the month for June is Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything." Note that this is the original (yellow) version, not the revised (red) edition. That being said, if any of you have had the privilege of owning both, I would love to hear how the two compare and whether it's worth buying the new edition. This book is fabulous because it has a recipe for just about every popular dish that you could think of, plus more. It's also a great resource for simple ways to cook veggies if you happen to come across a new one and don't know where to start. I have a feeling that this feature will come in handy when my CSA starts in a couple of weeks! Because this is a "general" cookbook, I should be able to try out a wide variety of recipes this month.

I decided to make this first recipe because I was looking for a good way to use the rest of the shrimp in my freezer. I originally wanted to make a shrimp and pineapple curry, but I recently had an allergic reaction to pineapple, and I didn't want to risk wasting a bunch of shrimp and an entire pineapple. Hopefully I'll be able to make the curry one of these days because this weekend I was able to eat a small amount of pineapple with no adverse effects, and I'm hoping that the reaction was either the result of a weird pineapple or the massive quantities that I ate that day. But for now, here is a delicious way to use shrimp in jambalaya.

Shrimp and sausage jambalaya (adapted from Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything")

8 oz. hot smoked sausage, sliced (ideally andouille, but I used spicy venison sausage)

1 medium onion, sliced

1 green bell pepper, diced

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1 can (14 oz) diced tomatoes, drained

1 cup brown rice

2 1/2 cups chicken stock

8 oz. medium shrimp, peeled and deveined

Begin to brown sausage over medium heat in a large pot, and as soon as it renders a little bit of fat, add the onion and bell pepper and cook until they're tender. Then add the garlic, cayenne, and thyme, and let cook for an additional minute. Stir in tomatoes, increase heat to medium-high, and let cook for 5 min. Add rice and stock, let come to a boil, reduce heat to medium, and cook uncovered until rice is tender (about 50 min). Keep an eye on it while this is cooking, as you may need to add more liquid if it is all absorbed before rice is done. Then add shrimp and cook for an additional 3 minutes. Serves 3.

I loved this! Cajun/creole cuisine often intimidates me, but I love it so much that I sometimes attempt it anyway. This was worth the risk, and it was far simpler than the other dishes that I have attempted in the past. I liked substituting brown rice because it gave the jambalaya a slightly different feel (and somewhat heartier flavor) than typical jambalaya. So far it looks like this month is off to a good start!

Chicken and corn maque choux

May is one of my favorite months... not for any one specific reason, but because of a conglomeration of fabulous things (flowers blooming, the beginning of softball season, sunny days, the first festivals, the opening of the farmers' markets, etc.). So, for May's cookbook I've decided to choose a good all-around book, The Complete Cooking Light Cookbook. Before I collected a ton of cookbooks and began reading food blogs like a fiend, CookingLight.com was one of my primary resources for recipes. This book combines some of the best ones from the website.

After picking the new book, I began to leaf through to see what looked interesting. One recipe screamed out at me, and I knew this had to be the first of the month. I've used this book a lot in the past, and I don't know how I overlooked it before. The story begins with a trip to New Orleans with my parents when I was 12. One night we ate at a cajun restaurant (if I remember correctly, it was Paul Prudhomme's restaurant K-Paul's). I liked the sound of the shrimp and corn maque choux, but I had no idea how to pronounce this for the waitress. We had fun trying to figure it out, and Dad, jokingly, decided that it should be pronounced ma-kweek-a-chex. The waitress finally informed us that it's really mock-shoe (which sounds far too much like a sneeze, if you ask me). I don't remember much about the actual dish, but this discussion is one of my most distinct memories about that trip (that and drinking red hots from the Tabasco factory out of the bottle).

Chicken and corn maque choux (adapted from "The Complete Cooking Light Cookbook")

2 tsp paprika

1 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp dried oregano

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts

1 slice of bacon, chopped into small pieces

1 red bell pepper, chopped

1 onion, chopped

kernels from 3 ears of corn

1/2 cup diced tomato

1/3 cup whole milk

pinch of salt

Mix first 7 ingredients and put 1 Tbsp of mixture on a plate (reserve the rest). Set plate aside. Render bacon fat in large skillet over medium-high heat. When bacon is crispy, remove pieces with a slotted spoon and set aside. Dredge chicken in spice mixture on plate and add to bacon fat in skillet. Brown chicken on each side (about 2 min per side) and set aside. Add red pepper and onion to skillet and let cook on medium heat for 5 min. Stir in corn, tomato, milk, salt, and the reserved paprika mixture, and let simmer uncovered for 10 min. Add chicken pieces back to skillet and let cook uncovered for 25 min or until done, turning once half-way through cooking. Remove chicken, shred, and return to skillet. Sprinkle bacon on top. Serves 2-3.

I love cajun food, and this was great. The spices are perfect, and the pairing of chicken to veggies was exactly what I was looking for. My only problem is that I didn't have enough bacon fat, and some of the corn mixture was slightly burnt on the bottom by the time the chicken was done. It wasn't a huge problem, and I preferred to think of it as blackened :). After years of thinking about this dish, I'm glad that I wasn't disappointed! But, I'll still call it ma-kweek-a-chex :)