Creative Thursdays: Chicken and Smoked Sausage Etouffee for Tyler Florence Fridays

I had a dream about Tyler last night. You wanna know what happened in my big crazy dream?? We went grocery shopping........of all things!! Anyway, Tyler and I were having a fantastic time grocery shopping. We had elaborate conversations about food and in depth conversations about what ingredient to use in a recipe. We were calling each other, texting each other, and planning a big menu. I had his phone number on speed dial!! How crazy is that? Wouldn't you love to have Tyler's number on speed dial?

With Tyler on the brain, I was eager to find a recipe for Tyler Florence Fridays. I didn't want to head out to the store with my two year old, so I decided to make do with what I had on hand. I gathered a lot of recipes, but this one for chicken and smoked sausage etouffee caught my eye right away.

The history of etouffee goes along very well with the idea of Creative Thursdays. After all, an etouffee is all about using what is on hand. Etouffee was originally made with crawfish, but nowadays it is made with chicken, sausage, fish, crawfish, shrimp, and vegetables. You probably have everything you need to throw together a version of etouffee.

The base of an etouffee is a roux, which is simply flour and butter. You will need a liquid (broth, beer,water, etc) and a couple of staple veggies (bell pepper, onion, celery, garlic). Throw in some chicken, sausage, shrimp, or cubed up veggies and you are all set. This week's featured ingredient is broth, beer, wine, or any kind of cooking liquid. I usually keep lots of broth on hand as a pantry ingredient for soups, risotto, rice and a wide variety of other dishes.

Tyler's version of chicken and sausage etouffee can be found here. Tyler's recipe begins with sauteing the smoked sausage, saving the rendered fat. The chicken is sauteed in the rendered sausage fat. The meat is removed and the roux is made. Tyler's recipe calls for all the veggies to be processed in a food processor. When the roux is dark (like peanut butter) the veggies are added and cooked another 5-7 minutes. Deglaze pan with one can of beer, then add 4 cups of chicken broth. Bay leaf, paprika and cayenne pepper are all added at this stage, as well as the chicken. Simmer for around 1 hour, shred chicken, add in sausage. Warm through and serve over rice.

Notes: We loved it!! My husband called it a delightful change from the normal dinner! He must have said how delicious it was at least ten times: ) A Perfect combination of flavors and ingredients. Slightly spicy with a smooth and creamy base, almost like a gravy. Packed with layers and layers of flavor. Went very well with cornbread muffins and served over rice. This is one of those recipes that you love to come home to. A recipe where you might find yourself arguing over who gets the leftovers. Leftovers that are even better the next day when all the flavors have a chance to mingle and get happy : )

Don't forget about the contest/giveaway ending Saturday, August 29th. Click here to see the details.

Click here to see what all the other Tyler Florence members made this week!!

Sweet dreams ; )

Creative Thursdays: Pulled BBQ Chicken

Let me start by saying that you have to make this recipe!! In a total of 10 days, I have made this recipe twice!! I love when a recipe uses minimal ingredients, is super simple to throw together, and then yields a wonderful outcome. It really doesn't get any better! I owe a huge thank you to two wonderful food bloggers. Thank you to Lisaloo, of One Step at a Time, who first posted this recipe here. The ease of this recipe caught Monica's attention over at Lick the Bowl Good, and she posted the recipe on her blog here. I would like to give you both this award:
I chose this recipe for Creative Thursdays because it only uses two ingredients: frozen chicken breasts and barbecue sauce! Yes, I said frozen chicken!! Using the frozen chicken is great for people like me who always forget to thaw out meat for dinner the night before. I usually always have frozen chicken breasts in my freezer that I have bought in bulk and rewrapped. Barbecue sauce is another great staple around my house that I almost always have on hand. But, why stop there? I think this recipe would still work with many other sauces, both homemade and jarred. For instance, my husband and I both love chicken with buffalo sauce. Why not use buffalo sauce? I'm willing to bet there are a wide variety of sauces that would be perfect with this chicken. Why not try teriyaki, lemon pepper, honey mustard, salsa or even just plain chicken broth. Serve the chicken on a bun as a sandwich, or put it over rice or who knows what else. I think the possibilities are endless, and that's what makes this recipe so great!!

Pulled BBQ Chicken - adapted from Lisaloo at One Step at a Time & Monica of Lick the Bowl Good

4 frozen chicken breasts (I had boneless, skinless chicken breast)
1 - 18 oz bottle of your favorite barbecue sauce (make sure you love the flavor, whatever you chose)

Place the frozen chicken in the crockpot and top with sauce (making sure the sauce covers the chicken). Let cool on low in crockpot for 8-12 hours. Remove chicken from crockpot and let cool slightly before shredding. After shredding, return to pot and let cook another couple hours.

Notes: I have made this recipe twice now using jarred barbecue sauce. Each time I have let the chicken cook on low for around 8 hours. The chicken is very tender at this point and will break up easily or hold it's shape if removed with a spatula. Although I enjoy shredded chicken and pork, I prefer it to be in chunks. After it cools a bit I break the chicken breasts into chunks and serve on a roll or over rice. Yesterday I made some garlic bread, topped it with hot pepper cheese and put the chicken on the roll. It was really, really good!!

I can tell you that next time I will be experimenting with buffalo sauce and I will be sure to post my results. If I am successful with the buffalo sauce, then I can definitely see a lot of experiments with this recipe. It's what I would refer to as WIDE OPEN, which is also how I refer to my two year old : )

Be sure to check out both Lisaloo and Monica's sites above to see how they enjoyed the chicken. They both have wonderful blogs that you are either already enjoying or will enjoy in the future.

I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas for this recipe! I'm willing to bet that there are some great ideas using this concept!!

Enjoy : )

Creative Thursdays: Poached Eggs on Black Bean Cakes with Salsa

I love breakfast foods! I absolute love going out to eat for breakfast and making it at home. I think it has to do with the sheer variety of foods that one can eat for breakfast. When I think of all those possibilities, it just makes me hungry! How can you decide between the egg platter or the pancake platter? What about the stuffed french toast, crepes, fruit platters, biscuits, rolls, bagels, hashbrowns.....not to mention all those pastries.........what's a girl to do??

Well, I have a great breakfast recipe that is one of my favorites to cook at home. It is a little fancier than most at-home breakfasts, pretty healthy, and can be made with pantry ingredients. Plus, it uses this week's featured ingredient.....beans!!

This is really quite a healthy breakfast. This recipe makes 6 black bean cakes. I halved the recipe because I had only one can of beans and I ended up with 3 black bean cakes. Each serving has 13g of protein and about 7-9 g of fiber, almost your daily allowance! In addition, this recipe is low in fat, low in carbs and just plain delicious.

I've made this recipe several times and I can tell you that it is much, much easier if you use store-bought salsa over the Roasted Red Bell Pepper Sauce. The red bell pepper sauce adds quite a bit more time and a whole lot of dirty dishes. On the flip side, it was tasty, and might be worthwhile to you if you love peppers. I didn't have any red bell pepper this morning, so I opted for the store-bought salsa.

Poached Eggs on Black Bean Cakes with Salsa - adapted from The Big Book of Breakfast by Maryana Vollstedt
8 saltines, broken up (I used Ritz crackers)
2 cans (15 oz. each) black beans, drained and rinsed
6 green onions, including some tender green tops, cut into pieces
2 garlic cloves, cut into pieces
2 sprigs cilantro or parsley, cut into pieces
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon salt
freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup yellow cornmeal
2-3 tablespoons vegetable oil
Salsa or Roasted Red Bell Pepper Sauce
6 poached eggs
cilantro sprigs for garnish

Place saltines in a food processor and process until crushed. Add beans, green onions, garlic, cilantro, cumin, chili powder, salt and pepper to taste and process until chuncky. Form into 6 cakes. (Mixture will be sticky). Place cornmeal in a flat dish or on waxed paper. Add cakes and turn to coat.
In a large nonstick skillet over medium heat, warm 2 tablespoons oil. Fry cakes until crisp, about 5 minutes on each side. Add more oil, if needed.
If serving with bell pepper sauce, have the sauce warmed and ready. If serving with salsa, warm the salsa.
To assemble, top each cake with a poached egg and a spoonful of Roasted Red Bell Pepper Sauce/Salsa. Garnish each with a sprig of cilantro and serve immediately.

Note: The black bean cakes make great vegetarian burgers.

Roasted Red Bell Pepper Sauce
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
1/4 cup chopped yellow onion
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tablespoon a/p flour
1/2 cup milk
1 red bell pepper, roasted, peeled, and cut-up
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon salt
freshly ground pepper
*Makes about a cup of sauce*

In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Add onion and garlic and saute until tender, about 5 minutes. Add flour and stir until bubbly. Stir in milk and bring to a boil. Cook, stirring, until thickened, about 2 minutes. Sauce will be thick.
Place roasted bell pepper in food processor or blender and puree. Add onion mixture and process until smooth. Return to pan and add paprika, salt, and pepper to taste. Serve warm.
Note: To roast the pepper, preheat the broiler. Cut pepper in half lengthwise and remove seeds and ribs. Make several 1-inch slashes around the edge of each pepper half. Place skin-side up on an aluminum foil-lined baking sheet. Press peppers down with the palm of your hand to flatten them. Broil until skin is charred, about 10 minutes. Remove from broiler, fold foil tightly over peppers, and let them steam for 10 minutes. Unwrap peppers and peel off skin.

As mentioned above, these are great alone or as a veggie burger. Head on over to these sites to find other delicious recipes using beans:

Reeni of Cinnamon & Spice has compiled a whole folder of recipes using black beans. Click here to check them out, every one of them looks excellent!!

Joanne of Eats Well With Others, made these delicious Louisiana Red Beans, found here.

Deb of Kahakai Kitchen made these tasty-looking Pinto Bean Patties that she learned from a vegetarian cooking class, here.

Or, how about adding your black beans to a quesadilla, like Kevin at Closet Cooking. Head over to check out his recipe for Corn and Black Bean Quesadillas, found here.

Well, I hope there are some tasty bean recipes that you will enjoy here. I'm off to wash an entire sink full of dishes only to dirty them all up again. The hubby invited two of his co-workers over for dinner and I'll be a busy girl today!!

CREATIVE THURSDAYS: Baked Jalapeno Poppers

Do you think of a jalapeno pepper as a blank canvas? If not, you should consider it. Most often, we cut them up and add them to chili, tex-mex, or we might top our burgers with them. They are probably not a staple on the grocery list. However, jalapenos are extremely inexpensive, keep well for long periods of time, and are a terrific canvas for cheese, bacon, sausage, and breadcrumbs. For all these reasons, jalapenos are this week's featured ingredient.

Create your own filling for them, roll them in breadcrumbs and bake away. You can even freeze them and bake them later when you need to have a quick appetizer or treat!

Both my mom and neighbor have an abundance of jalapenos in their garden. I literally received bags of jalapenos. My husband and I love spicy food, but there was no way we could eat all the peppers we received in time. I thought about canning, but just wasn't feeling it. I started looking up recipes for jalapenos and found a recipe for poppers.

I made a huge batch of poppers and froze them so that we could have them whenever we want. These poppers were so delicious, you would never know they were baked and not fried! When you bite into these, they are so crunchy and the cheese just comes oozing out! The poppers bake for around 30 minutes which allows the peppers to soften just perfectly. In other words, when you bite into them, it is a clean bite. You will not find yourself biting into the popper and pulling out the whole jalapeno in one bite, leaving only a shell of breadcrumbs behind. (Does that ever happen to you?)

The recipe that I used is from the Food Network and can be found here. Basically, you remove the stems and halve the jalapenos. You then create a mixture of cheese (I used garden vegetable cream cheese and monterey jack) and stuff the jalapenos. Once all jalapenos are stuffed, you roll them in flour, egg, and breadcrumbs. This recipe uses panko, but I'm sure any breadcrumb would be fine. You can bake them right away at 350F for 30 minutes or freeze them and bake later. I brushed mine with a little bit of olive oil before baking to help achieve a golden brown color. Use this recipe as a guide only. Feel free to stuff your jalopenos with any kind of cheese, wrap them in bacon, or use regular breadcrumbs.

The Pioneer Woman also has a recipe for bacon-wrapped jalapeno thingies, found here. She has said on more than one occasion that she absolutely loves these jalapenos stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped in bacon.

And, if you can't stand the heat.....don't get out of the kitchen just yet!!! Try Kevin's Baked Jalapeno Popper Dip, recipe found here. This dip looks simply delicious and would be great with tortilla chips or crackers. Surely the all that ooey gooey cream cheese, cheddar cheese, parmesan cheese, and mayo will balance out the heat. The breadcrumb topping looks to die for!!

I also want to post my carrot flowers for a wonderful giveaway over on my friend Beth's site. Please go to The Seventh Level of Boredom and check out Beth's extremely generous giveaway. It is a Pampered Chef Deep Covered Baker!! I saw what those bakers can do at a recent Pampered Chef party and they are fabulous! You can even cook with them in the microwave.

Beth is going to a baby shower coming up and will be creating a vegetable garden to take with her. She is looking for good ideas from readers about cutting veggies into flowers. Submissions can be posted on your blog or sent to Beth directly. I searched and searched and found a carrot flower that I thought was pretty cute. It is suppose to be set alongside sprigs of rosemary to look much like a flower with a pretty rosemary stem. Please don't laugh, I'm not very artsy at all.

Creative Thursdays: Breakfast Pies

When I was little my Dad would make any challenge into a game. He was always being creative and loved to see where it would lead him. Most people would be frustrated with only change in their pocket, but my Dad loved it. I've watched him laugh as he scooped change from a jar and headed out to lunch. He always said he appreciated those times because they were like a game to him. He wanted to be able to use his wits to make do with what he had. He always came back with a funny story.

Since going back to work part-time, I have found myself challenged, especially in the kitchen. Inspired by my Dad, I've turned this challenge into somewhat of a game. I've been rethinking the way I grocery shop and focusing on a well-stocked pantry so that I can create meals all week without running to the grocery store. I've started to notice that I'm saving money and having a lot of fun. I know all of us have days where we are short on time, short on ingredients or short on money. For my family, this happens towards the end of the week, namely Thursday nights. So, I have decided to have a new post every Thursday to chronicle my creative fun in the kitchen! Every Thursday I am going to post a new recipe featuring a staple ingredient from my pantry. These recipes will more than likely be quick, easy and economical. I will also be sharing tips I've learned about keeping a well-stocked pantry. I would love to hear all comments, feedback, and suggestions. All of us have some creative genius hiding inside : ) We could probably start an entire blog on this theme alone.

This week, I am featuring refrigerated biscuit dough as a staple ingredient to keep in your kitchen. These breakfast pies are great for using up leftover ingredients. You can customize the filling to suit your family. I like to make them ahead of time and reheat them in the morning. This recipe makes 10 individual breakfast pies and takes less than 30 minutes. I'm estimating that the cost is around $5.00 for the whole batch, even less if you buy your biscuit dough on sale and use leftover meat and/or veggies.

Breakfast Pies, adapted from All Recipes, Family Favorites

3/4 pound ground pork sausage
1/8 cup minced onion
1/8 cup minced green bell pepper
1 (12 oz) can refrigerated biscuit dough
3 eggs, beaten
3 tablespoons milk
1/2 cup shredded colby-jack cheese

Preheat oven to 400F. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, combine sausage, onion, and green bell pepper. Cook until sausage is evenly browned. Drain, crumble, and set aside. (I used bacon and left out the veggies because my husband and kids are picky)

Separate the dough into 10 individual biscuits. Flatten each biscuit out; line bottom and sides of 10 greased muffin cups. Evenly distribute sausage (or bacon ) mixture between the cups. Mix together the eggs and milk and divide between the cups. Sprinkle tops with shredded cheese.

Bake in preheated oven for 18-20 minutes or until filling is set.

Notes/Ideas: This is a great recipe for using up leftovers. Instead of sausage, use leftover meat or veggies. Use up that salsa left in the bottom of the jar and add it as a topping to the pies. Stock up on refrigerator or freezer biscuit dough when it is on sale. Biscuit dough is one of those ingredients that is like a blank canvas, you can do many things with it. A friend told me that she has used regular sandwich bread in place of biscuit dough and also had great success.


As far as my Dad goes, he' ll be 61 next week and he's still making games out of everything. He recently took my step-nephew for a ride one afternoon. They had about $3.00 altogether. They pumped as much as they could in gas, drove as far as they could, and split a candy bar. My step-nephew said it was the most fun he had in awhile : )