Week 1 (2024) - Beans

Time for the 2024 challenge! (And to finish writing about the other years...)

The challenge for Week 1 was beans. When the theme came up, I had just finished reorganizing the pantry (again) and come across a just-past-date bag of dry kidney beans, so obviously I had to use those so they wouldn't go to waste (and I had no plans for them, had just bought them because they were a good price). A quick search for kidney bean recipes came up with a lot of results for red beans and rice, which meant we could also explore Louisiana for the AtWCC!

Red beans and rice was traditionally made in Louisiana on Mondays, using bones left over from Sunday dinner on a day when there would be plenty of time to let the dish cook (apparently Mondays were wash days). I chose to follow a recipe I found on Allrecipes even though it did not use bones, since a lot of people claimed it tasted authentic, and planned to make it our Christmas Eve dinner (challenges announced a few weeks in advance), since we were staying in and would have time to soak and cook the beans all day.

The first step was to soak the beans overnight. Despite setting multiple reminders for myself, I almost forgot before going to bed until A reminded me. You can make the beans without soaking them, but it takes longer. You also have to make sure to fully cook kidney beans, because otherwise they could be toxic and no one wants that. Having never used dry kidney beans before, I really wanted to soak them for the best chance of success.

I sautéed some onions, green peppers, and celery, the holy trinity of Cajun and Creole cuisine, with some garlic, and then added them to the pot with the (drained and rinsed) beans along with some chicken broth and a whole bunch of seasonings, including bay leaves, parsley, thyme, oregano, garlic powder, paprika, cayenne (only a little so it wouldn't be too spicy for B), and sage. The recipe said to let it simmer for 2.5 hours (with some periodic stirring) before adding in the sliced Andouille sausage, but I probably added that in closer to the 2-hour mark. I think our burner runs hot, so I may have had the simmering temperature too high, because the beans were already soft enough to cut in half with a silicone spatula after about 40 minutes. I lowered it even more and did let it keep simmering to make sure they would be soft enough (and not toxic). When I tried it, I found that the skins were a little tougher and not as soft as I thought they would be after 2 hours, but maybe I needed to cook it lower and longer, or maybe they just weren't the highest quality beans.

The end result though was delicious, and it reminded us of red beans and rice we've had before, so it felt like we were giving B a real taste of Louisiana cuisine at home (the whole point of the AtWCC). The flavorings felt spot-on. We weren't sure if he would go for it considering the stew-like texture and sauce, but to our surprise, he loved it (other than a couple slightly too spicy pieces of sausage). The approximate cost for the red beans and rice was $12.89, which isn't that bad considering we had enough leftovers for part of dinner for another day. Week 1 was a success!

Week 33 - Cajun

The theme for Week 33 was Cajun, and when it was announced, I immediately wrote down "jambalaya" on my meal planning list. There were lots of options for Cajun food, but I went instantly to jambalaya. I based my version on this Emeril recipe for Cajun jambalaya, figuring that if it came from Emeril in this arena, it was likely solid.

This jambalaya is one of the more expensive challenge meals we've done. The ingredients we used were:

- 1 boneless, skinless chicken breast, diced ($1.50)
- 1 lb of medium sized shrimp, peeled, deveined, chopped ($9.99)
- Emeril's essence seasoning, a few tbsp ($0.20) *
- 2 tbsp olive oil ($0.40)
- 1 onion, chopped ($0.50)
- 1/2 large green pepper, chopped (about 1/2 cup) ($0.50)
- about 1/2 cup chopped celery ($0.30)
- 4 garlic cloves, chopped ($0.10)
- 1 can diced tomatoes ($0.75)
- 3 bay leaves ($0.20)
- 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce ($0.05) **
- 1 cup brown rice ($0.50)
- about 3 cups of water ($0)
- 2 spoonfuls of chicken bouillon ($0.50)
- 1/2 lb smoked andouille sausage ($4.60)
- salt and pepper ($0.05)

* A had put this together back when he made Emeril's recipe for shrimp and grits, and we still had some leftover. Cost of the portion here is pure estimation.
** There was also supposed to be about the same amount of hot sauce, but apparently our Cholula was really old. It did not taste good, so it's a good thing I tested it before just adding it.

The total for this meal was approximately $20.14. (I should have calculated it right after I made it, since now I'm writing this post a few weeks late and I'm not 100% sure on the amounts I used.) Not our most expensive challenge dinner ever (so far, I think it's this one), but definitely up there.

The steps for making the jambalaya were pretty straightforward, but prep did take some time. The steps were:

1. Prep proteins - remove tails and chop shrimp. Chop chicken. Combine shrimp and chicken in bowl with the essence seasoning, and work seasoning in well. Allow to sit while preparing everything else. Chop sausage (or do it later while cooking since it's one of the last things to be added).

2. Prep vegetables - chop onion, green pepper, celery (I skipped this since I had pre-chopped celery from the freezer), garlic.

3. Add olive oil to large saucepan, and then add onion, green pepper, and celery. Saute for a few minutes, and then add garlic, tomatoes, bay leaves, Worcestershire sauce (and hot sauce if you're not us).

4. Over medium heat, add rice, water, and chicken bouillon. Cook until rice absorbs all the liquid and is ready to eat. I don't remember how long that took.

5. Add shrimp, chicken, and sausage. Cook until meat is done. I think this took about 10 minutes like the recipe said, but didn't really count the minutes (and don't really remember).

6. Season with salt, pepper, and more essence seasoning.

The jambalaya turned out really well, so I kind of wish I remembered more about exactly what I did. (This is why I should at least write down some notes after I make something!) It was a nice, hearty, flavorful one-pot meal with a nice kick to it. But as tasty as it was, it was really expensive, and we don't really like spending that much on a single dinner. We might make this again, but it's not going to be part of our regular rotation.

Week 9 - From a Can

A bit behind on the 52 week cooking challenge recaps (even if I'm up to date on the challenge), but time to get back into it. The Week 9 challenge was from a can, which didn't mean every single ingredient had to come from a can, but the majority or at least the main ingredients should. Back when the theme was first announced, I had just made and posted about a dinner that was made almost entirely with canned and pantry items (the chorizo rice casserole here), so I couldn't make that again for the challenge but would have to come up with something else. We had 2 cans of crab meat in the pantry so I decided to make some crab cakes, and for vegetables, pair it with a cajun corn maque choux that I was originally going to make to celebrate Mardi Gras but didn't because we had too many Chinese New Year leftovers.

Ingredients

I based the crab cakes on this Allrecipes recipe and mostly followed this Southern Living recipe for the cajun corn maque choux, making adaptations along the way. The ingredients that we used were:

For the crab cakes:
- 5 scallions ($0.65)
- 2 small cans of crab meat ($3.98)
- 1 beaten egg ($0.17)
- 1 tbsp mayo ($0.10)
- 1 large spoonful of whole grain mustard ($0.10)
- buttery round crackers, crushed (about a column of crackers) ($0.67)
- about 1/2 tsp cayenne ($0.03)
- about 1 tsp garlic powder ($0.03)
- a few dashes of Old Bay seasoning (free - had some old sample packets from an Orioles game)
- salt and pepper ($0.05)
- panko bread crumbs to coat the cakes ($1)

For the cajun corn maque choux:
- 1 onion ($0.60)
- 1 green bell pepper ($0.99)
- olive oil for sauteing ($0.15)
- 5 scallions ($0.65)
- about 1 lb of chicken andouille with cheddar cheese ($4.50)
- 2 cans corn ($1.78)
- 2 cans Rotel (or 1 can Rotel, 1 can diced tomatoes) ($1.60)
- salt and pepper ($0.05)

The overall cost for everything was about $17.10 ($6.78 for the crab cakes and $10.32 for the maque choux). Not a cheap dinner compared to our usual costs. The andouille was a big part of the cost (and even more when I made it a second time recently), but the quality is excellent and it's worth it. But the cost also explains why in the future I didn't pair the maque choux with something like crab cakes and we just ate it on its own with some grains.

Baked Crab Cakes

The crab cakes were relatively easy to put together. The steps were basically:

1. Prep - chop green onions, beat egg.

2. Saute green onions very briefly (maybe a minute) in a small saute pan.

3. Combine in a bowl: sauteed green onions, drained crab meat, beaten egg, mayo, mustard, cayenne, garlic powder, Old Bay, salt and pepper. Adjust seasonings to taste if needed.

4. Crush the crackers and add to the mixture. (I did this in parts to make sure there wouldn't be too many cracker crumbs compared to everything else.)

5. Form the mixture into patties about 1/2 inch thick. (As you can see, there was a little leftover at the end, but because of step number 6, it wasn't very easy to just combine it with the existing patties to make them bigger.)

6. Coat the patties in panko and place on parchment paper lined baking sheet. (I combined what was left of the crab mixture at the end with what was left of the panko and basically just made a crab panko ball.)

7. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes per side.

Overall, we didn't love the crab cakes. Part of that could be the crab meat itself. We've bought these cans before (see the crab toast here) and thought the crab was okay, but in these crab cakes, the first couple of bites were kind of fishy before our tongues got desensitized to the flavor. There's probably a reason these cans of crab are so much cheaper than the refrigerated canned crab, and we probably won't get them again since we don't like it that much. The crab cakes were just okay, edible but not incredibly flavorful (other than the fishiness) and a little dry (maybe baked them a little too long). Probably won't make these again.

Cajun Corn Maque Choux

We were pretty excited for the maque choux in part because we had been thinking about it for a couple of weeks since the time we were originally going to make it, and in part because I picked up this chicken andouille with cheddar cheese that we had never tried before from our local meat market. The recipe had called for 1/4 pound, I requested 1/3 pound from the guy at the counter, and he ended up giving me almost a pound. It turned out to be for the best since even with almost a pound of sausage, it didn't seem like that much next to all of the vegetables.

The steps for making the maque choux (adapted a bit from the original recipe) were:

1. Prep - chop onion, chop bell pepper, chop scallions, chop andouille.

2. Heat oil in large skillet (the one I used for the challenge was not big enough to make it easy to stir but the second time I made it (yes, I made it again before finishing this post) I used a deeper skillet which was perfect) and saute onion and green pepper until tender.

3. Add the corn and Rotel and mix together.

4. While the vegetables are cooking, saute the andouille in a small skillet until cooked through and a little browned.

5. Add andouille when cooked to everything else, and cook together for about 10-15 minutes. (Depends how much liquid is in the pan. The first time, it cooked for a while, but the second time, there was barely any liquid at this point so it didn't need as much time.)

6. Add green onions, salt and pepper, and cook for another 5-10 minutes or so (again, dependent on how much liquid is in the pan).

We were big fans of the maque choux (not surprising since I've already mentioned we made this again). The andouille sausage had such good flavor - full of spices and creamy melted cheddar cheese - so the dish packed a punch. Outside of the andouille, it was a pretty healthy dish too, full of vegetables. One of the recipes I saw referred to it as a Cajun succotash, which is so true. On top of all the good flavors, it definitely passes the color test.

Overall, dinner was pretty good. The crab cakes tasted a lot better once I started eating bites combined with a little bit of the maque choux, which was the clear winner between the 2 dishes. The crab cakes may not be making it into the regular rotation, but the maque choux definitely will.