I’ve been quite busy in the kitchen doing some further experimentation, some with recipes to follow, but none that I was actually able to follow the directions , usually due to lack of ingredients or the proper kitchen paraphernalia.

1. Cajun Shrimp Fettuccine Alfredo: This dish I’ve already posted about, but here is the picture.  It turned out incredibly tasty, although I could have done it a bit better by cooking the noodle just a tad more, making the sauce a bit creamier, and using a tad less creole seasoning.

2. Black Eyed Pea Gumbo with Cajun Shrimp: This was using a recipe, but I deviated some with the ingredients, primarily using more or less ingredients, and adding shrimp and some creole seasoning.  The gumbo was pretty straight forward, sautee the hard veggies until tender, dump everything in and let simmer for around an hour until the rice was tender.  However, the shrimp I sautéed separately with olive oil and creole seasoning and then added in the last 10 minutes or so.  It was tasty, but I wasn’t sure what to expect.  I think I’d prefer a more traditional gumbo (without the black eyed peas) better.

3. Scrambled Cajun Eggs with Cheese and Mushrooms: This was just me feeling froggy this morning.  Turned out great, which is saying something considering I don’t really like eating eggs. By the way, are you noticing a recent trend in Cajun cooking?  That’s due to a seasoning I found at Wally World that is really great.  I’ll put that into a separate post some other day.  I first sliced some mushrooms, and sautéed them in a bit of butter and olive oil until good and done.  While it was cooking, I beat 3 eggs, and added some cajun seasoning and shredded cheese (I had some leftover fiesta blend) and mixed that in.  When the mushrooms were done, added the eggs, scrambled until nothing was runny, served and ate.

4. Tortellini and Spinach Soup:  This wasn’t my favorite, but possibly because I’ve never been a huge fan of watery soups.  I much prefer to have some creaminess.  That being said, it was still very tasty and my wife loved it (hence why we’ve made it three times since).  As is becoming habit, I diverged a bit from the recipe.  Instead of chicken stock, I just poured 6 cups of water and dropped in 6 bullion cubes (what can I say, the chicken stock goes fast).  Brought to a boil, added dried cheese/spinach tortellini and cooked until almost done (maybe needed a minute more cooking).  I added a handful of spinach (that I’d taken the stems off) and finished boiling.  Served immediately with some grated parmesan cheese sprinkled on it.  It doesn’t keep well in the fridge, imho, because the tortellini absorbs the water too much, but it was still tasty enough the next day to eat.

At lunch today, I had fixed the children the obligatory chicken nuggets and ‘tubby’ toast (which is buttered toast with garlic salt.  I don’t have a clue why we call it tubby toast.  I googled it and there’s an actual Tubby Toast based off of something from the TeleTubbies.  Yep, I stopped reading about there as well.) (It’s kind of hard to finish my sentence after such a long tangent into toast and defunct children’s television characters and it still make sense.  Oh well) I turned my attentions to my ample appetite.  The usual suspects came to mind, but then I remember the frozen shrimp we had that was slated for the Black Eyed Pea Gumbo tonight.  Surely we didn’t need all of that shrimp.  I’d sauté some real quick.  Oh, and I had that new Creole seasoning we’d picked up for the gumbo, so I’ll try that.  Hmmm… I bet that’d be good on some fettuccine with some butter, salt and pepper.  Oh, what’s this?  Is that a simple recipe for Alfredo sauce.  No cream, no problem, I’ll use some milk.  So, today I made my first Cajun Shrimp Fettuccine Alfredo.  And it was yummy.