Mardi Gras

I almost forgot it was Fat Tuesday!  I found myself planing the meal while I was at the grocery store.  We had New Orleans "BBQ" shrimp,

Blackened scallops, collard greens, and macque- choux, which is a Cajun corn dish.

I have had macque -choux, but when I googled a recipe I found such a huge variation in ingredients that I just winged it with this stuff:

A good trick for slicing corn  off the cob is to stand it in a large bowl.  That way the kernels don't fly off everywhere.

I browned half an Andouille sausage,

added scallions, red peppers, and celery and cooked briefly,

then added the corn, diced tomato, some thyme and a little broth.

When the corn was tender, I boiled off all the broth and added a little cream.  Macque -choux is supposed to be decadent.

New Orleans BBQ shrimp is not grilled or with BBQ sauce.  It's shell on shrimp cooked in butter with Cajun spices and Worcestershire sauce.  I added a little beer, too. The idea is the spicy seasoning gets all over your fingers as you peel the shrimp and you slurp it off...messy. 

The seasoned scallops blackening in butter in my smoking hot cast iron skillet.  Be sure to buy the "dry processed" scallops if you want to get them nice and brown.  Frozen or wet pack will never work for something like this.

Woo hoo.  That was our crazy Mardi Gras!  It seems like the big retail holidays get ever bigger and more prolonged while all the fun little ones get forgotten about.  I guess that's my job as a mom- to keep the traditions alive.