Friday Fish

   Friday fish has always been a special treat down here in Cajun country. Our seafood is always fresh and plentiful, caught by ourselves or gifted by friends. 
  For this Lenten Friday, I took a huge Red fish out of the freezer, caught and given to us by our tiny-but-feisty neighbor, Sonia. Before freezing it, I had cleaned it, but left the skin and scales on, (which serves to work as it's own baking dish, of sort) then laid it all out on a baking sheet and slathered it with melted butter and lemon juice...

and sprinkled it with our own blend of Cajun seasoning.

I parked the whole thing in a 300 degree oven for a half hour, or so, 'til it looked done.  

        While the fish was baking away, I put the leftover butter and lemon juice in my family heirloom black iron pot and added a couple of onions, diced by my sweet sous chef, Peggy.

I always dust my onions with our Cajun seasoning, because I find they cook faster that way.

Once the onions began to brown, I added a pound of small, cleaned and deveined shrimp.

I prefer small shrimp for this sauce, but I've used larger ones, cutting them into bite sized pieces, but, since the smaller ones are less expensive, I just go ahead and use the small ones.

  Once that was cooking along, Peggy made a slurry of evaporated milk and corn starch, then poured it into the shrimp, stirred it 'til it bubbled and thickened the shrimp sauce, making it rich and creamy.

When the fish came out of the oven,

                             I plated us up each a chunk,

               Then I smothered in Peggy's thick rich sauce.

I can't begin to tell ya how good this is

 (and shouldn't tell ya that I had 3 servings!)

   This amazing dish was "thrown together" in less than an hour. It is easy to make! C'mon! Give it a try with your favorite fresh fish. The sauce could make a tennis shoe taste good, so you know it's gonna make fish taste good. 

 Our motto would be: Friends don't let friends eat bad fish.

 So, just remember, friend: use fresh fish (fish that smells like the ocean) and you will not be disappointed. Cést si bon!

March 2, 2018 Back Yard Report.

   Everyone in our area is talking about what a rough winter we had this year. Those of you who live up north in snow country, forgive us for "boo-hooing". 

     One year we were alarmed about the weather report. "Oh no!" we shouted to one of our Yankee 'kids', "We're going to get bad weather!" 

    They scoffed, "Oh what...is it gonna get cold?" 

   Well, yeah, considering the really bad weather, tons of snow and ice, etc. that they get each winter, 'cold' probably doesn't sound all that bad, since, too, their cold is way colder than our cold. But, yeah, for us, a hard winter is bad. Lots of citrus and other trees were killed or damaged in this year's rare hard freeze.  

      Take a very short walk around our yard with Peggy and me, in this video, and we'll show you what a bad winter can do to us.  But, as you can also see, hidden here and there, a promise of Spring rebirth.  

   Believe it or not, you upstate New York snow angels, March in south Louisiana has always been my favorite month, and now it's Peggy's as well. 

Today, we see on the news that northerners are getting a terrible beating with snow and wind...power outages...just awful. Well, hang in there; Spring is headed your way, too. Remember: just as you are getting comfortable in your hammocks with a nice cold glass of lemonade, know that we'll be down here griping about the heat burning up everything in our gardens, with the promise of Fall and Winter dangling like a carrot on a stick somewhere in time. I don't think you'll wanna see a video of that.  :-)