Women's History Month Dinner

So, March is Women's History Month and I wanted to acknowledge it. My friend and I came up with an idea to entwine women's history with my food blog by doing a meal in honor of the month. But how to do it? Well, I decided to gather five women from history and do a meal in their honor. Have you ever watched those shows where people from different walks of life gather at a dinner table and they just record whatever is said? It's always interesting, and that's what I had in mind. My friend chose Mae Jemison, and from there I assembled a group of women who worked well with her. Then I planned a meal based on the times and locations they were from.

The women at my "dinner party" last night, were:
Dr. Mae Jemison, the first African American female astronaut. Medical doctor, and Peace Corps member, prior to joining NASA. Born 1956, Decatur, Alabama. Still living.
Katherine Johnson, one of the African American women who helped integrate NACA/NASA, and helped derive the mathematical equations needed to send John Glenn into space, and later, to send the first astronauts to the moon. Born 1918, White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. Still living.
Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in the world to go to space, in 1963. Born 1937, Maslennikovo, Russia. Still living.
Nichelle Nichols, an actress best known for her role as Lt. Nyoto Uhura from Star Trek and the subsequent movies. Born 1932, Robbins, Illinois. Still living.
Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, unaccompanied. Possibly best known for her disappearance during a flight that has never truly been resolved. Born 1897, Atchison, Kansas. No known death date, but based on her birthdate, I doubt she'd still be alive today.

Why these particular five women? Well, this is how I connected them together: Katherine Johnson and Valentina Tereshkova are both part of the Space Race of the 1960's. Nichelle Nichols and Star Trek's success wouldn't exist without the Space Race. She also became an ambassador for NASA and helped draw people of color to the organization. One of those people, was Dr. Mae Jemison, who was so inspired by Star Trek that she actually guest starred on Star Trek: The Next Generation. And none of those women would have been able to do what they did, if pioneers of aviation like Amelia Earhart hadn't started it all with airplanes. I can only imagine that they'd have a fascinating conversation if they'd ever had a chance to get together.

What do you serve a group of women such as these icons? I didn't want to do freeze-dried space food, because it's gross and you can't actually do that much with it. Since most of these women were associated with the Space Race, I thought that focusing on foods of the 1950's-1970's would be best. I scoured the internet and my own recipes and came up with a whopping five recipes! An entree, a starch side, a dessert, an appetizer, and a beverage! And though it wasn't a recipe, I did do a veggie side as well. I was in the kitchen from about 1pm, to 7pm working on all of it! Two of them are my own recipes from my collection, with no sources listed. I will write them out here. The other three are from the internet and I will provide links to those recipes, as they aren't my own.

Sparkling Strawberry Lemonade
1 pt. strawberries, leaves removed, chopped
1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice, about 4 lemons-worth
3/4 cup superfine sugar(superfine really is the better kind of sugar for this recipe as it dissolves more easily. The mixture isn't heated, so regular sugar wouldn't dissolve in it.)
Seltzer water, unflavored, chilled

Puree the strawberries with the lemon juice and the sugar.

You can refrigerate this mixture until ready to serve. When you're ready to serve it, pour some of the lemonade concentrate into the bottom of a cup and top it off with the seltzer water. Adjust to your tastes by adding more water or concentrate, if needed.

This one is suuuuuuper delish! It's bubbly and tangy and just sweet enough. I was really happy with this recipe.

Next up, is Shrimp Salad on Cucumber Slices
This is a pretty basic shrimp salad recipe. You use celery, dill pickle relish, green onions, chopped shrimp, and mayonnaise. I used the medium-sized, 51/60 shrimp, as opposed to bay shrimp because I don't think bay shrimp has much flavor. My grocery store sells it already cooked, fresh, in the fish section, so I bought a handful and cut off the tails before chopping them up.

I put some of it on cucumber slices, as the recipe calls for, and some on Ritz crackers. Both worked great!

I used dried dill as a garnish and that just made the color pop even more. This is a really simple, but elegant appetizer. Next up, was my entree...

Easy Baked Chicken Kiev

6 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
1/3 cup seasoned Italian-style bread crumbs
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1 tsp. dried oregano, divided
Black pepper
2 Tbsp. butter, softened
1 Tbsp. finely chopped parsley
1 egg, beaten with 1 Tbsp. cold water
3 oz. low-fat Monterey Jack cheese

1.) Place breast halves, one at a time, between two sheets of plastic wrap. With the flat side of a mallet or with a small heavy frying pan, gently pound breasts until each is about 1/4" thick. Set aside.
2.) Combine bread crumbs, Parmesan, 1/2 tsp. oregano, and a little black pepper. Spread on a plate and set aside.
3.) Mash together the softened butter, parsley, and 1/2 tsp. oregano; set aside. Whisk egg with water, pour onto a plate and set aside.
4.) Cut the cheese into 6 sticks, measuring about 1.5"x2". Set aside.

5.) Spread a little of the seasoned butter on each chicken breast. Lay a piece of Jack cheese about 1" from lower edge. Fold lower edge of breast up over cheese, fold in sides and roll up to enclose filling. (Note: I ended up having to use toothpicks to secure them. Just make sure to remove them before serving.)

6.) Roll each bundle in egg mixture, then in bread crumb mixture, until evenly coated. Place bundles, seam-side down, without touching, in a 9"x13" baking dish.
7.) Bake, uncovered, in a preheated 425 degree oven about 20-25 minutes, or until no longer pink in the center.

As you can see, I only did two instead of six, but it turned out really well! If you have never had this dish, as I hadn't, it's the same basic concept of Chicken Cordon Bleu, but without the ham, and a different type of cheese. I chose this dish because I feel it would have been considered the height of sophistication for the time period at which I was aiming. I took the toothpicks out and cut the chicken into slices to display the melty cheese. It felt even fancier that way!

For my starchy side, I chose this recipe: Minute Rice Pilaf. Why Minute Rice? you might ask. Because it's the food of the future! It's science and it's food! And it cuts down on the amount of time it takes to cook, thus giving the average 50's-70's housewife more time to do other things than housekeeping. She can have more time in her day to pursue her interests outside the home! What we today in 2018 might scoff at as "cheapo" or "lazy" food, was revolutionary when it came out. Women didn't have to worry as much about coming home from work(if they were one of the ones who worked outside the house) and having to spend hours preparing dinner for their family(because of course they were still expected to keep house and tend the children).

I must admit, I was skeptical at first of the idea of Minute Rice. I think I'd tried some in the past and haven't cared for it. This particular recipe is a rice pilaf, slightly akin to Rice-a-Roni(don't be a food snob, you know you eat the stuff!) but it actually cooked faster! It had less powdered ingredients, and more natural ingredients. I used chicken broth, but fortified it with a sodium-free chicken bouillon packet to keep in the spirit of the recipe. I also used the dried parsley flakes because I think fresh parsley is generally a huge waste of time that doesn't really add much to the final outcome of a dish, besides being a pretty bit of green on top. I happened to have the slivered almonds on hand, and I threw some in as well. If you have some, I highly recommend it. It adds flavor and texture.

Here are all the elements, prior to being fully cooked. I was really pleased with the outcome of this dish. It was flavorful and the rice tasted just like any other rice. The texture was great. And it only took five minutes!! It's really quite incredible. I highly recommend this recipe.

For my veggie side dish, I had a mixture of green beans and asparagus. I sprinkled them with dried tarragon, salt, and pepper. I poured on a little olive oil and mixed it all on a sheet pan and roasted them. The tarragon works really well with these vegetables. It all just tasted like spring! And it was quick and easy.

Here's the meal, in all its glory! As you can see, I cut the chicken into slices and the cheese is showing. The flavors of all these items worked really well together. It was filling, but not heavy, and it all looked so elegant! I was extremely happy with all of it. I would eat any single one of them again!

Now, onto dessert. So far, everything felt centered on the people from the 60's, so I wanted to have something dedicated to the time era of Amelia Earhart. I turned to the 30's and looked around for recipes, and found this gem: Grandma's Great Depression Cake. This was a fun one because most of it was actually cooked on the stove! And it involved some food science!

 You start by boiling most of the items on the stove. It sounds wacky, but it works!

Post boiling. You can see that the raisins have absorbed some of the liquid.

This is the fun science part! Baking soda and salt are mixed with water before being poured into the slightly cooled mixture and it bubbles and froths! This is where the leavening comes from.

 Baking powder and flour get mixed and then added to the frothy liquid.

 The final batter before it gets poured into the pan to bake. It looks like a cake mix to me!

 Freshly out of the oven! Mine needed only about 50 minutes to bake, so I recommend testing it after 45 minutes and seeing where it stands, baking-wise. When it cooled down, I sprinkled it with powdered sugar.

This was my piece for dessert last night. It's really dense and moist and tasty! It's like a gingerbread cake, but there's no ginger. It was still wonderful the next day when I shared it with my family for Easter dinner. The rest will be going to work with me where it will probably be eaten in ten minutes!

This whole meal was incredible! I loved every bite of it and every moment of preparing it. I have plans for more meals next March to do this again, hopefully at least twice. So, if you liked this post, stay tuned for next March where I will do more posts like this!

Looking for something to watch while you eat this amazing meal? Here are a few suggestions:
-Hidden Figures, the story about Katherine Johnson.
-Night at the Museum Two, featuring Amy Adams as Amelia Earhart.
-Any episode of the original Star Trek series.
-Episode 6.24 of Star Trek: The Next Generation, guest starring Dr. Mae Jemison.

And if nothing else, watch this hilarious Drunk History story of Nichelle Nichols and how she integrated not only science fiction, but all of space!

I hope everybody had a lovely Women's History Month. I'll see you next year!

Dining-In: A Culinary Tour of America-Hilton Head Island, South Carolina

The Location: Hilton Head Island, South Carolina

2013 population: 39,412; 75.9% white, 14.3% Hispanic. Per capita income $46,661.

The first signs of life on Hilton Head Island date back 15,000 years, though not much is known about the peoples who lived there at the time. More recent tribes include the Escamacus and the Yemassee. The first recorded European to make contact with the native peoples of the island was Francisco Cordillo, a Spanish explorer, in 1521. The island has changed hands over the centuries, to various European occupiers.

By the 1700's, the island was used as land for plantations and growing cotton. The oldest structure still on the island, is the Baynard Mausoleum, built in 1846. During the Civil War, the Confederacy built several forts on the island, while the Union built an army hospital there. The Union also conscripted many male slaves from the island to fight on their side, and with their wages, they were able to return to the island after the war and buy land and homes there. The town of Mitchelville was the first town in the United States built solely for freed slaves.

Hilton Head Island is one of the coastal areas of South Carolina known for being home to Gullah culture. Gullah is a combination of English, Native American, and West African cultures, most of which revolve around the cultivation and harvesting of rice. The land in South Carolina is particularly conducive to growing rice, and West African nations were renowned for their rice, so slaves from those nations were particularly in high demand. Because of the way rice was grown and harvested, the slaves were granted a lot of "free time," with which they preserved their culture, which they have passed down along the generations, where it remains intact to this day. It is not only known for its culinary, musical, and artistic elements, but is also its own dialect of English as well.

During the World Wars, Hilton Head Island was used as a lookout for German and Axis submarines, and as a military base. The city itself was not incorporated until 1983, and today the island is mostly used as a vacation destination.

The Food: Shrimp and Grits, and Blueberry Peach Cobbler
Full disclosure: I assigned this menu to the state of South Carolina completely randomly. The dishes are so Southern that I had to use them at some point in time, and South Carolina became the location assigned to them because all the other states had been chosen for other things. I had no idea that Shrimp and Grits was a very important dish in Gullah culture, or that Hilton Head Island was part of it too. I was very lucky to have paired them up, and it makes me look far more clever than I really am!

Shrimp and Grits:
I looked at a lot of Shrimp and Grits recipes and most of them called for cheese of some sort being added to the grits. This is a pretty common way of making them. However, I am one of those old-school believers in the "You don't mix cheese and fish" rule. It just didn't sound good to me, personally, so I looked for recipes that didn't have cheese in it, and came across a couple good ones. I ended up using them as a base, and to find the proper proportion of dried grits to liquid, but basically invented the recipe from there. I also had a good conversation with a coworker that left me with some ideas to build on as well. Unfortunately, it's one of those recipes without proper measurements. I will, however, include the links to the recipes so you can study those if you'd like!

So, you may be asking yourself right about now, what is a grit? Here is a handy explanation of just exactly, what a grit is:

Grits are also known as polenta. Polenta is the Italian version of grits. Grits are just the more humble version...To make my grits, I started with the liquid I was going to add to them. I started with chicken stock and added a handful of shrimp shells I had frozen after another one of my blog meals earlier this year that involved shrimp. I think it was my gumbo, another Southern delicacy! I threw in a bit of onion and a couple garlic cloves and simmered it for a while. It ended up smelling really shrimpy! I was a bit nervous because it was sooo shrimpy. I love shrimp, but sometimes it can be too shrimpy, you know what I mean?

I used 1/4 cup of grits, which was an adventure to find at the store. Hint: Don't go to the breakfast aisle to look for them. They only seem to carry instant, and as we all know, those are an abomination before the Lord. So, I looked very carefully on the pasta aisle, but they only had tubes of the already cooked kind and that isn't what you want either. It was also not available in the bulk section of my store. Where did I finally find it? The baking aisle...with all the small bags of specialty flours and grains. Go figure!

Anyway, I added the grits to the boiling stock, which I had strained and measured to one cup, and it wasn't enough liquid. Thankfully I had more chicken stock so I threw it on the stove, turned it on high and squeezed in some lemon juice to flavor it. You have to add boiling liquid to the grits to properly cook them. Bit by bit, you pour in more liquid and stir well, until its as thick or thin as you want it to be. Grits can be creamy and soupy like Cream of Wheat or it can be thick and chewy like oatmeal. Sometimes people add cream or milk to it, but I didn't. I just added the stock and mine were more creamy and soupy.

For the shrimp, I had purchased frozen, already shelled and deveined shrimp. I thawed them out and threw it in a frying pan with olive oil and some roughly cut garlic. I would have taken more time to chop the garlic properly but I was on the phone when I was cooking so I couldn't spare an extra hand. I squeezed in lemon juice and sprinkled salt, pepper, and some cayenne pepper and just sauteed it all until it was cooked through. To serve, I poured the grits into a bowl and dumped the shrimp on top. And that was it!

The grits probably took close to a half hour to cook, so make sure to know that going into it. The shrimp only takes a few minutes so don't do that till the very end. I looked at some videos online of how to cook Shrimp and Grits, and most of them have gravy involved. None of the recipes I found had gravy, but that might have been a fun addition. Next time!

This dish was really interesting. The grits were soft and slightly chewy. They were highly flavored from the stock I used. The shrimp were also highly flavored and blended well with the grits. They were just slightly spicy which went well with the grits too. The only issue I had was texture. It was all very soft and I wish there had been some sort of crunchy element to it. I'm not sure what I'd do to adjust that, but I'll keep thinking about it. The flavors were almost bordering on too strong, so I might cut back on the salt next time. The lemon works really well in this, so don't skip that!

Blueberry Peach Cobbler:
This is another quintessential Southern dish, and I actually managed to find one of my own recipe cards for this one! Unfortunately I don't know the original source. A couple notes: It's really difficult to find peaches in Seattle this time of year. And by really difficult, I mean impossible. It's also difficult to find them in frozen form at an affordable price. And by also difficult, I mean impossible. So, for the second time in this blog project, I willingly turned to canned peaches. I did manage to find some that were not steeped in corn syrup, so I went with those. I drained and rinsed them well and continued on with the recipe as it is described. For the blueberries, it was pretty much the same story, though I did manage to find affordable frozen berries. I measured out the 10 ounces it called for and let them thaw out before making the cobbler. And for the buttermilk, if you don't have any on-hand and don't want to buy a pint just for the amount you need for this, try this: Mix one Tablespoon of lemon juice in a one-cup measure and fill up the rest of the cup with regular milk. Mix well and let sit for about five minutes. The lemon juice will sour and thicken the milk and it will simulate the buttermilk perfectly.
Here is the recipe:
Filling-
6 large peaches, about 3 lbs., peeled and cut into thin slices
1 pt.(10 oz.) blueberries
1/2 cup sugar(I reduced this down to 2 Tbsp. and it turned out just fine.)
1 Tbsp. flour
2 tsp. lemon juice
Pinch nutmeg
Biscuits-
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. sugar
3 Tbsp. butter, frozen
3/4 cup low-fat buttermilk
Topping-
1 Tbsp. milk
2 Tbsp. sugar combined with 1 tsp. cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Prepare a 2-qt. casserole dish by coating with cooking spray.(I used butter.) Set aside.
Place the peaches, blueberries, sugar, flour, lemon juice, and nutmeg in a large bowl and combine well. Transfer to the casserole dish.

For Biscuits-In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar. Grate the frozen butter into the flour mixture so that you start with very small pieces.(This sounds like an ingenious idea until you try it out with the three-sided grater and half of it gets stuck inside and pretty much melts before you can get it out again. I did the best I could and placed the plate of grated butter back in the freezer for a couple minutes, but I wasn't able to get all of it out of the grater. If you have a single sided grater, I would recommend using that instead.) Rub with fingertips until fully incorporated. Add the buttermilk and stir just until moistened.(I found I needed a little more buttermilk than it called for when I mixed it.)
Drop the batter on top of the fruit to cover as much as possible. Brush with the milk and sprinkle the cinnamon-sugar evenly over the top.

Bake for about 35 minutes or until the biscuits are done and the fruit is bubbling.
Makes 8 servings
309 calories, 5 grams fat, 5 grams fiber

 I found mine needed almost ten more minutes to bake until the cobbler was fully baked. To test them, you have to lift one up and look at the underside. If it's baked all the way through, it's good. If it's still wet, you need to cook it longer. Because of this, the tops of the biscuits were a bit hard. I wonder if I had left the milk and cinnamon-sugar to the very end and let it cook for just those last ten minutes, if it would have helped soften it at all. It might not, but it's worth a try for next time! If you eat ice cream or whipped cream, this definitely is something you'd want to eat it with. This was so good I ate two bowls of it last night! And it makes a lot so it's good for sharing with others. The original name of the recipe is Peach Cobbler with Light Biscuits, but because the blueberry ended up being the dominant flavor, I changed the name to reflect that. The canned peaches seem to have worked just fine in this dish, so it was a good choice that was also comparatively affordable.

I highly recommend both of these dishes. They required a bit of work but weren't difficult to prepare at all. Shrimp and Grits is a true Southern dish. Southern cuisine, I have learned over the course of this project, is one of the most blended cuisines I have ever seen. English, African, French, Caribbean, Native American, and Latino all blended together into something unique and so very American. It is the perfect embodiment of the term "melting pot". Do give it a try sometime!

Sources:
City Map

City Stats

City Pic

City History1

City History2

City History3

Shrimp and Grits History

Gullah Culture Video1

Gullah Culture Video2

Shrimp and Grits Recipe1

Shrimp and Grits Recipe2

Dining-In: A Culinary Tour of America-Hammond, Louisiana

The Location: Hammond, Louisiana

2013 population: 20,337; 47.3% African American, 46.6% white; per capita income, $21,097.

Hammond was named after its founder, Peter av Hammerdal, a Swedish immigrant who came to the region in 1818. Hammond, an escaped prisoner from Dartmoor Prison, used his savings to buy the land near New Orleans, and with the use of slave labor, established the space that would become the town. The city was built in 1830. Prior to the European colonization of the region, Louisiana was home to at least 34 Native American tribes, including the Tangipahoa, the Appalousa, and the Choctaw.

In 1854, the Great Northern Pacific Railroad came to the city, which turned Hammond into a major commercial center and travel destination. It became known as the "Strawberry Capital of America" because of the amount of berries that were shipped from there.

During the Civil War, Hammond was a center for shoe-making for the Confederate Army. During the Second World War, Hammond's airport was used as a detention center for German POWs.

Today, Hammond houses many warehouses for large store chains, such as Walmart. It is also home to the Tangipahoa African American Heritage Museum, which is a destination on the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail.

The Dish: Gumbo
Gumbo has a long history, and essays have actually been written about it. I won't go into too much detail or I would probably write for hours, but gumbo is the official state dish of Louisiana. This weekend, there is a large Gumbo festival in Bridge City, and that is why I am doing this now! Bridge City, however, doesn't have much history to it, so I chose Hammond instead. Why not New Orleans? Too done...I wanted to feature a place most people have never heard of.

Louisiana is a state rich in culinary choices. It was definitely a state where I had to pick and choose and narrow down what to make. Gumbo, jambalaya, muffaletta sandwiches, po'boys, the list goes on and on. Louisiana is a state the truly embodies the "melting pot" concept of America. The Native American tribes, the slaves, and the European immigrants all added their influence to the cuisine. The Cajuns, formerly known as the Acadians, were French immigrants from Canada who found themselves uninvited to live in Canada(It's a long story...). They traveled down the Mississippi River and settled in Louisiana, bringing their musical and culinary traditions with them. The Creoles, were French and Spanish Catholics who eventually intermixed with the slaves and Caribbean population to create a unique culture. The foods that came out of this meeting of cultures is also a blend.

Gumbo, which I settled on, is a cross of cultures in one dish. It is thickened with roux, a French concept, and traditionally seasoned with file(accent over the e, that I can't insert here,) which is a Native American spice. The "holy trinity," otherwise known as celery, onions, and bell peppers, is prevalent in Cajun cookery. Gumbo can be Creole, or Cajun, depending on what you thicken it with and what you put in it. My recipe, which came from my personal recipe files, is very basic, though it uses some ingredients I rarely use or have never used, so it was a fun one to try. It actually was a very fast-cooking gumbo as well. Traditionally, gumbo takes hours to make. I guess my recipe isn't traditional! But it was good. Here's the recipe:

Shrimp and Andouille Gumbo
1 large onion, chopped
1 large red bell pepper, chopped
1 large green bell pepper, chopped
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/4 cup olive oil(I used vegetable oil, and it was just fine.)
1/4 cup flour
2 (14.5oz) cans whole tomatoes in tomato juice(no salt added)
1/2 lb. Andouille sausage, sliced 1/4" thick(I used one sausage link, which was about half that amount. It is a very spicy sausage, so it's great to season the gumbo, but too spicy for me to eat.)
1 cup water
1 lb. large shrimp, shelled but with tails left on, and deveined(I had a 12 oz. package of shrimp and I think it was plenty.)
2 1/2 cups hot cooked white rice

1.) In medium-size bowl, combine onion, bell peppers, celery, garlic, oregano, thyme, salt, crushed red pepper, and pepper; set aside.

2.) In heavy 4 qt. saucepan, heat oil over medium heat. Add flour and cook, stirring constantly, until mixture is medium brown.(This takes time and confidence. You really do have to stir constantly, with a whisk, and it will start to smell like it's overcooking, but it isn't. Just keep at it until it's a nice deep brown color. Roux can be the color of coffee if you let it go long enough, so don't be afraid, just keep at it.)

 Add vegetable mixture and cook, stirring, until vegetables are coated with the flour mixture, about 5 minutes.
3.) Add tomatoes with juice, sausage, and water.(Now, it does not say either way, but I cooked my sausage first before adding it to the mixture. I wasn't sure if the gumbo would cook long enough to cook the sausage all the way through. You can make that decision for yourself and cook it first or not.) Cook, stirring occasionally to break up tomatoes, 10 minutes.
4.) Add shrimp to mixture in saucepan; heat to boiling. Cook until shrimp are cooked through, about 5 minutes.

5.) Divide rice among 6 individual soup plates. Spoon gumbo over rice, and serve.
Makes 6 servings(Because I used less sausage and shrimp, mine made closer to 4 servings.

I heated up some biscuits to go along with this, but I really wanted cornbread. I might get some today to eat with my leftovers. This was pretty tasty, but I suspect it'll be even better tonight when I reheat it. As with any soup/stew, it always tastes better the next day, right? This was pretty spicy! When I stopped eating the sausage, though, it got easier to eat. If you are a spice fan, you will love this, and might even want more spice. You could add hot sauce if you want, or more pepper flakes, but I thought it was just enough for me, even bordering on too much. The rice really does help cut the spice, because it spreads it out. I highly recommend serving it with rice. And I recommend watching The Princess and the Frog, like I did, because it's the perfect movie for gumbo. You could also watch The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, which would also work very well.

There are so many foods from Louisiana and I want to try them all. Next year, when I finish this project and start some smaller projects, I think this state will warrant a closer look. It's just too good not to try it all!

Sources:
Gumbo History

More Gumbo History

City Pic

City Map

City History

City Info

Cooking Light Night

Roasted Red Pepper and Herb Shrimp with Pasta

Last night I made this and it was tasty. I am slowly adjusting my palate to bell peppers, but it's coming along pretty well, I'd say. I don't eat a lot of shrimp in general, and I never have any in the house, so I bought a bag of shrimp to keep in the freezer for such dishes, rather than have to buy it each time I want to cook shrimp. It was a good buy, I think, with the exception that I didn't notice it still had the shells on. But they were easy enough to peel off when they were cooked. I was shocked when I was measuring out the pasta at how small 4 oz of uncooked fettuccine looks.(I made a half batch of the dish) But when it was all cooked, it really was enough for two healthy servings. And 4 oz shrimp was also quite satisfying for two servings as well.

I would definitely make this again. It's pretty easy, though there's a bit of prep work involved prior to making it. I might try this again and see how it works with fresh fettuccine instead. I think that would be wonderful too.