sunday

Sunday dinner didn’t happen this weekend - Ben went to an invitation-only slightly-sketchy MMA fight (less sketchy then bare knuckles and cardboard-covered basement floors, but more sketchy than real, actual sanctioned fights) and I ate my two-pairs-of-chopsticks sushi takeout on the coffee table and watched the Bears-Packers game while focusing on the steely eyes of salt-and-peppery Brett Favre.

But - that doesn’t mean I won’t share a recipe this week. In fact, I’ll break out a biggie - my family’s time-tested down-home bayou-approved recipe for shrimp etouffee. If you’re not familiar with the dish, it’s a Cajun thing, of a stew-like consistency (but don’t ever, ever call it stew out loud), served over white rice. Etoufee means “to smother” in French and I would say that’s all you really need to know to imagine the rich, smooth seafood deliciousness that is this meal.

It’s also the great combination of being 1) pretty easy to make and 2) very fancy and exotic. Break this out at a dinner party, and your name will be sung throughout the ages. Cook this for new significant others, your significant others’ parents, or any other people you’d like to wow and they’ll leave thinking, “Wow, I was really impressed with Sarah - she’s just so… decadent, smooth, and rich.”

The one downside is the butter. There’s a lot of it. We’re talking about a cow’s worth of butter. And I’ve tried cutting back on it, but it just doesn’t taste as good. My advice is to only cook it on special nights (like Sundays) and to never, never tell your guests that you bought out the dairy section put together their meal.

Crawfish or Shrimp Etouffee (serves three)

1. Melt a stick of butter in a large skillet; use medium heat; be careful not to burn.
2. Add 1/2 c. finely chopped celery, 2 smashed garlic cloves, 5-6 chopped green onions. 
3. Sauté on low for about 10 minutes. 
4. Add 3T flour; using a whisk, stir sporadically and cook for 5 minutes on low heat (this is called a roux, which is a Creole sauce base. It is delicious. When you don’t think about the butter).
5. Add 2T parsley (fresh is best) 1t salt, 1/4 t cayenne pepper (or to your taste, but the dish should be spicy), and about 1 1/2 c. water.  Stir with whisk as you add the water.  Mixture should be the consistency of thin gravy. (You may have to increase the amount of water.)
6. Add 1 lb. shrimp or crawfish tails (previously thawed and peeled) and simmer for 15 minutes on low.  Remove from heat and let sit for a few minutes or longer to enhance flavors. 
7. Serve over hot white rice.

Some recipes use regular chopped onions and green peppers in addition to the celery and garlic.  Some recipes add tomato paste, but these are not REAL Cajun etoufee recipes. In fact, if you are ever served etouffee with tomatoes in it, you should push the plate away, scoff, and say something damning about the cook your best Cajun drawl — maybe even something about how it’s like a stew.

This is about as simple a tomato sauce recipe can get, but the thing that makes it so much better than anything else I’ve tried is the fresh ingredients, especially the tomatoes, basil, and cheese. If you have vine ripe farmers’ market tomatoes, you have to make this. I mean, check out the ingredients on the jarred sauces in the store - we’re talking about all sorts of weird things like high fructose corn syrup.

I also like to make this healthier by using turkey sausage and serving the sauce over whole wheat pasta, which I swear is just as good if not better than regular pasta. And, of course, we like to run to the bakery down the street and make some garlic bread to sop up the extra sauce.

Fresh Tomato, Basil and Spicy Sausage Pasta

15 or so ripe plum tomatoes
3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion
some fresh basil
1 pound spicy Italian sausage
1 tablespoon crushed red pepper
4 cloves garlic (or however much garlic you’d like)
salt to taste (watch out - the sausage is salty so don’t overdo it)
optional: freshly grated parmesan cheese

Heat the oil and garlic in a large pot. Add the chopped onion and chopped sausage. After the sausage is cooked through, add the chopped tomatoes (you can peel and seed them if you want, but I just throw them in) and crushed red pepper. Cook on low for about an hour - the longer, the better. Add gently shredded basil right before serving - you don’t want the leaves to cook, you just want them to turn bright green. Serve over pasta and top with parmesan cheese.

Eat while watching the first season DVD of 30 Rock, which has totally turned you around on Alec Baldwin.

Read Sunday Dinner #1: Beef Stew

Ben and I have always struggled with Sundays - the depression, the sloth, and, many times, the lingering hangover. Sunday is the perfect combination of regret for your wasted weekend and dread for the coming week. A sadly ticking clock.

But - a year or two ago we started Sunday Dinners. On Sunday night, we decided, we would cook, eat, and forget about how we would inevitably feel in the morning. We would relax and celebrate the freedom of the weekend until the minute we went to bed, filled with delicious comfort food.

Cooking is something that I’ve become increasingly interested in as I’ve gotten older. My mother, my aunts, and my grandmother are all accomplished southern cooks bursting with recipes that have been fine-tuned through the generations. And although I try to hold off on the gravy during the week, Sunday is the day to break out the sausage, the flour, the beef, and the butter.

Even the most depressing act of Sunday night, making your Monday work lunch, is transformed into lovingly placing some leftovers in some Tupperware and whispering to yourself, “it’s always better the second day.”

Cooking is also very relaxing for me - a creative outlet that doesn’t, for a change, involve me weeping in front of a keyboard. I get to chop and grind and mix and I get a finished product in a few hours that doesn’t ever get workshopped. Just eaten.

In any case, I thought I’d share with you my recipes each week and see if I can’t start improving Sunday nights everywhere. I’d also love to hear about your favorite recipes. This week I made my mom’s beef stew (Ben made garlic bread and cleaned the kitchen afterward). It’s hard to screw up, cheap, and awesome for the first real week of fall. And - your apartment smells like stew all day (which I think has been proven to have the same effects as Prozac).

BEEF STEW

1.5 pounds beef
2 large potatoes
2 carrots
1 celery stock
1/3 cup of flour
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 capful Kitchen Bouquet  (you can find this old school product in any grocery store, usually in the instant gravy section even though it’s more of a spice)
other veggies (whatever you feel like or have around - green beans, corn, peas)
spices (salt, pepper, bay leaf, parsley, oregano, thyme, rosemary, garlic, whatever you feel like, fresh is always better)

Heat oil and garlic in a large Dutch oven or pot. Cut beef into bite-sized cubes. Dredge cubes in four, salt, and pepper. Add to pot along with chopped onions and finely chopped celery. When the beef is browned but not cooked through, add water until the beef is just covered (add more water if you like a thinner stew). Add the Kitchen Bouquet and spices. Cover and simmer for about an hour. Add diced potatoes, carrots, and any optional veggies. Cook on low for another hour or two - longer if you like it mushy and thick, shorter if you like the potatoes and carrots firm and completely intact. If you like your stew really, really thick, take your spoon and mash some of the potatoes against the side of the pot.

Serve with warm, buttery garlic bread made by your boo. Watch Sunday night football. Whatever you do, don’t check your work email or think about Monday morning.