Saints WIN!

It’s been a dismally dreary weekend again here, with cold, rain and clouds (I so wish to be back in sunny, warm Cozumel again!). Well since my Cowboys weren’t playing in the Super Bowl (once again) this year, I decided to go for the Saints. This being their first time I felt they deserved a chance. At first it looked like they might have gotten there on pure luck as they started out with quite a bit of errors – interceptions, dropped balls, etc., but in the second half they proved their worth and won it!

As I got ready to watch the big game I made my own game plan for food! I had come across this web site (Homesick Texan) with a fantastic photo and recipe of chicken and andouille sausage gumbo. It looked so good I had to try and make this for myself. So I printed out the recipe and went shopping for my ingredients. Surprisingly enough I did find andouille sausage in my regular grocery store. It’s probably always been available there but never having cooked with it before I of course never noticed it. I also bought some other things to make some appetizers to munch on while we waited for the gumbo to cook. Ok I like to cook and I have tried some recipes outside the norm of my usual type of food that I like. I always learn something new in the way of cooking – with this one (and I should have known better cause I’d heard this before) always read the recipe through! If I had done that though I probably wouldn’t have even attempted this, it was so time consuming and detailed in all that it instructed you to do. I’ll let you read for yourself but suffice to say I did not follow all those steps. I bought chicken breast that had no bone or skin so there was no fat to skim off or separate. I also used minced garlic and got out of mincing five garlic cloves. Everything else I pretty much did as instructed. I’d never made roué before in this manner and it only looked slightly different going into the oven as it did coming out.

While all that was cooking I made a couple of appetizers (recipes from Pampered Chef) to tide us over. The Moroccan Chicken Crostini Melts  (second photo below) and Asian Crab Salad Crisps (first photo below). They came out quite tasty, however the crab appetizers were a little too spicy – note: next time little less of the spice mix.

The kids are not too keen on trying new things but they were good sports and gave it a shot – they gave them both thumbs up.

As they munched I finished up the gumbo and made some white rice to go with. I served myself a nice steaming bowl and ……it did not taste as I expected. I’m not even sure what I expected it to taste like – but I did not care for – I think it might have been the taste of the andouille sausage that threw me. You could see the chunks of fat in it and I just could not eat it. My two older kids however LIKED it and ate a whole bowl full. So the day wasn’t a total waste.

I ended up eating more of the appetizers which were quite filling and watched the Half-time show and the rest of the Super Bowl game. They sure can party in New Orleans! Happy Mardi Gras.