Chicken and Andouille Gumbo

Ingredients

• 1 head cauliflower
• 4 T butter, cubed
• s&p
• 3 leeks*
• 3 celery stalks
• 1 green pepper
• 1 lb. Andouille sausage, chopped
• 1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken thighs, chopped
• 6 c shrimp stock** (any stock will work)
• 1/2 lb. okra
• 1 14.5 oz. can diced fire roasted tomatoes
• 2 T Old Bay
• 2 t Quatre épices***
• 3 green onions

Method

Get your oven to 450°F. The food processor is going to be your BFF for this recipe. Get it out! Cut out the core and leaves of the cauliflower. Roughly chop and, in batches, process the cauliflower until it resembles rice. Place on a baking sheet. Toss it around with the butter and some s&p. Roast the cauliflower rice until it’s a nice pale yellow-ish color and doesn’t taste cauliflower-y, making sure to toss it one or two times while it’s roasting. About 25 minutes.

While the cauliflower is going, add the andouille sausage to a soup/stock pot, at least 5 quarts. Saute until it’s browned, remove from the pan and place on a “holding” plate. Add the chicken and saute until it’s done…if you’re a little shy of done, no worries, it’ll continue to cook in the soup. Remove the chicken and add to the plate with the sausage.

Add the green pepper, celery stalks and leeks to the food processor and blend until everybody is in small, itty-bitty pieces. Add to the stock pot and saute until everybody has softened. Pulse up the canned tomatoes in the food processor too–I don’t like when they’re too big in the soup, I like them evenly sized and textured within the soup. Add the rest of the ingredients, including the sausage and chicken, and simmer until the okra has softened, about 20 minutes. Don’t be afraid to taste the okra for the correct done-ness–soft, but still has a crunch to it.

To serve, place a scoop of cauliflower rice in the center of a bowl, ladle around the gumbo and sprinkle with green onions. You will have more gumbo than cauliflower. So leftovers will be “soup.”

*Leeks are dirty little suckers. To clean them: Cut off the root and to the top where it starts to get really, really green. Slice lengthwise and toss into a bowl of water. Use your hands to jiggle them around and that should remove virtually all the dirt.

**So here’s the deal with shrimp stock: I made the faux-viche one night and used shell-on shrimp. I saved the shells, added them to 3 quarts of water, simmered for 3 hours, strained and discarded the shells. Incredibly easily, and might I add, very resourceful.

*** Quatre épices is a french seasoning mix: white pepper, nutmeg, ginger, cloves. It’s not a necessary component, but it’s a nice addition. I found mine at World Market.

Faux-Viche

Ingredients

• 1 lb. wild shrimp, peeled, deveined and tail-off
• 1/2 lb. bay scallops
• 1 mango, diced
• 2 limes, juiced
• 2 lemons, juiced
• 1 orange, juiced
• 1/2 handful cilantro, chopped
• 3 green onions, chopped
• chili garlic sauce, optional
• s&p

Method

Heat about 2 quarts of water on medium until it starts to simmer–no boiling allowed! While the water is coming to temperature, make sure to have the shrimp peeled, deveined and take the tail off. Chop the shrimp and scallops into bite size pieces. Alternatively, you could use pre-cooked shrimp…it may cost more, but it will save a bit of time. Once the water is ready, add the seafood and cook until the shrimp is pale pink. This will not take long, about 5 minutes. Strain the seafood from the water.

In a bowl add the rest of the ingredients. Add the cooked seafood and let chill before serving.

Huevos Rancheros

Ingredients

• 1 lb. link sausage*
• 6 eggs
• 1 green onion, chopped
• 1 avocado, chopped
• Salsa**

Method

For the sausage, use a knife to split the link 3/4 of the way through and use your fingers to split it flat. Cook the sausages in a saute pan, that’s on medium high heat, with the casing side down. Why? Because the casing needs to render out otherwise the sausage will curl up,  won’t crisp up and will taste oddly chewy.

While the sausage is browning, whisk together the eggs with a bit of salt. Remember, the salt helps keep the eggs tender. After the sausage is done, scramble the eggs in the sausage renderings, however you like–runny, slightly runny, hard and rubbery.

To serve, lay a few sausage links down on your plate, top with eggs, spoon with salsa and then sprinkle the green onions and avocado on top.

*We used plain, breakfast sausage, simply because that’s all I had in the freezer. Crumbled sausage or Chorizo would be fab-u-lous here too. I’d be interested to hear how a smoked sausage, like Andouille would be.

**We used a chipotle salsa and it was magical. If I had green salsa, that would have been on there too!

Pork Fried Rice

Ingredients

• 1 lb. ground pork
• 4 oz. mushrooms, sliced
• 1 shallot or 2 cloves of garlic
• 2 inch long piece of ginger
• 4 green onions, sliced
• 2T + 2T wheat free soy sauce
• 1T + 1T  chili garlic sauce
• 1 head of cauliflower
• 2 eggs

Method

In a saute pan add the pork and break it up into pieces with your spatula. Let me school you real quick in extracting flavor from ground meat–let it cook until it’s brown. That means, don’t stop cooking it until you physically see a brown crust on it, just like if you were searing a steak or chicken.

While the pork is browning, chop the cauliflower head into chunks and throw into your food processor. Pulverize until it’s turned into crumbles, this shouldn’t take but about 2 minutes. Remove the cauliflower and reserve in a bowl. Since the bowl of the processor is already dirty, you might as well let it do some more work for you and pulverize the ginger and shallots.

Once the pork is brown, brown, brown add the mushrooms, 1/2 the green onions, 2 T soy sauce, 1T garlic chili sauce, and the shallots and ginger. Let it come together and simmer for about 5 minutes. Remove the mixture from the pan and put into your serving dish.

Add the cauliflower to the saute pan. What you’re trying to do is cook the cauliflower crumbles. Keep your eye on it and stir it around every minute or so. It should be finished in about 8 minutes. Taste it to make sure it’s soft and doesn’t have an over cauliflower-y taste. Add 2 more T of soy sauce and 1 more T of chili garlic sauce. Place the cauliflower into the serving bowl.

In a small bowl, crack 2 eggs and whisk together with a fork. Add the eggs to the saute pan and constantly stir so the eggs scramble into small pieces. They should finish cooking in about 2 minutes. Add the eggs to the serving dish.

Add the other 1/2 of the green onions, toss everything around to coat and serve immediately.