Sunday, October 31, 2010

Crawfish Fettuccine & Banana Pudding Pie

Andrew and I babysat at his sister's house with his other sister, Katie. We were left with the task of feeding four children (including Andrew) and ourselves. Amanda left us with a recipe from a cook book she received in medical school for crawfish Fettuccine and a recipe for a homemade banana pudding pie! Lauren, one of Andrew's nieces "helped" us as well...


Crawfish Fettuccine
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 sticks butter
- 3 stalks celery, 2 large onions (chopped), 1 large bell pepper (chopped) == You can buy the seasoning bags of chopped things, which is what we did
- 3 cloves garlic (we used minced garlic)
- 1 lb Velveeta cheese
- 2 lbs crawfish (or shrimp)
- 2 tbsp jalapeno relish
- 1/4 cup of flour
-1/2 pint of whipping cream
- 1 lb Fettuccine noodles
- Sprinkling of Parmesan Cheese

Steps:
1. Sautè the onions, bell pepper, and celery in butter.



2. Add flour, stir and cover. Cook for 15 minutes on low.



3. Add cream, cheese, garlic and jalapeno relish. Stir until cheese melts.
5. Add crawfish. Cook 30 minutes.
6. In a separate pot, boil noodles. Do not add salt. Combine everything into a casserole dish. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.
7. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes
Serves approx. 8 people and freezes well.

It was delicious. It was also sort of sweet. Surprisingly so. So you may want to add more seasoning.

Banana Pudding Pie
Ingredients
Pie:
- 1 (12 oz.) box Vanilla Wafers (set aside 30)
- 1/2 cup melted butter
- 2 large bananas
- 4 egg whites (save egg yolks)
- 1/2 cup sugar
Filling:
- 2 cups milk
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1/3 cup flour
- 2 large eggs
- 4 egg yolks

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350. Reserve 30 vanilla wafers; pulse remaining in a food processor 8-10x until coarsely crushed (yield ~2.5 c). Stir with butter until blended. Firmly press on bottom, sides, and lip of a 9 inch pie plate.
2. Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove and cool ~30 minutes or until completely cool.
3. Arrange 1/2 banana slices over bottom of crust. Prepare the FILLING** and stir 3/4 c. hot filling over bananas, top with 20 of reserved wafers. Spread 3/4 c. hot filling over wafers and cover with remaining bananas. Spread rest of filling (~1c) over. Filling will be ~1/4'' higher than top of crust.
4. Beat egg whites at high speed until foamy. Add sugar 1 tbsp at a time, beating until stiff peaks form and sugar is dissolved. Spread meringue over hot filling sealing edges.
5. Bake 350 for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Remove and let cool ~1 hour. Coarsely crush remaining wafers on top, cover, and chill for ~4 hours.

FILLING**
Directions
1. Whisk together all but Vanilla extract in heavy saucepan. Cook over medium-low heat, whisk constantly, 8-10 minutes or until reaches chilled pudding thickness (just bubbling, holds soft peaks). Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Use immediately.


This is delicious!!! Very rich. Something cool I learned from this recipe was that the flour you add to the filling prevents the egg from curdling...

Friday, October 29, 2010

New Posts Coming Soon

We have a lot more posts coming up (at least three), I've just been too lazy to work on them. That, and I've been working on a book review for another blog of mine, Lead me Onward (www.leadmeonward.blogspot.com), not to mention schoolwork. Also, TODAY'S MY 22nd Birthday WOOHOO! I'll give y'all a picture of my birthday cake so be jealous! I'll get the recipe from Andrew (I promise).

New posts coming soon!!!