Shari's Colorful Crawfish Etouffee

I came across a bunch of pics for crawfish etouffee while I was googling "crawfish boil." I was so excited after my crawfish boil that I had plenty of crawfish leftover so I could make crawfish etouffee! My husband and I really enjoyed both my crawfish boil and my crawfish etouffee! This week was my first time making both dishes. The way I came up with my recipes was that I looked at a bunch of recipes online, and then I made up my own recipes from ingredients that I had on hand that were similar to those that I had seen in recipes online. 

Shari's Colorful Crawfish Etouffee:

1 Lb. Shucked Crawfish

1 Tsp. Minced Garlic

1 Tb Ketchup

3 Mini Sweet Peppers

1/2 Cup Leftover Onion & Habanero

1 Cup Seafood Stock From Crawfish Boil

1 Cup Water

2 Tb Flour

Few Dashes of Cayenne Pepper

Shari's Sweet Potato Habanero Crawfish Boil

I had some crawfish kicking around in my freezer at home because I randomly discovered them and bought them on my last grocery shopping trip. I thought of making the crawfish for Valentine's Day since they are red, exotic, and fun. I was so excited to make them however, that I could not wait until then.

I had so much fun planning it all, making it all, and eating it all. Of course, it would not have been the same without my dear husband Anthony and his good nature humoring me in feasting on this dish with me. I think I had a little too much fun with the whole event. When we sat down to eat Anthony asked me how we were supposed to eat them. I said I had posted a YouTube crawfish eating demo video earlier on my Facebook page that day saying that he and I were going to need it soon. I told him maybe he could look up the demo video on his phone for us both because I had never eaten crawfish before either. We laughed, looked up the demo video, and followed the instructions.

When we ripped the meat out of the crawfishes, I was surprised to see yellow. I thought maybe I hadn't cooked it all of the way. I googled a few different words and thoughts before finding a few pics that helped me determine whether our crawfish were indeed cooked. They were. The yellow that I had seen was guts, and I just had to pull some more of the meat out on the other side to get to the meat of the matter. Phew!

As for my recipe, I decided to just work from ingredients I had on hand after reviewing multiple crawfish boil ingredient lists online. Most of the lists included: crawfish, potatoes, corn on the cob, onions, garlic, sausage, lemons, water, and seasonings. Some even included mushrooms, or shrimp, or crabs. I wanted my crawfish boil to be original so it just worked out that I didn't have exact ingredients for the recipe. Below you'll find a list of the ingredients that I used to create my own original crawfish boil.

Shari's Sweet Potato Habanero Crawfish Boil:

1/4 Cup Cajun Seasoning

6 Quarts Water

2 Lemons

2 Onions

2 Sweet Potatoes

2 Habaneros

1/2 Lb. Cooked Ham

2 Lbs. Cooked Crawfish

1. Bring water and cajun seasoning to boil in a large pot.

2. Quarter lemons, squeeze juice into pot, and then drop lemons into pot.

3. Chop onions, sweet potatoes, and habaneros. Drop them into the boiling pot. Cover and cook 15 minutes.

4. Add ham and crawfish. Cover and cook for ten minutes.

Cajun Pasta Pizza Pie

This past Saturday afternoon, Anthony was getting hungry so I asked him what he wanted for lunch. He said pizza. I looked over our ingredients supply to make sure pizza was a possibility. We had some grated mozzarella in the freezer. Anthony likes meat toppings on his pizza. We had some sausage and chicken in the freezer but I was trying to think of something that didn't need to be thawed. We also had lunch meat ham in the fridge but I wanted to save that for Anthony's sack lunch sandwiches. Then I remembered a certain container of leftovers that had some meat in it. The container actually had leftovers from 3 separate meals in it.  I had combined 1) penne pasta, 2) tomato sauce, and 3) 3 flavor rotini & bow-tie pasta with black bean and meat sauce. One of my friends, Kim Neptune, had made the pasta with meat sauce dish for me and my husband after we returned home from the hospital. I used my pasta pot for a pizza topping between layers of cheese. I then added Cajun seasoming, and red pepper flakes. We loved our Cajun Pasta Pizza Pie! There needs to be a Pasta Pizza Pie Restaurant! There could be ravioli pizza pie, fettuccine alfredo pizza pie etc.