Our little Mardi Gras dinner for 2 turned out really well – it was fun to come up with what I wanted to make but in a not-so-traditional way.

The menu:

  • Creole Spiced Shrimp (for me)
  • Crispy Creole Chicken (for MSP)
  • Jambalaya Rice over Red Bean Purée
  • Raw “Creamed” Spinach

I’ll link you to the recipes I used but you know me – I didn’t follow them totally as written.  :)   In the pic above, the purée is plated first (the pink layer on the bottom).  On top of that is a round of the jambalaya rice.  Then I placed my shrimp on top of that.  Then the “creamed” spinach around the front.  (Sadly it looks like I was trying to make a smiley face with my food! I assure you that was not my intent!)

So the first inspiration was this Jambalaya Recipe by Emeril.  At the bottom of his recipe he gives the ingredients to a Creole Spice Mix.  I scaled it down by half and made a batch to have some extra on my spice wall.

For MSP’s chicken I mixed a few spoons of that spice mix with some panko bread crumbs.  I cut the chicken breasts in half horizontally (to basically get the effect of pounding it out thinly without having to pound it!), ‘patted’ it into the seasoning and panko mix, then lightly pan fried them in a little coconut oil.

For my shrimp, I just dusted them with the Creole seasoning (no panko) and then briefly pan fried them in a little almond oil then I added a bit of water to the pan and covered so they would steam for a few minutes while I was plating.

I somewhat followed Emeril’s recipe for the Jambalaya rice. I wanted extra veggies to balance out the rice, so I added larger quantities.

From his list of ingredients, here’s what I subbed:

I only wanted to make the rice portion of this dish, because I was making the proteins separately.  The flavor of the rice was GREAT – but it took FOREVER to cook.  I let the brown rice go for over an hour and it was still a little on the “not quite done” side by the time we were ready to eat.  Honestly, next time I’ll cook the brown rice separately first, then add all the rest to it for the flavor afterward.

Since “red beans and rice” is a dish you hear about a lot in New Orleans cuisine, I was fortunate to find this can of Louisiana Red Beans by chance at the store!  MSP isn’t a huge bean fan, so I decided to make a little purée out of it.  I added the beans, their juice and some fresh lemon juice to the Blendtec, blended till creamy, then put it in a pan to heat over low.

And last but not least the raw “Creamed” spinach (mine was ‘mostly raw’ since I used tahini that was roasted, and tamari which is not truly raw).  I followed this recipe provided by RawNani in her YouTube video.  The only changes I made were I subbed in some tahini in for 1/2 of the almond butter.  I made the dressing first in my Magic Bullet, then I put the spinach and parsley into my food processor and pulsed, drizzling the dressing in as I went. I only used about 2/3 of the dressing for a TON of spinach (easily more than a full 10 oz clamshell of spinach). This was SO tasty!  I love the dressing.

It was really a delicious dinner, even though it took forever to get it to the table.  I don’t really ‘celebrate’ Mardi Gras, but I always love an excuse to try fun food, new recipes and come up with fun ideas along the way.

I am TOTALLY looking forward to lunch today so I can eat the leftovers!

Have a WONDERFUL day friends!

– Shari B.  =)

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