So I Know It's Not Later Tuesday, But the Rest of Mardi Gras Update

I guess it's about time and appropriate for me to finish the update of the Mardi Gras blog. I decided that the only Southern thing to do was to put on a full on Cajun meal for everyone. Crawdaddies were hard to come by, actually they were an impossibility. But, I did score some beautiful looking shrimp that were on sale and these were going to be perfect. I also got a good deal on a awesome can of tomato sauce and a chicken. I was set.

I woke up early on Fat Tuesday and put the chicken in the rotisserie. This was quite the adventure because I had seasoned the bird and had turned the oven on to preheat it, which also automatically turns on the rotary. So here I am trying to slide a bird into the notches while the oven is on and the hole is spinning. Quite funny for onlookers I can imagine. Finally succeeded, but determined that when I removed it, in order for the simplistic approach I was going to wait until the time ran out and I would remove it while it was standing still.

Everything else went without a hitch. Dirty rice, white rice, boiled shrimp, shrimp with creamy alfredo sauce fettucini, and to top it all off a nice big pot of gumbo. When I put the chicken in I immediately washed up and started working on the roux. It at first had too many chunks of flour in it, but this was quickly remedied with a strainer and came out tasting fantastic. Added some grilled sausage, some shrimp, some celery, kidney beans, a little minced onion and it had this fantastic rich flavor.

When I packed it all up and was carrying it down to the street to catch a cab, it was an awesome sight because it was snowing. Made me very happy that I was bringing warm food on a what looked like a chilly day. Nobody knew that when I said I was bringing Mardi Gras eat-ums to work that I meant that I was bringing a feast. Haha. I got there in perfect time too. There was enough time for everyone to dig in prior to going to their class.

Lots of surprises, lots of thank yous and one of the other teachers who has family in Louisiana was eating as much as he could because “this was definitely the real thing”. Made me happier than any thank you, although those were appreciated too.

Unfortunately, a lot of the pictures that I got were of the aftermath. But, I think the pictures speak for themselves as to how much everyone enjoyed. When I end up with minimal leftovers going home, always a happy feeling.