Crawfish Cornbread Muffins #MuffinMonday

Made with the bottom of the bag cracklin crumbs, extra sharp cheddar, onion and jalapeños, these tasty crawfish cornbread muffins are over the top cheesy, spicy and delicious. 

The last time I went to Louisiana to visit family, I happened to spy some cracklin crumbs in bags on the counter at one of the local butchers. I couldn’t resist buying them since the price was so good compared to the actual cracklin which has reached the astronomical price of more than $20 per pound. I pictured myself sprinkling it on things to add flavor, salt and spice, and so I have. 

 

But what I really wanted to do with it was make cornbread. I’m finally getting around to that!  And since I happened to have some crawfish in the freezer as well, that got added in too. Because why not? 

Crawfish Cornbread Muffins

If you can’t find cooked crawfish in the freezer section of your local stores, substitute shrimp. Also, I recommend baking these in silicone muffin cups. As you will see in the photos below, mine stuck on the bottom despite a generous brushing of the muffin pan with oil. If you don’t have cracklin crumbs, add an extra 1/2 teaspoon of salt to the mix.

Ingredients

1/2 yellow onion, finely diced (about 5 oz or 140g)

1-2 fresh jalapeños, stemmed and finely chopped (deseeding optional)

1 cup or 180g yellow cornmeal

1/4 cup or 32g flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon Cajun seasoning (I use Slap Ya Mama since it’s lower in sodium than some of the other brands.)

3 eggs

1/3 cup or 80ml canola or other light oil, plus extra for sauté and muffin pans

4 oz or 113g extra sharp cheddar cheese, grated

1 1/4 cups or 170g frozen corn, thawed

6 oz or 170g crawfish tail meat, roughly chopped

1/2 cup or 60g cracklin crumbs, optional, or 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

Method

Preheat the oven to 350° F or 180°C. Grease 12 silicone muffins cups and put them in a muffin pan or on a large baking pan. 

Sauté the onion and jalapeños in a skillet with a drizzle of oil until softened. Set aside to cool. 

Stir the cornmeal, cracklin crumbs (if using), baking powder, salt and creole seasoning together in a large bowl. 

Add the grated cheese and stir to coat. 

Add the crawfish and stir to coat again. 

Add the corn and the onion/jalapeño mixture and stir to combine. 

Note: You will notice that you don’t see the onion and jalapeños in that photo. That is because I had already added the eggs and oil and then turned around to see them, all nicely cooled in their pan on the other side of the sink. So in reality they went in after the eggs but they sure would be mixed in more easily with the corn when all the ingredients were still relatively dry, which is what was meant to happen. 

In another bowl, whisk the eggs and oil together. Pour this into the muffin mixture and stir to combine. 

Divide the cornbread mixture into your prepared silicone muffins cups. 

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. 

This is the debacle you can expect if you don't use silicone muffin cups or liners. You have been warned! 

I must confess though that we used a spoon to scrape those stuck bits out and they were delicious and crunchy! They did not go to waste. 

Leave to cool for a few minutes, then release them from the silicone cups and leave on a wire rack to cool. Serve warm with extra butter, if desired. 

Enjoy!

It’s the last Monday of the month so that means it’s time for Muffin Monday! Check out the great muffins my friends are sharing below: 

• 4 Ingredient, Small Batch, Nutella Muffins from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Blueberry Oatmeal Muffins from Jolene's Recipe Journal
• Crawfish Cornbread Muffins from Food Lust People Love
• S'mores Muffins from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Sourdough Mango Banana Muffins from Zesty South Indian Kitchen

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all of our lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board. Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday can be found on our home page.

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Crawfish Fried Rice

An easy one pot meal, this spicy crawfish fried rice includes carrots and cabbage and is seasoned with garlic, ginger and chili peppers. It’s an ideal way to turn leftover rice into a tasty new delight. 

During crawfish season here in the US south, a lot of restaurants advertise boiled crawfish specials. One nearby, serving a mix of Vietnamese and American fare, did something different: crawfish fried rice. Well, you know I had to go and try it! Shout out to Hughie's! 

It was very tasty and I couldn’t wait to get home and try to make my own version. Fortunately frozen crawfish are readily available year round in the freezer section at all my local grocery stores so we don’t have to wait for crawfish season to enjoy this dish. 

My only regret is that my grandmother isn't still here so I could make it for her. She was an adventurous eater and one of her favorite restaurants in her small Louisiana town was a Chinese buffet. True story: We held the celebration of my grandparents gold anniversary (50 years of marriage) in that very restaurant. 

They had a function room so we were able to speechify and honor them but still enjoy my grandmother's favorite dishes. (And my speech was well-received and everyone laughed in the appropriate places, a boost to the young speech writer that I was.)  It was a good time! 

Crawfish Fried Rice

This recipe makes about 3-4 servings, depending on how hungry your eaters are. If you can’t find cooked, frozen crawfish where you live, substitute cooked shrimp instead. 

Ingredients

1 medium carrot

1/4 medium cabbage

4 cloves garlic

2 in or 5cm knob ginger

2 small red chili peppers

2 tablespoons canola or other light oil

5 cups or 650g day-old cold, cooked rice 

12 oz or 340g cooked crawfish tails

1 egg

1 teaspoon oyster sauce

2 tablespoons reduced sodium soy sauce

2 tablespoons Shaoxing wine

1 tablespoon sesame oil

Optional: 2-3 sprigs cilantro for garnish

Method

Peel, crush and mince the garlic. Peel and mince the ginger. Finely slice the chili peppers and discard the stems. Peel or scrub the carrot and cut it into matchsticks. Core the cabbage and slice it thinly. 

In a small bowl, whisk the egg with the oyster sauce and set aside. 

Heat canola oil in wok or a large non-stick skillet. Add in the garlic, ginger and chili peppers. 

Cook for a minute or two and then add in the carrot. 

Cook another two minutes and push the ingredients to the sides of the pan. Pour in the egg and cook stirring until the egg is done and it’s in small curds. 

Stir everything together again then add the crawfish.  

Cook on high heat for 30 seconds then add the rice. 

Stir well to combine the rice with the other ingredients, then add the sliced cabbage.

Cook until the rice starts to get crispy then pour in the soy sauce, Shaoxing wine and sesame oil. Stir again to combine. 

Serve garnished with cilantro, if desired. 

Enjoy! 

It’s Sunday FunDay and today we are sharing recipes made with rice as a central ingredient. Many thanks to our host, Sneha of Sneha’s Recipe. Check out the link list below.

• Crawfish Fried Rice from Food Lust People Love
• Insalata da Riso from Pandemonium Noshery
• Instant Pot Chicken and Rice from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Palak Rice from Mayuri’s Jikoni
• Pork Stir Fry Skillet from Amy’s Cooking Adventures
• Quick Shrimp Fried Rice with Peas and Carrots from Karen’s Kitchen Stories
• Spanish Rice from Palatable Pastime
• Split Green Moong Khichdi /Chilkewali Moong Dal Khichdi from Sneha’s Recipe

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

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Peach Blueberry Pound Cake #BundtBakers

This peach blueberry pound cake batter is made with pureed peach, and blueberries folded through, before baking to a rich, buttery finish. Top it with peach puree glaze and more blueberries for a wonderful seasonal dessert everyone will love. 

Sometimes food holidays don’t make a bit of sense - I’m looking at you, National Cherry Month in February when there are NO CHERRIES in any US stores, never mind farmer’s markets, unless they are imported from far afield. 

Who chooses these national month celebrations anyway? If you know, please do enlighten me!

Sometimes they do get it right though. According to some food holiday lists, it’s National Blueberry Month right now and that seems appropriate since it’s actually blueberry season. Since peaches are also ripe and juicy, I decided to combine the two. 

Peach Blueberry Pound Cake

If you can’t get nice peaches, nectarines or apricots could be substituted here. I recommend freezing your blueberries until right before you mix them in. (I simply measure them out earlier in the day and put the measuring cup full in the freezer.) This helps them stay suspended in the batter. This recipe makes one 6-cup Bundt. I use my Nordic Ware 6-cup Anniversary Bundt Pan < affiliate link.

Ingredients

2/3 cup or 150g unsalted butter, melted and cooled to room temperature, plus more for greasing the pan

1 medium ripe peach, pitted

1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

2 large eggs

3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 2/3 cups or 208g all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the pan 

1 cup or 200g sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

1/2 cup or 70g blueberries, plus extra for decoration, if desired

For the glaze:

2/3 cup or 83g powdered sugar

Method

Heat your oven to 325°F or 163°C. Generously butter and flour a 6-cup Bundt pan and set aside.

Add the pitted peach and the lemon juice to a food processor or blender, and blend on high until completely puréed. 

Measure out a leveled 1/2  cup of the purée - leaving the balance in the food processor - and transfer it to a mixing bowl along with the melted butter, eggs and vanilla. Whisk to combine and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, add the flour, granulated sugar, baking powder and salt, and whisk to combine. 

Pour the flour mixture into the peach mixture, and whisk well until the batter is thoroughly combined.

Fold in the blueberries.

Spoon the batter into the prepared Bundt pan and smooth it out with your spatula.

Bake until golden brown on the top and a wooden skewer inserted into the center comes out clean, about 55-50 minutes. Turn the cake carefully around about three-quarters of the way through baking to insure it bakes more evenly. 

Aside: I don't know if everyone has this issue but when I want to rotate my Bundt pans, they get caught on the baking shelf bars and don't turn smoothly. I avoid this problem by setting my Bundt pan on a flat pan to bake. Smooth turning! If you've got a round pizza pan, it's ideal for this purpose. 

While the cake bakes, make the glaze. Completely scrape down the sides of the food processor then add the powdered sugar.

Blend on high until combined. Cover and set aside until it’s time to glaze the cake.

Remove the Bundt from the oven.  

Allow to cool for 10 minutes before turning it out onto the wire rack. Cool completely before glazing. 

When the cake is cool, put it on a serving plate then spoon the glaze over the top. 

Decorate with more blueberries, if desired. (Hint: more blueberries are always desired, especially this month.)

Enjoy! Freshly baked, I packed up this li'l cake and took it to the beach with my husband, sister, mom, and two teenage nieces. Thumbs up, all 'round. So, I'd like to add that it travels well. 

As mentioned above, it’s National Blueberry Month so my fellow Bundt Baker friends are sharing recipes with those little orbs of fruity sweetness. Or sweet fruitiness. Your call. Many thanks to our host, Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm. Check out the links below. 

• Patyco Candybar: Blueberry Bundt Cake with Warm Orange Frosting
• Palatable Pastime: Blueberry Coffee Cake 
• Sneha's Recipe: Lemon Blueberry Muffin Bundt
• A Day in the Life on the Farm: Lemony Bundt with Blueberry Jam Filling
• Food Lust People Love: Peach Blueberry Pound Cake

#BundtBakers is a group of Bundt loving bakers who get together once a month to bake Bundts with a common ingredient or theme. You can see all of our lovely Bundts by following our Pinterest board. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient. Updated links for all of our past events and more information about BundtBakers, can be found on our home page.

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Spicy Honey Baked Steelhead Trout

This spicy honey baked steelhead trout is topped with mustard, chili garlic sauce, sesame oil and, of course, honey, before baking in foil for a delightful, easy dish everyone will love, especially the clean up crew. 

Occasionally I have a specific recipe in mind when I go to the grocery store but most often, I just let what is fresh and/or a good deal determine what goes in the shopping cart. 

In the case of this dish, I was actually hoping for decent salmon but the specimens on display were sad and old looking. Fortunately, the steelhead trout was not only bright and fresh looking; it was also a better price!

The flavors of the toppings complement the tender fish so nicely and since we are baking in foil, clean up could not be easier. I removed the fillets from the foil for photos but feel free to serve these just as they bake, allowing each person to carefully open a foil packet. Let the steam out first, then enjoy!

Spicy Honey Baked Steelhead Trout

Use farmed salmon or steelhead trout, whichever is available to you. You can also use wild salmon but keep in mind that it’s a much leaner fish and so it is easily overcooked. Adjust the baking time down accordingly. This recipe is easily scaled up or down to feed one or a crowd. 

Ingredients 

Steelhead trout fillets (each about 6 oz or 170g)

fine sea salt

freshly ground black pepper

For each foil packet:

1/2 teaspoon whole grain Dijon mustard

1/2 teaspoon chili garlic sauce or sambal

1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar

1/2 teaspoon sesame oil

1 1/2 teaspoons honey

Optional to garnish: 

chopped parsley

Method

Preheat your oven to 400°F or 200°C and cut large rectangles of foil for each fillet.

Rinse the fillets with water and pat dry with paper towels. Transfer each fillet to a sheet of the foil. Season lightly with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Spread the fillets with the whole grain mustard and the chili garlic sauce or sambal. Drizzle them each with the honey, vinegar and sesame oil. 

Crimp and fold the foil lightly around the fillets and place the packets on a baking pan.  

Bake in the oven for about 15-20 minutes (depending on the thickness of your fish). The internal temperature of cooked fish is ideally 145°F or 62.8°C.

Carefully open the foil packets so you don’t get burnt by the steam.

Garnish with parsley and serve immediately hot or cool the fillets and serve at room temperature. 

This lovely fish goes well with just about any vegetable or starch but we love it with green salad, dressed lightly with a complementary vinaigrette made with whole grain mustard, cider vinegar and a bit of honey. 

Enjoy! 

It’s time for my Fish Friday Foodie friends to share seafood recipes. This month our theme is “seafood foil packets.” Many thanks to our host Sue of Palatable Pastime. Check out all the links below.

• Palatable Pastime: Grilled Shrimp Boil (in foil packets)
• Food Lust People Love: Spicy Honey Baked Steelhead Trout
• A Day in the Life on the Farm: Alaskan Rockfish Packages
• Sneha’s Recipe: Air Fryer Parceled Fish With Green Tahini Chutney
• Karen's Kitchen Stories: Fish Foil Packets with Cod, Chipotles, Black Beans, and Corn

Would you like to join Fish Friday Foodies? We post and share new seafood/fish recipes on the third Friday of the month. To join our group please email Wendy at wendyklik1517 (at) gmail.com. Visit our Facebook page and Pinterest page for more wonderful fish and seafood recipe ideas.

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Banana Split Quick Bread #BreadBakers

This banana split quick bread is baked with all the things you love about that special dessert, save the ice cream. Serve it with a scoop, if desired but it’s wonderful treat all on its own. 

For this month’s Bread Bakers I’m the host so I decided to take ever-popular banana bread and ask my fellow bakers to put their own spin on it. I didn’t have a recipe in mind myself and then suddenly, the deadline to bake was upon me. 

Inspiration struck at my local grocery store where some clever person had put together the ingredients (sans ice cream since it wasn’t in the freezer section) for banana splits in the hope that shoppers would take the hint. 

Crushed pineapple, maraschino cherries, chocolate sauce, pecans and, of course, bananas. Like most independent ideas I seem to have, I discovered that this one has been done before. Deep sigh. 

Banana Split Quick Bread

This recipe is adapted from one on Taste of Home. Among other changes, and since it’s cherry season, I used fresh ones instead of maraschino cherries. If you like them, feel free to use them. They do make a brighter show when the bread is sliced. 

Ingredients

1/3 cup or 75g butter

2/3 cup or 132g sugar

2 large eggs

1 3/4 cups or 218g all-purpose flour

1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup or 185g mashed ripe bananas (about 1 1/2 medium)

1 can (8 oz or 227g) crushed pineapple, drained

1/2 cup or 90g semisweet chocolate chips

3 1/2 oz or 100g fresh cherries (weight after stemming and pitting – about 1/2 cup chopped)

1/2 cup or 60g chopped pecans

Method

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and line a loaf pan with baking parchment. 

Chop the cherries with a sharp knife.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the first egg and beat until incorporated.

Add the second egg and beat well. 

Beat in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, bananas and pineapple. 

Fold in the chocolate chips, cherries and pecans.

Spoon your thick batter into the prepared loaf pan and smooth out the top. 

Bake at for 60-65 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, rotating the pan about three-quarters of the way through. If the top is brown before it’s cooked in the middle, cover the loaf lightly with some foil. 

Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan to wire rack.

If you can resist, leave to cool completely before cutting. 

I just couldn’t wait and so the bread knife kind of smeared the warm chocolate bits on the cut slices. No matter, still tasted delicious! 

 

Enjoy!

Do you like banana bread? If so, this is your month for Bread Bakers! Check out all the creative recipes below. 

• Air Fryer Banana Blueberry Oats Muffins from Cook with Renu
• Banana Cinnamon Rolls from Passion Kneaded
• Banana Split Quick Bread from Food Lust People Love
• Coconut Flour Banana Bread - Gluten & Sugar Free from Sneha’s Recipe
• Simply Banana Bread from A Messy Kitchen
• Sugar Free Sourdough Banana Bread with Pecans from Zesty South Indian Kitchen
• Tangzhong Banana Buns from Magical Ingredients
• Triple Berry Banana Bread from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Yeasted Banana Sandwich Bread from Karen’s Kitchen Stories

#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

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Pilpelchuma - Libyan Chili Paste

Spicy, garlicky pilpelchuma may be my new favorite condiment. From the Libyan Jewish tradition, it’s made with dried peppers, Aleppo pepper flakes and plenty of fresh garlic. 

Despite living right next door to Libya in Egypt, I must confess that I knew very little about its cuisine so when our Sunday FunDay host chose Libyan food as our theme this week, I had to resort to googling. 

I discovered that there is a lot of overlap in dishes from both countries, for example, hummus, shakshouka and couscous. Like Egyptians, Libyans are also fond of lamb, mutton and harissa. 

Discovering that pasta dishes were popular during my search also took me down the rabbit hole of Libyan history where I found out that Libya was an Italian colony for almost three decades starting in 1911, until the British took control during World War II. During that war the country was the center of various battles and control shifted between the allies and the axis forces several times, making it a very dangerous place for the local Jewish population. 

Jewish Libyans were persecuted, forced into labor, sent to concentration camps and killed outright. Those who could afford to emigrated. According to Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, the Jewish population fell from 25 percent to now zero in current day Libya. 

Pilpelchuma, also called filfel chuma or maseer, is a recipe from the Jewish Libyan diaspora, those who survived the war and managed to make a life elsewhere, so I decided to make this spicy paste for my post. 

Pilpelchuma  - Libyan Chili Paste

This recipe is adapted from one on Lin’s Food but a simple search turns up myriad renditions. They all seem to have dried peppers, garlic and caraway though. You'll need a small processor and a way to grind the spices into a powder but this delicious paste is really easy to make.

Ingredients - makes 1 cup or 240ml 

15 dried red chili peppers, any sort 

1 1/2 teaspoons whole caraway seeds

1 1/2  teaspoons whole cumin seeds

15 medium-sized garlic cloves

1/3 cup or 80ml olive oil plus extra for covering before storage

1 tablespoon Aleppo pepper flakes or sub regular paprika (not smoked)

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1/2  teaspoon salt

1/2  teaspoon white sugar

Method

Cut the dried chili peppers into 2-3 pieces and put them into a small heat resistant bowl. Cover them with boiling water then cover the bowl with a saucer and leave to soak for at least 30 minutes. I got distracted by another project and mine soaked for a couple of hours. 

Toast the cumin and caraway seeds in a dry pan over a low flame. Shake the pan occasionally so they don’t burn and remove them from the stove as soon as they look a little darker and smell fragrant. 

Leave the seeds to cool for a few minutes then grind them to a fine powder in a clean coffee grinder or with a mortar and pestle. 

Use tongs to remove the soaked chili peppers from the water, leaving any seeds that fall out behind. Put them in your food processor. Peel and trim the hard ends off the cloves of garlic. 

Put the garlic in the food processor with the chili peppers and half of the olive oil. 

Process for one minute, scraping down the bowl of the processor occasionally. 

Now add in the rest of the oil, the pepper flakes (or paprika), the ground spices, lemon juice, salt and sugar.

Process till smooth. 

Store in a sterilized jar, topped with a little more olive oil, in the refrigerator. Replace the oil each time you use a little of the pipelchuma so it stays fresh. This will last a couple of weeks in the refrigerator.

Ideas to use pipelchuma: 

1. Toss with roast potatoes
2. Add a dollop to hummus, scrambled eggs or pasta
3. Thin with a little more oil and lemon juice for a spicy salad dressing
4. Stir through yogurt or sour cream to make dip or a topping for cooked fish
5. Marinate chicken, beef or lamb before grilling
6.  Stir through cooked greens, like collards, spinach or Brussels sprouts

Enjoy! 

One of the reasons I like to take part in group posts with a theme is the opportunity they often present to learn something new so many thanks to our host, Amy of Amy’s Cooking Adventures! Check out all of the Libyan recipes below. I'm looking forward to trying a few!

• Bureek Tajin from A Day in the LIfe on the Farm
• Ejja - Libyan Frittata from Mayuri’s Jikoni
• Libyan Harissa Paste from Cook with Renu
• Libyan Lamb Stew with White Beans and Spinach from Karen’s Kitchen Stories
• Macroona Imbakbaka (Libyan Minestrone) from Amy’s Cooking Adventures
• Maghreb Chicken and Vegetable Stew from Palatable Pastime
• Mbakbaka (Spicy Libyan Pasta) from Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Pilpelchuma - Libyan Chili Paste from Food Lust People Love
• Sharba Libiya - Libyan Mint and Lamb Soup from Pandemonium Noshery
• Tajin Sfinari bil Zaytun/ Libyan Lamb Casserole with Carrots and Green Olives from Sneha’s Recipe

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

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