Guest Post: Food Flavor FunMeatless Friday Recipes

Lenten Series: Meatless Friday Recipes
Today we are introducing a new Lenten series – Meatless Friday Recipes to help you keep your Lenten abstinence from meat. We are pleased to announce that Tom Neeb, author of Taste the Flavor Cookbook and owner of Food Flavor Fun and Luxury Palate will be sharing some of his great East Texas roots' recipes. Tom is by profession an Information Technology geek/manager with a large financial services provider. In his spare time and by necessity, he learned to cook. Why? “Because I like to eat! I like food with great flavor… And who does not like to have fun?” Tom is passionate about sharing his love for good food, good friends and good times.  Tom is also a member of our local parish, St. Catherine of Siena, and a regular attendee at Joe Catholic. You can follow Tom's blog and all his great recipe ideas at Food Flavor Fun or on Facebook and Twitter.

Greetings from Tom Neeb
Hi everybody. My name is Tom Neeb and I’m really excited to get the opportunity to share some great meatless recipes with you for your Lenten Friday. A huge THANK YOU to Joe Catholic for allowing me this opportunity.

I’m so glad you’ve found your way here. Welcome! Welcome! Welcome!

This week, I’d like to share a great, easy crock-pot version of Crawfish Etouffee’. The advantage of using the crock pot here is that the base of the etouffee’ get to simmer all day to become just velvety smooth. Not a crawfish fan? Use shrimp instead. I’ve even used lobster. OK, enough talk….Let’s get to the recipe. 

Crock-pot Crawfish Etouffee’

Ingredients:

• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 4 cups chopped onion (about 3 medium onions)
• 2 cups chopped celery
• 2 cups chopped green bell pepper
• 1 bunch green onions, chopped, tops and bottoms reserved separately
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes with juices
• 1 1/2 cups prepared shrimp or seafood stock
• 2 tablespoons Creole seasoning (like Emeril’s BAM)
• 1 tablespoons tomato paste
• ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt, more to taste
• 2 (1 pound) packages of peeled Louisiana Crawfish Tails with any fat
• hot steamed long-grain rice, for serving
• ½ cup chopped parsley, for garnish
• Tabasco hot sauce for serving

Directions:
Melt the butter in a large skillet or dutch-oven over medium-high heat. Whisk in the flour and cook, stirring constantly and scraping all parts of the bottom of the pot, until a peanut-butter colored roux is formed, about 8 to 10 minutes. Immediately add the onion, celery, bell pepper and green onion bottoms (white part) and cook stirring frequently until the vegetables are softened, about 6 minutes. Add the garlic and bay leaf and cook for 1 to 2 minutes more. Then stir in the tomatoes and their juices, stock, creole seasoning, tomato paste, cayenne pepper and 2 teaspoons salt. Once the mixture comes to a boil, remove and transfer to a 6-quart crock pot or slow cooker.

Cook on low for 6 hours or on high for 4 hours, until the sauce is velvety smooth and without a trace of flouriness. Thirty minutes before the cooking is complete, add the crawfish and green onion tops.

Taste and adjust the seasoning, if necessary. Serve over steamed long-grain rice, in wide shallow bowls, garnish with parsley. Pass the hot sauce at the table for everyone to set their own level of hot.

Enjoy!