Today I am joining my friend, Suzy at Kitchen Bouquet, in celebrating Mardi Gras Day. Visit her blog at the link above and see the others participating in having a virtual party with her. Suzy is a Louisana native now living in the Pacific NW and at this time of she year misses all the celebrations and food in her family traditions. Last year at this time, she taught us about King Cakes. A coffee cake decorated in the Madri Gras colors with a baby hidden inside. I actually cheated a little and used frozen cinnamon roll dough to create my cake.
When I found out the meaning of the plastic baby is that whoever finds it has to bring the next king cake, I opted to give the baby a little red cardinal, hoping that maybe a pair of cardinals will find my garden and make a home this spring which would be better than another king cake. You knew I'd have to fit a bird in here somewhere ;-)
I decided to make a spare cake using frozen sweet dough in case one of them didn't turn out. This one has the more traditional king cake shape with a few more birds added for luck.
Now you may be wondering what's a MN country girl doing with all those Mardi Gras beads...
Last spring they were flying through the air at us...
as we watched a family friendly Mardi Gras parade at Universal Studios in Orlando. I brought the ones I caught home for Alexis to play with.
As everyone in the park was celebrating Mardi Gras, we saw that the beads come in all sizes!
In honor of Suzy's regional foods, I decided to make some southern main dishes to celebrate Mardi Gras as well.
A quick google search for Mardi Gras recipes led me to a couple light dishes from Epicurious. Click the links for the recipes.
Spicy Seared Shrimp on Mardi Gras Rice is a healthy take on traditional dishes of Madri Gras. I loved it, J needed lots of milk to eat the shrimp.
The second dish is N'awlins Butter Beans with Andouille Sausage (soul food that is supposed to be good for your heart). I made this dish early in order to take a photo in the daylight, we won't be tasting it until tonight's meal. It does smell like nothing I've made in this kitchen before but then I've never had andouille sausage before either.
A northern girl celebrating southern...it's a good thing! Thank you, Suzy, for hosting this fun virtual event.
11 comments:
Well you did it up grand...I would need the milk too! The shrimp look delicious, and I hope your Cardinal wish comes true!! I hope if someone swallows the baby with they bird, they don't cough up feathers! :)
Great coming to your house for the party! Suzy is a great hostess!
Yummmmy ~~ I'm drooling! What a festive array of goodies!!!
Marsha, you went all out... and look at you with all those beads! Both dishes look really good and woo hoo, TWO King cakes! They both look good. I think it's a great idea to use the cinnamon rolls. The baby and birds...cute! Great post and fun party!
Mardi Gras looks like a ball..I love the baby in the cake:)Going to see Joseph now:)
Fantastic post post, Marsha! I love the purple dishes! So festive! and how funny, yes, you got the birds in, too ;) Love the cinnamon rolls, they look delicious!
What a wonderful post, Marsha! You really made the King Cake your own with the baby holding a cardinal :) Kathleen's comment cracked me up!
The shrimp dish with Mardi Gras rice looks fantastic too.
How did you like the andouille sausage? It's pretty spicy as I recall.
Wow Marsha you did quite the spread!!! I love the cinnamon roll idea. I actually think that's a lot prettier than a traditionally shaped one. Very very pretty and your baby is precious. I'm glad you were able to weave some birds in and I hope those cardinals find you! That must have been fun being at Universal Studios on Mardi Gras. Those are some monster beads!
I love your shrimp dish, but the one that steals my heart are the butter beans. They are probably one of my favorite legumes and my grandmother used to grow some every summer. She knew I liked them :-)
Your table is so pretty. We all need purple plates!!!
Thanks so much for coming to the party Marsha. Great post!
Marsha, what a fun post ... You really did a great job of celebrating Mardi Gras And yes, I did wonder what a lady from MN was doing with the beads.
I love your take on the King's Cake and chuckled about the baby with the cardinal.
Did you like the andouille sausage?
The shrimp recipe sounds delicious and is very pretty on the purple plates. (Thanks for the recipe link, it sounds like a keeper.)
Thank you everyone for the nice comments. The butter beans and andouille dish was good. I was pleasantly surprised because it definitely left a scent as it was cooking ;-) The sausage was spicy but the butter beans, tomatoes and carrots were a good mix with the spicy hot meat. Back to the birds tomorrow.
Marsha - wonderful post! Cracked up when I saw the cardinal with the baby...so sweet!
The shrimp look especially good, I've tried andouille before and I didn't think it was as spicy as I was led to believe it to be!
Purple Plates huh...Mardi Gras thing or VIKINGS !!! lol
How fun Marsha! Yesterday in the cafeteria at work they had grilled chunks of Andouille sausage with chicken, green and red sweet peppers and onions on skewers served over rice. It was sooooo yummy! Your dishes look even more delicious!
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