Big Billy's Crawfish Quesadillas

Big Billy was a Texan, transplanted from Arkansas by way of Oklahoma. He had a big booming voice that somehow overwhelmed even his six foot four, four hundred pound body. Big Billy wasn’t ashamed of his weight and he had a razor tongue that could lacerate most mere mortals in seconds, if they ever dared not treat him like the super intelligent person that he was. Kathy was Big Billy’s better half. More intelligent than even Big Billy, she was the keel that kept his boat positioned on the straight-and-narrow.

Once, at a Superbowl party in Oklahoma City, Kathy fell in love with an abandoned blond cocker spaniel with the regal name of Stacy’s Blueberry English Muffin. One of the young dog’s elderly owner’s had recently died, the other no longer capable of caring for the pedigreed cocker.

Muffin was on her way to the pound but Kathy begged Big Billy to let her adopt the friendly dog. He agreed, but only after obtaining her promise to “do anything he asked of her” for a month. Hmm! I have no clue what wild and depraved acts Kathy had to ultimately perform, but Muffin turned out to be one of the world’s best dogs, a real princess that even Big Billy eventually bowed down to

Muffin and Big Billy are both gone, but Kathy now lives in Austin along with her new husband Ross and two kitties Lefty and Blacky (named after some crazy country-western song, I think) that she and Big Billy had adopted. Since Kathy is allergic to cats, she built them their own air-conditioned palace behind her house on Lake Travis. Ah, the lives of the very rich!

Anyway, here is one of the many wonderful dishes Big Billy and Kathy used to cook up. It’s a Louisiana/Texas specialty I think you will like.

Big Billy’s Crawfish Quesadillas


Ingredients

• 8 ten-inch flour tortillas
• 1 lb. peeled crawfish tails, lightly rinsed and drained
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 Tbsp. butter
• 1/2 cup green onions, chopped
• 1 cup Monterrey Jack cheese

Directions

Butter a non-stick skillet and sauté onion on medium heat until tender. Add green onions and crawfish and sauté about 10 minutes. Spritz a large skillet with cooking spray and place on medium heat. Place tortilla in skillet and spread with 1/2 cup crawfish and cheese, and top with another tortilla. Cook 1 minute on each side and then cut into 8 wedges. Serve quesadillas as an appetizer along with Texas hot sauce and sour cream.

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Eric Wilder is the author of two mystery series that feature private investigators adept in the paranormal Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBook author pages. Please check out more of Eric's writing on his Website.

Blackened Catfish Burritos - a weekend recipe

Here is a San Francisco-style burrito with a Cajun twist. It has my comfort food guarantee.

BLACKENED CATFISH BURRITOS

Ingredients
• 4 catfish filets
• 8 large flour tortillas, steamed
• rice, cooked
• red beans, cooked
• Cajun spice
• 1 cup butter
• Avocado, chopped
• Tomato, chopped
• Lettuce, shredded
• Tabasco Sauce, to taste

Directions

Heat a cast-iron skillet at least ten minutes, the hotter the better. Dip catfish in butter, coating both sides liberally. Sprinkle Cajun spice evenly on both sides of the fish. Cook quickly over high heat until the underside forms a crust, and then flip the filet, letting it cook and form a crust. This doesn’t take long so be careful not to burn the fillets. Slice each filet down the middle, into eight pieces.

Drain your ingredients. You don’t want a soggy burrito. Build your burrito by adding ingredients to a large flour tortilla in this order: rice, beans, lettuce, avocado, and tomato. Add blackened catfish last, along with Tabasco Sauce to taste, and then roll that puppy up. Wrap the burrito in foil to give it structure. Serve on a festive plate along with chips and salsa on the side. Enjoy.

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Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He is the author of the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans and the Paranormal Cowboy Series. Please check it out on his Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo and iBook author pages. You might also like to check out his website.

Fried Spaghetti -a story and a recipe

My close friend War T. Storm knows a thing or two about cooking. I asked him for a recipe. Even though he was born in the Queens (really some place that starts with an L) and grew up in the Bronx (maybe Coney Island) he is still a very good cook. He doesn’t have many hard copy recipes because he, like Marilyn, prepares his dishes by “feel” and not from a recipe written on a three by five card.

This is an actual recipe that War T. got from his Grandpa Clarence, a man that did immortalize his recipes. I have never heard of, much less tried fried spaghetti but Marilyn tells me that they used to make it at the restaurant where she worked on the pier in California. War T. and Marilyn both tell me it’s wonderful so give it a try.

Fried Spaghetti

My Grandpa Clarence not only taught me his values of hard work and accountability but also a few secrets about southern cooking. He also taught me respect for the grill. As far as he was concerned “if you were not grilling with charcoal you might as well be cooking on the stove.”

There was no such thing as sauce from a can. Bread was always prepared at home and not bought at a store. The kitchen was Grandpa’s kingdom and no one dared to cross the moat when King was in court. Knowing his expertise, the crowds of family and friends never seemed to decrease from his table.

My granddad would quickly kill off potential competition with just a taste of his homemade marinating sauce. In my lifetime I have seen many men hang up their tongs (would-be Iron Chefs) after a night at the Kings court.

Others would leave dazed and confused with dreams of recreating the masterpieces they had observed - masterpieces that for Grandpa was as simple as, dare I say “apple pie.“

Grandpa Clarence was an extraordinary cook, whose famous line when things didn’t go right for you was “you didn’t hold your face right.” Keep that in mind if this turns into a casserole the first time or two that you make it, as the key is to keep it together when you flip it.

I hope you like this recipe. If you do, I’ll share another recipe with you next time along with some great stories about a great man

Equipment
Deep cast iron frying pan
9/13 cake pan or larger
Flat no lip cookie sheet
Large boiling pot

Ingredients
2 pounds of regular spaghetti or vermicelli
2 cups of mozzarella, 2 ½ cups of Monterey jack, 2 cups of Swiss cheese
Salt, ground pepper, Italian seasoning, rosemary, ground red pepper, olive oil, crushed tomatoes, tomato puree, thyme, oregano, fresh garlic, olive oil

Ok, let’s get to it.
Boil spaghetti in water with cut fresh garlic. You want the spaghetti to be slightly undercooked
Rinse and drain under cool water allowing the spaghetti to firm.
Mix in bowl with cheese and seasonings
Heat olive oil in the deep frying pan (aprox ¼ inch)
Once hot place your mixture into the pan and spread evenly
Let stand for about 15-18 minutes undisturbed.
Here is the moment of truth, you have to flip it with out it falling apart to brown the bottom, if not you will have a very good casserole
Flip the half done Fried spaghetti onto the cookie sheet.
Add some more olive oil and slide the Fried spaghetti back into the hot pan
let cook for another 10-12 minutes, until brown and crunchy

Your sauce will be your crushed tomatoes, thyme, oregano and fresh garlic marinating in your tomato puree while you are cooking the fried spaghetti.

Cut a slice, add your sauce and enjoy.

Eric'sWeb

Kansas Dirt Cake - a weekend recipe

Here is a recipe I found on the web. The author (unknown) suggests that you serve it in a flower pot complete with gummy worms and artificial flowers. Sounds gummy, I mean yummy!

KANSAS DIRT CAKE
2 pkgs. vanilla instant pudding
2 ½ cups milk
1 8 oz package of cream cheese
½ stick of butter
¾ cup powdered sugar
12 oz. Cool Whip
1 pkg. Oreo Cookies

Mix the vanilla pudding and milk in a medium size-mixing bowl. Refrigerate until ready to use.Mix cream cheese, butter and powdered sugar together in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the vanilla pudding and mix until thoroughly blended. Add the carton of Cool Whip and mix until blended. Line 9 x 13 in. pan with Oreo cookie crumbs. (I use 2 Oreo crusts and mash the crusts up with a fork. You need one crust for the bottom of the pan and one to put over the pudding mixture.) Pour pudding mixture into the pan and spread the rest of the Oreo crumbs on top. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Gazpacho Shots - a recipe

Even growing up in Louisiana I never knew what the “dog days of summer” really meant. Last week temperatures in Oklahoma exceeded all time records – 110 degrees in some parts of the state. The heat and humidity were deadly, several people in Oklahoma succumbing to the weather. Watching my dogs burrow in the loose dirt beneath the shade of a large oak tree, and then lie almost comatose until long after dark has taught me the meaning of the phrase.

When Anne was alive we often spent time in the summer on Cape Cod with my cousin Angela and her then husband Bob. Bob and Angela had just returned from Spain one summer when we were with them at their vacation home on John’s Pond. The weather was hot, even for the Cape, and Angela whipped up a batch of gazpacho.

The cold soup became an instant favorite of mine, although I am rarely lucky enough to find it here in Oklahoma. While wiping perspiration from my brow during the recent spate of hot weather, I remembered the cool treat and began surfing the web for a recipe. I found this one on a site called the Passionate Cook. They recommended adding a splash of vodka. I would like to see that recommendation and add another splash!

Serve these at your next summer party and I guarantee you’ll have everyone begging for more.

Gazpacho Shots

1 stalk celery
1 red pepper (ca. 300 g)
1 yellow pepper (ca. 300 g)
500 g cucumber (peeled)
6 spring onions
2 cloves garlic (crushed)
150 g tomatoes
2 tbsp thick tomato sauce
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp white balsamic vinegar
generous dash of Tabasco (to taste)
chopped chives (to decorate, optional)

Work all vegetables in a food processor until very finely chopped. Put in a blender with the liquid ingredients and process until completely smooth. Add water or a very light soup stock until reaching the required consistency. Try decorating the shots with chives, or serve with a slice of cucumber as a stirrer.

Yields 18 shots

Louisiana Mystery Writer

Dave's Sausage Balls - a recipe

My wife Anne, like myself, was a boxing fan. When she was alive we often hosted fight parties for many championship boxing events. There was always lots of beer and our friend Ray, immortalized in my story Chicken Fries would always bring brownies.

Dave, my buddy who sold me my first motorcycle would bring his famous sausage balls. Later, when times were tight, just Anne, Dave and I would get together for a fight. One fighter we never missed was Mike Tyson.

Tyson, at the time, was still young and going through opponents like an Oklahoma tornado. When he was scheduled to fight a no-name boxer, Buster Douglas, no one wanted to watch the likely one-round event except the three of us.

I don’t remember much about the evening, or the fight, except that Buster Douglas connected with Tyson’s jaw and knocked him clean out. I also remember Dave’s sausage balls. This week, Dave was kind enough to send me his sausage ball recipe. Here it is and I hope that you enjoy them as much as I did.

ERIC'S WEBSITE