I am glad to be back on the blog today.  I took a few days off and somehow just got focused on living life and a week passed me by.  I have been cooking up a storm, just doing it off the blog I guess.  Good thing is that I have quite a few recipes that I have tried out that were definite wins.  I figured I would share with ya’ll a few pics to show what we have been up to over the last week.  They say time flies when you are having fun and if that is indeed the case then we have been blowing up the fun cause a week and a few days went by like a flash. We went to Arkansas for the opening weekend of turkey season and to celebrate Easter with my in laws at Bayou LaGrue.  We took the kids on a staycation at Margaritaville, we swam, we danced, we laughed, we giggled, we took silly pictures, the kids fought, I fussed, there was laughter, tears, and all in between.  We lived life.  I just happen to take pictures of our day to day life.  I am a firm believer in photographing the day to day things the kids do or that our family does.  Those are the things we tend to forget as time goes by.  So I capture it all.  When I look back on their lives, our lives, so far, it is not the big moments that I struggle to remember.  Birthdays, first days of school, their births, I see those clearly in my mind’s eye.  The ones that I pull closer though are the ones that happened every day.  Nursing them, holding them, rocking them, the giggles, their bonding moments as siblings, our time around the dinner table, and trips to the grocery store. Those are the most precious ones to me.  So now, I make sure to photograph those too.  It is easy to get swept up in the big stuff, isn’t it?  I find that to be true with food blogging too.  I get so caught up in trying new recipes, recipes that will grab attention, that I forget to include the stand bys.  The old favorites.  The recipes that comfort us and will be talked about in years to come.  The ones my babies will make for their babies and talk about their memories associated with that recipe.  New recipes, big moments have their place.  Life would be terribly mundane without them.  But the quiet memories, the day to day drudgery, caught on camera, looks quite remarkable when caught in the right light.  When put in perspective.   Same thing goes for recipes.

For example, back in grad school a classmate from South Louisiana, Delcambre to be exact, made this absolutely delicious Mexican cornbread that crawfish can be added to for a grad school function we had.  I made it several times with the crawfish, we loved it, and filed away the recipe.  I always thought of it and thought “I need to make that” but got sidetracked, you know, with getting married, having kids, and well…LIFE.   Amazing how time can pass by in a such a flash and I have not made that awesome cornbread in over 12 years!!!  Now, with Pinterest and a new recipe to try every day if you choose, it is so easy to forget the favorites.  I ran across a recipe for crawfish cornbread the other day on Pinterest and  said I bet it is the same as Nicole’s recipe.  I will just make this one.  Cue the buzzer noise.   Bomp!!!   I was wrong.  So wrong.  There was nothing wrong with that crawfish cornbread, but it was so not as good as that one given to me by my friend.   The cornbread was made from scratch and it was just so…mealy.  Nicole’s version was made with Jiffy corn muffin mix and for any Cajun anywhere, that is like coming home.  Those little blue boxes are like beacons of light in a grocery store.  If I know nothing else, I know that little blue box.  Sometimes, I get so caught up in the new, the “special”, that I lose sight of what is really special.  So today, I will offer ya’ll a recipe that I have had tucked away for years.  It is special.  And you will enjoy it.  Any flashy recipe on Pinterest cannot touch this recipe.  Just like any of these pictures that follow, the ordinary becomes extraordinary when put in the right perspective.  Make one of your mundane weeknights this week a little something special and make this cornbread.  And celebrate the ordinary.  That is where the good stuff is, ya’ll. ~AMB

Nicole’s Mexican Crawfish Cornbread

Stuff you need~

3 boxes Jiffy corn muffin mix (as if there is another brand)

1 1/2 cups whole milk

1/2 cup of canola or vegetable oil

3 teaspoons sugar

2 teaspoons Mexi-Cajun seasoning

3 eggs, beaten

1 (11 ounce) can mexi corn or whole kernel corn with peppers, drained

1 small onion, finely diced

1 pound Mexican Velveeta, cubed

1 pound crawfish tails, roughly chopped

2 Tablespoons diced jalapenos, or *1 small fresh jalapeno diced, optional  (*seeds removed, unless you are a glutton for punishment)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Prepare a 9 x 13 dish by spraying with cooking spray.

In a medium mixing bowl, mix together 3 boxes of corn muffin mix, oil, milk, sugar and beaten eggs together until just combined.  Stir in  the chopped crawfish tails, onion, jalapenos if you are adding them, and velveeta. Pour into a 9 x 13 dish and bake for 35-40 minutes or until browned and completely done in the middle.  Serve with a lovely green salad or potato salad (or both!)  and you have got yourself a meal.   And a damn good one at that!!!

 

This is a picture of the flashy Pinterest recipe cornbread…close but no cigar.  Flashy and fancy is not always better.  Lesson of life.  

A friend from Alex. actually came up with this awesome seasoning.  It goes perfectly in so many recipes.  If you are not in Alex., you can buy it online…http://mexicajun.myshopify.com/

Ready for action at sunrise on Sunday morning.  

Its just a barn kitten, but to a 5 year (and his mama) that kitten is extra sweet

Cloudy day conversations between Toot and Toby (such a moment could easily go unnoticed.  I am glad it did not.)

I look over and they were wrapped up in the towel.  Sweet sisters.

No words necessary.  

10 year old practicing his violin.  I find this extraordinary.

Big Daddy and I had a date morning on the boat.  The view was fab.

My good friend Laird had her 3rd baby…women give birth everyday  and yet newborn life and the process of birthing little humans is so out of this world fantastically extraordinary.

Left the kiddos with Granny and Papa and took a little ride on the side by side.  For parents with young kids…this is something special.

Just another ordinary day in Arkansas.  

Just a picture of a man headed to work to anyone else, but in the eyes of his family…he is a hero in a tie.  Ordinary.  But not.  

To a passer by this is just a family walking down the boardwalk, but to me that’s my life.  Extraordinary.