French Quarter Beignets

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Beignets

New Orleans seems to be very en vogue this season. Within one month's time roughly 8 people I know will be traveling there to partake in a variety of festivities. From bachelorette parties to drunken hairdresser conventions, The Big Easy will be getting a solid taste of North Carolinians this month.  

I blame Sara. 

Sara moved to Winston Salem just over a year ago. We met the usual way. Through our mutual leasing agent. 

When asked, "where did you move from?", her response is always a resounding "I'm from New Orleans baby!"

Split between the Metairie neighborhood and NOLA you will never meet a more die hard fan of a city. At any given point I would bet money that Sara has beads and/or a Mardi Gras mask in her handbag. Just in case.

She is a walking encyclopedia of information about her home town. She is the dad from My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Able to linguistically trace all words back to New Orleans. 

She can give you a heartfelt and eye opening first hand account of living with hurricanes that leave nothing behind. She will passionately speak of hometown food as if it were a first born child (that is when I knew we could be friends). And if you are ever so lucky to be next to her at a bar, there is the inevitable moment when just enough wine takes her accent to 11 and you have ask her to repeat herself. 

And with that, for Sara's birthday this year I attempted to make the New Orleans classic, beignets. After a few hours of scouring the dark net for a bootleg copy of the Cafe Du Monde recipe I had to settle on what I felt was the next best thing. Paula Deen. I know, I know. I really didn't want to. But it really was a good recipe.

So with my deep fryer revved up and rolling pin greased I got to making my first ever beignets. Super easy. Super tasty. And though I know many cultures have their own version of this wonderful sweet fried dough. I will only credit New Orleans for giving this to the human race.   

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French Quarter Beignets

RECIPE FROM PAULA DEEN/FOOD NETWORK

INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 cups lukewarm water

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 envelope active dry yeast

2 eggs, slightly beaten

1 1/4 teaspoons salt

1 cup evaporated milk

7 cups bread flour

1/4 cup shortening

Nonstick spray

Oil, for deep-frying

3 cups confectioners' sugar

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Mix water, sugar, and yeast in a large bowl and let sit for 10 minutes.

2. In another bowl, beat the eggs, salt and evaporated milk together. Mix egg mixture to the yeast mixture. In a separate bowl, measure out the bread flour. Add 3 cups of the flour to the yeast mixture and stir to combine. Add the shortening and continue to stir while adding the remaining flour. Remove dough from the bowl, place onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth. Spray a large bowl with nonstick spray. Put dough into the bowl and cover with plastic wrap or a towel. Let rise in a warm place for at least 2 hours.

3. Preheat oil in a deep-fryer to 350 degrees F.

4. Add the confectioners' sugar to a paper or plastic bag and set aside.

5. Roll the dough out to about 1/4-inch thickness and cut into 1-inch squares. Deep-fry, flipping constantly, until they become a golden color. After beignets are fried, drain them for a few seconds on paper towels, and then toss them into the bag of confectioners' sugar. Hold bag closed and shake to coat evenly.

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FOR MORE ON MY AWKWARD FRIEND MAKING SKILLS CLICK BELOW!

FORCED FAMILY, FORCED FUN, AND FORCED FED or JUST ANOTHER ROSH HASHANAH

SUPER BOWL PARTIES, SHAPED CHEESES, AND MIDDLE SCHOOL GYM NIGHTMARES

GOLDEN GIRLS, (OPRAH'S) GRATITUDE MOMENTS, AND GETTIN' OLD

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(John) Candy, Cake and The Cinema 8

brynn turned one this week - i used to babysit her mother

What do you do when you have left over cake tops, brownies from your sister's wedding and a couple pounds of frosting that needs to be used? You make a Rachel Green Trifle Cake! Lemons to lemonade beeyotches! She may not have made the trifle like Monica would have but she did it with love.

This past Sunday iMatt and PetDoc invited myself and SAGL over for a Turkey Taco Sunday and a viewing of the John Candy dramatic masterpiece The Great Outdoors. Not one to come empty handed (and in desperate need of a cake fix but not wanting to put any effort into baking one), I did some digging in the freezer.Thankfully there were 10 cherry brownies, dark chocolate cake crumbs and the tops of two french vanilla cakes. So with a little patience (I had about 5 mins of ADD in me before I just tossed it in the garbage) I built a Frankenstein of a cake. I had left over buttercream and chocolate frosting from making a one year old's birthday cake a few days earlier and plastered that on the inside for some glue and then all around to make it "pretty". 

brownie bottom, chocolate fudge, french vanilla cake, pink buttercream, brownie/dark chocolate cake top, wrapped in love (aka chocolate frosting)

I'm not saying it was my best cake. But for being constructed with leftovers...it was pretty damn okay. It covered all grounds. Sweet, sugary, and 'betis inducing.

And because I love you here is the trailer to The Great Outdoors. Which I'm sure you're excited to know I saw on an unexpected double feature trip to the Cinema 8 movie theatre in Duluth with my father. The second film we saw that day was Coming To America. I'm sure it was the best 1988 $16.00 ever spent on father/son time.

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