Creole Cooking in the Crescent City

This last week, my husband and I joined Jess and her boyfriend in one of our very favorite cities...New Orleans!

Jess will be spending another couple of leisurely days in the Big Easy, but when she gets back she'll be posting about all our travel adventures. In the meantime, I thought I'd share with you some of the more adventurous foods we sampled during our stay in this exciting and vibrant city.

My husband and I are always ready to try the local favorites when we travel. This plate of raw oysters, peel-and-eat shrimp, and boiled crawfish came highly recommended, and for good reason! Our waiter taught us how to pull out the tail meat and suck the spicy juices from the crawfish shell. We washed everything down with the house special--a Cajun bloody mary, garnished with pickled green beans!

We indulged in all the exquisite Creole dishes that have made New Orleans famous for its culinary traditions: jambalaya, red beans and rice, gumbo, shrimp etouffee, and muffalettas. 

But it was a lot of fun to try the more exotic foods too--like these fried alligator bites!

Of course, we couldn't pass up the sweeter treats...bananas foster, pecan pie, bread pudding, and these delightfully crispy, chewy, powdered sugary beignets from Cafe du Monde.

From the sweet, to the savory, to the spicy, the Crescent City is simply bursting with flavor! I'll be breaking out the gumbo pot tonight for dinner--how about you?

~Nel~