Cajun + Cowboy = An Awesome Feast!

We had such a nice time with friends and family all this weekend. One of my favorite times was Saturday night, when we hosted a cajun-meets-western feast. My brother in law is a true cajun, from Louisiana, who cooks wonderfully. So I figured while he was in town, I would make the most of his expertise - lol. It was a fun night.

We had several "creative construction" projects to complete along the way. First, we had too many people for my big table, so we borrowed a table from next door. Problem is that the table wouldn't fit through the door without taking it apart. This table has a stone tile top and must weigh more than 50 pounds. So project number one was to reassemble the table. Notice my daughter lazily watching from the chair as her friends help assemble the table...

Next was the problem that I don't have a steamer. I do have a metal collander thought, so I thought that might work. Problem was that it was just narrow enough that it wouldn't sit in the cooking pot without slipping in when it was bumped. My brother in law tried butter knives through the handle of the pots, but they weren't working, so we brought out some wire. The wire was too wimpy though, and kept breaking every time we twisted it. We messed with it a long time before it would stay, but eventually it worked out. It took quite awhile to steam the shrimp, so we eventually just dumped them in and boiled them so they would be ready along with the steaks.

Can't you just smell the shrimp cooking? Aah, I could do this again real soon...

We must have had over 5 pounds of shrimp - I didn't weigh it, but it was a gallon ziplock bag stuffed full. And they were the good, fresh kind.



Aah yes, then there was the grill full of ribeyes and corn on the cob (true cowboy food!). There was so much meat that the grill was completely covered.

Dig in! Nobody was shy when it was time to jump in line. YUM!

We had ribeye steak, steamed and boiled cajun seasoned shrimp, corn on the cob, garlic bread, and for dessert, chocolate peanut butter oatmeal bars. Somehow I didn't get a picture of the dessert, but it's basically an oatmeal brown sugar crust baked to be a solid crust, with a blend of peanut butter and chocolate slathered on top.
It was a ton of fun.