How to Make Johnny Cakes, Fried Heaven on a Plate

Back, by popular demand – here is my world famous (OK, only in my house famous) Johnny Cake recipe! Johnny Cakes are fried heaven on a plate, or a napkin, or just balanced hot on your fingertips, because you couldn’t wait to find either a plate or a napkin before you tore into it. It is one of our MOST traditional island favorites.

There are some foods that are strictly breakfast, lunch, or dinner foods. Johnny Cakes are that rare breed of food that defies those rigid boxes. You can enjoy them any time of day! Quick and easy, they fry up fast and are gone just as quickly! Tooooooo good!

This recipe requires you to bring something a little extra to the kitchen in addition to the ingredients. You will have to walk with an extra little bit of patience and intuition. You’re going to have to let the dough tell you what it needs. Sounds weird but that is what the kitchen does…it gives you opportunities to test your skills through the best teacher of all–trial and error. It took me some time to perfect my Johnny Cake skills, and I only got better with each new try. That’s my wish for us all in the kitchen and in life–TRY!! As they say, you never fail from trying, either you win or you learn!

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Lime in De Coconut Seafood Soup

“I won’t make this soup again!” was what I declared after making this soup. It was a labor of love built from imagination, love, and time. It is based on a thai recipe for Tom Kha Ghai, which is made with chicken. But I wanted to keep the base but add only local seafood. Today is Good Friday so most folks on our Rock are eating only seafood. This would have made a fine addition to any holiday lunch table. I’m sharing a few pics from this decadent concoction. This is just a “Kitchen Rambling.” I wish there were a recipe to share, except I won’t be making it soon enough to reproduce one! I did say it was a LOT of work right?!? But, man, was it FULL of uncompromising flavor!  Read More

Delicious Living Magazine!!!

DLM3

Happiness. It feels like someone stuck a handful of sunshine way down into your spirit and let  the warmth of it build and spread up to find a place on your face called your lips that curl and bend into a deep unchanging smile for hours! That’s just a little bit of how I felt when I saw the FIVE page spread that Delicious Living Magazine gave to Crucian Contessa! Read More

Beef Pate

Beef Pate

Pates (pronounced Pah Tays) were my fast food growing up.  After Hurricane Hugo blew away our high school cafeteria, lunch time was trimmed down and simplified. Some days it was just a Pate either beef or saltfish and an “Island Dairies” juice box either passion fruit, Iced Tea, or guava—Total Cost $2.00!! What I remember about those pates were the crispy crunchy dough with the raised welts and blisters fried into place where the hot oil met and melt the fat in the dough in a puff of steam. Sigh… it was food heaven! I have longed to find the perfect Pate ever since. I usually ran into pates that were too greasy, or too doughy, or too much butter/shortening. None were able to capture the balance of textures for me of those high school pates. Read More

Contessa Tip #14

Frangipani

Well, it is Turkey Season! The winter winds are blowing in cooler on the island, which tells me its time to get ready to “hot up” the kitchen and let the feasting season begin. Turkeys are definitely a part of most Crucian gatherings during this time. But nothing will get you talked about faster than being the person who brought the “dry turkey” to the family party. The year I made my first Thanksgiving Turkey  was filled with much anxiety, as in the past I was one of those voices who whispered about how dry the turkey for Cousin So-and-So was. My heart feared the culinary karma  I thought might come my way.  So, I read every cookbook I could get my hands on, and every article on how to make the PERFECT turkey. And I kept bumping into the word “Brine”. Brining is a way of introducing moisture by using a high ratio of salt and other seasonings to the Turkey. Read More