Home At Last! with Patty Gironda

  Finally, I was able to get some soft shell crabs! They ended up the feature on Home At Last! this week! For the show I made a Soft Shell Crab Po-boy and delivered it to a friend who was craving a taste of New Orleans. I paid attention to every detail and complimented the crab with an easy remolade sauce. The bread was my own and we were estactic with the flavor and texture provided with a new Italian flour. Here's my easy recipe for Remoulade Sauce. 1 cup of mayonnaise (or 1/2 cup mayo and 1/2 cup English Salad Cream) 1 1/2 tbsp creole mustard 1 1/2 tbsp bread and butter pickles (chopped fine) 1 clove of finely chopped garlic 1 tsp creole seasoning 1/2 tsp of fresh cracked pepper 1 tsp of Louisiana Hot Sauce 1/2 tbsp of Worchestirshire Sauce 1 tsp olive oil 1/2 tbsp chopped green onion

  I am on a roll with my pasta! Craving seafood I sent out for 2 pounds of succulent King Crab and turned every bit of the crab into stuffing and sauce. I boiled down the shells for stock and made a delicate lobster-type sauce with a little tomato and sherry. The pasta was as sheer as a dainty hankerchief and was perfectly tender, again. My big push, this week, is to make the perfect loaf of Italian bread for po-boys. A friend wants to learn how to make gumbo and po-boys. While it's easy to find all the ingredients for gumbo-it's a bit of a challenge to find just the right New Orleans-style Italian loaf for po-boys. Larry has requested an Oyster Po-Boy (one of my favorites) and for good measure we will make a Soft-Shell Crab Po-boy with lots of Louisiana Hot Sauce. Ron asked that he act as my guinnea pig tonight on the bread experiment and asked that his po-boy be dressed as a BLT. I started to ask him to stop by the store for green tomatoes to put the sandwich over the top...

  I know the rest of you probably have photos of your kids, pets and favorite art pieces on your refrigerators but my custom-made magnets are holding reminders of seasonal foods. For instance, our visit Saturday night to the Little Hawaiian Restaurant reminded me that the vidalias are beginning to trickle in to area stores. Ron has requested my Roasted Stuffed Vidalia ( recipe on my website) and plans have been made to include a favorite hamburger of my father's from his teen years in Lynchburg, Virginia. Topped with a fried egg and a chow-chow type of secret dressing I have created a close replication made from cabbage and vidalia onions. I have roughly five months to buy up and create the dressing before the sweet onions disappear for winter. I also took note at the farmer's market this week of seasonal seafood. In a few more days we should start seeing some fresh soft shell crabs-one of my all time favorite foods. I adore Soft-shell Crab Po-Boys and Louisiana Hot Sauce....