Thursday... Crawfish Bisque Soup

Very warm day today..... a little drippy and humid, but the sun was out for a while. I finally got to the supermarket for a more or less normal shopping trip. No matter how 'normal' it is, I still don't enjoy food shopping. When I see women there taking their time going up and down the aisles with a cell phone in one hand while reading labels and comparing this to that and munching on free samples, I could just scream "Don't you have anything better to do?" But of course I don't...... I just ignore them and try to get out of that store as quickly as I can.

I packed away the rest of the Christmas decorations today... everything is out of sight now. While packing away the tree ornaments, I put all the heart-shaped ones into a shoebox. I intend to use them for Valentine's Day.... maybe get some birch branches or something that I can stick into a pretty vase, then hang the heart ornaments on the branches.... it would make a nice centerpiece for our Valentine's Night Charades party.

Dinner tonight was crawfish bisque soup. Made by me... trying to copy a local restaurant's crawfish soup. Their bisque is spicier and richer... mine is almost as good, and healthier. I'm sure they use more butter, heavy cream and sherry in their recipe, but I don't.

I start with about a quarter of an onion, diced up and browned with a crushed glove of garlic. Then I add about 3 to 4 tablespoons of butter... let that melt... add 3 to 4 tblsp. of flour..... let that cook a bit. I added about 2 to 2 1/2 cups of low-fat milk..... let it simmer and thicken up a little.

Into that mixture, I added two cans of 'Healthy Request' (low salt) Campbell's Tomato Soup... don't add water, just the soup. Mix it into the milk... then spice it up with black pepper, Old Bay seasoning, and about 1/4 cup picante sauce. Keep it all simmering... it will thicken up a little with the flour that you added.

Then the crawfish..... I buy them boiled and frozen.... I think the package is about 2 pounds. I'd image that you could use crabmeat or shrimp for this, or lobster meat.... seafood restaurants here offer all sorts of tomato-based shellfish bisques on their menu. I defrost the crawfish, drain them a bit to remove excess water, then into the soup they go. The crawfish are already cooked and peeled, so they just need about 10 minutes simmering.

I thought the bisque had enough 'kick' to it, but my husband added more Old Bay to his bowl. He pronounced it perfect when his lips got numb. Considering that this wasn't exactly a soup day, with the temperature close to 80 degrees, it still made a nice dinner. And the whole project, start to finish, takes about half an hour. (My kind of cooking.)

Tomorrow is New Year's Eve..... we're looking forward to a nice long and leisurely dinner at our favorite restaurant with a few of our friends.
My baby cat (ShadowBaby) just jumped up into my lap. He's trying to curl up on my legs and hide his face underneath my arm. His way of telling me that I'm finished typing for the night.