The Cook & The Coach Blog

Charleston | South Carolina

5/18/2016

I think it's safe to say that Charleston has been our FAVORITE place to visit thus far. We only had 4 days to explore....and that just wasn't enough time! All within a 30 minute radius you have:

- Plantations
- Beaches
- SO much history
- Cobblestone streets
- Parks galore
- Fort Sumter, Fort Moultrie, Fort Johnson
- The OCEAN
- Farmers market
- Amazing restaurants

We were able to meet up with my cousin for dinner the first night in Mount Pleasant and then walk along Sullivan's Beach. It was SO peaceful and this was the first time Eli actually WANTED to go in the ocean! He fell in love with it!

The next day we met up with an "online friend", her husband and their little boy for brunch at Eli's Table. Angela and I met through my sister and through either Facebook or Instagram a few years ago but had never met in person...so this was a lot of fun!! I had a feeling we'd get along great in real life, and we all did. After brunch we walked around Charleston, the Battery, the Pier and then we found an adorable gourmet market and had some delicious beverages to cool off. It was HOT and very humid!

We explored Magnolia Plantation & Gardens one afternoon and had such a great time. Most of these plantations cost a bit of money because you have to pay for general admission and then pay for extra tours of the house, tours of the grounds etc...We paid for a tram tour and a house tour but kind of wish we would have done a tour of the slaves quarters instead. The tram tour was great because we were able to see some alligators, blue herons, see the entire plantation and hear a little history!

My cousin met up with us again and took us to the Charleston Farmers Market. I LOVE farmers markets and this one did not disappoint. SO much goodness!

After the market Dan, Eli and I headed to Kiawah Island to check out the beach. We were going to go to Folly Beach...but it was a Saturday, the forecast was clear skies, 85 and the 9 mile drive was going to take an hour. We opted to drive a little further to Kiawah...we loved it! This was the first time Eli actually went into the ocean with Dan. They jumped into the waves, dug in the sand and we went looking for shells.

After the beach, we were driving right by The Angel Oak Tree and knew we had to stop based on my cousin's recommendation. I'm so glad we did. It's 500+ years old, 66.5 ft tall and spans 178 ft wide. It's thought to be one of the oldest living things in the country!! Pretty magnificent huh??

Capped the trip off with an amazing steak dinner at my cousin's house. We will definitely be going back to Charleston when we have more time and money to go try ALL THE FOOD! Their restaurant/food scene just seemed pretty incredible..just like Savannah!

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Gluten Free Gumbo and New Orleans Food

4/20/2016

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Currently we are in New Orleans. When we travel we like to eat what the locals eat. We avoid chain restaurants and try to find the off the beaten path places to grab some food. A couple places we checked out while we've been here are Blue Line Sandwich Co. We did breakfast here last week and it was really good. Definitely was a local hangout. Cochon was another place we checked out which I believe is in the Uptown area. This place was great, we shared some oysters and their traditional dish and namesake, the Cochon. Both were great!

We also checked out John Besh's restaurant Lüke for breakfast yesterday. A little bit on the spendy side but the food was fantastic. I had the southern breakfast and instead of the grits they gave me some roasted potatoes that were just awesome! Laura had the egg white frittata which was also delicious! We also made a stop at Cafe Du Monde and had some coffee and Laura and Eli had some beignets.

As you can see a big piece of what we like to experience when we travel is FOOD!!! Both of us would rather spend $100 on an awesome dinner, then go to a concert or a show. We don't mind those things but we just love food and experiencing the different preparations and flavors is so fun. This has definitely helped me in the kitchen too. I get to see how dishes are made and assembled. I get to taste different combinations of that I would never have thought of on my own. In the traditional version of gumbo, you make a roux from wheat flour, so I had to modify that a bit and I think it worked pretty well.

My goal with a lot of the food we come across is to find great local ingredients, do a little bit of research on what the base of a dish is, then make it your own! For those of you that follow us on Facebook you might have actually seen me make this entire dish on a Live Broadcast. If you want to watch that you can click HERE, then go the videos section. We've also had a lot of people ask about how they can Live Subscribe and get notified when do our live videos. I finally figured it out! If you click on the image below, it will take you to our page, from their click on the videos section, then then in the upper right hand corner click the arrow then choose Turn On Live Notifications. This works if you are on your desktop. From a phone, go to our page, The Cook and the Coach, the select to Follow Us, not just Like our page, then scroll down a few posts and find our last live broadcast and in the upper right hand corner you should see an option to Live Subscribe.

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So finally the recipe! If you are like me, you probably just skipped to this section! Hope you enjoy this recipe. If you want, you could certainly modify it to your taste, by adding things like shrimp or crawfish. You can also tailor the spice level to what you like and how spicy your andouille is that you buy.

Ingredients

Gumbo Ingredients

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3/4 lb of andouille sausage, chopped
1 pound of chicken, can you use thighs or breast meat
2 medium onions, diced
2 celery stalks, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
4 tbsp of butter, we use Kerrygold brand
4 tbsp, gluten free flour blend. If you don't have a preblended mix I would recommend 2 tbsp rice flour and 2 tbsp tapioca starch
3 oz of tomato paste
1 tbsp cajun/creole seasoning, I used Emeril's Essence seasoning mix
2 tsp gumbo file
32 oz or so of chicken stock
1 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste

Rice - Multi-Cooker Instructions

2 cups brown rice
2 1/2 cups of water

Directions

In a dutch oven over medium heat add your oil and the andouille sausage. Cook until some of the fat starts to come out and it begins to brown.
Remove sausage from the pan using a slotted spoon, trying to get all the sausage drippings in the pan. Then add the chicken and cajun seasoning. Cook for 7-8 minutes until chicken is almost cooked through.
Remove the chicken from the pan leaving as much fat behind in the pan.
Add butter and let it melt. Then add your flour mixture and whisk for minimum of 10 minutes. The longer the better and the more flavor you will get out of it. This is your roux. It should be slightly runny and shouldn't seize up. If it does add more butter or oil of your choice. DON'T WALK AWAY DURING THIS PROCESS. If you do your flour will burn and you have to start over. Trust me it will be worth it.
After you have whisked that sufficiently, add the onion, celery, pepper and garlic. Stir that for 2 minutes.
Add your tomato paste and cook for another minute. At this point it should be getting pretty clumpy.
Slowly pour in your chicken stock about 8 oz at a time and raise your heat to high. You want to get this up to light boil. Your sauce will begin to thicken. Keep adding liquid until you have a fairly thin gravy consistency. You might need less stock or more, there is no perfect amount here.
Once you get it to a boil, reduce your heat to low, add the gumbo file. Also add back in your sausage and chicken. Cover and let simmer for 25-30 minutes.
Meanwhile cook your rice however you prefer, we like using our multi-cooker. You could start this the same time you put the lid on your gumbo or if you have a helper have them start it while you are making the gumbo.

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Charleston | South Carolina

Gluten Free Gumbo and New Orleans Food

From a Computer

From a Phone or Tablet

Ingredients

Directions