Celebrating Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras

Recently Hubster recorded The Princess and the Frog on DTV. Whenever he records a movie like this, or even when the girls get their minds on a new video we may purchase for them, we have to watch it every night, every day, for??....until something else comes along. It's that 'toddler/preschool' mind figuring out how everything works.....you know???

While, The Princess and the Frog is a really cool story and the characters and music are GREAT, I was even more impressed when Oldest asked me what Gumbo was. (Those of you that don't know the movie need to know that Tiana, the main character is a waitress in New Orleans, that gets turned into a frog and then gets turned into a Princess, Tiana's dream in life is to open her own restaurant and to serve Gumbo like her Daddy and her used to make together.- I relate so much with this connection of food between her and her Daddy, that I like the movie even more!)

But back to that Gumbo.

Disney plays up dish so that both of my girls have been saying, "Muuuummmm Gumbo!" And then rubbing their bellies in a circular motion. Even I however, have never in my life eaten Gumbo. So I made it for them last night for a family celebration of Mardi Gras.

I searched the internet. It's a favorite past time of mine- to mine the internet for all the reviews of the best recipes and then to try them out. These are the sites I decided upon:
Quick and Easy King's Cake, Yam Biscuits, Alton Brown's Gumbo. One note about the Gumbo, I did add the file powder- I splurged and ordered it online from Williams and Sonoma. Gumbo has been on my mind a few weeks now, but with the holiday yesterday was a perfect time to try it out.

I was pleased with all the recipes. Hubster has seconds on the Gumbo and said it was spiced perfectly which I agreed- be careful with that Cayenne Pepper, you can ruin a dish quickly if not used as needed!! I also made a -kicked down a notch- version for the girls with no cayenne and substituted sweet sausage. Although they are usually really good eaters and were excited about the having Gumbo for dinner, they wouldn't touch it!!!*cry* But they ate their share of the Yam biscuits and King's Cake after dinner. And yes, I do know that the baby is meant for inside the cake, but the girls and I just thought they were so cute we had to display them on the cake when we decorated it.

Lastly, an apology for only a picture of the King's Cake. I was just so busy all afternoon and so excited to dig in to dinner, I didn't take a picture of the Gumbo or the Yam Biscuits.*Sorry*