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Welcome to Thyme Flies, a place to find southern, and Cajun and Creole recipes as well as plain old home cooking.
It's also a place to spend a little thyme.
My good friend and fellow University of Arkansas student Mike
Howard and I visited Oklahoma City during the fall of 1973, looking for a job. The State Fair was in full swing and it was
the first time I ate an Indian Taco. It wasn’t my last.
There are three things you must always eat when visiting the Oklahoma State Fair at Oklahoma City –
tamales from the Little Axe Church, State Fair cinnamon rolls, and an Indian Taco. All three qualify as Oklahoma comfort food.
Here is my version of Oklahoma’s famous Indian Taco.
Fry Bread
·2 cups flour ·4 teaspoons baking powder ·1 tablespoon sugar ·½ teaspoon salt ·1 cup milk, warm
Directions
Combine flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Add warm milk slowly
and mix into soft dough. Roll out dough with a rolling pin, about ½ inch thick, and then cut into pieces slightly smaller
than a large cast iron skillet. Fry in hot oil, flipping once, until golden brown. Drain on a paper towel.
Indian Taco Filling ·1 lb. ground beef ·Salt and pepper to taste ·½ tablespoon cayenne pepper ·½ tablespoon cumin, ground ·½ tablespoon
paprika ·1 medium tomato, diced ·1 cup lettuce, shredded ·¼ cup ripe olives, sliced ·4 ounces, shredded Monterey
and cheddar cheese, divided ·¼ cup sour cream ·Salsa, your favorite
Directions
In a heavy pot with a tight
cover, crumble and brown ground beef with salt and pepper. Drain and add mixture of cayenne, cumin and paprika. Heat and set
aside. Layer fry bread with beef, tomato, lettuce, olives, cheese, sour cream and salsa. Enjoy.
Lily, my former mother-in-law, had eight children. All her kids
and their families usually came to her house for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. Lily was a Cajun, but like families across
the country, she would usually cook the traditional turkey.Unlike most of the country, she would stuff her bird with Cajun rice
dressing. Lily cooked by feel and taste rather than recipe, but this is a close approximation. Try it sometime and enjoy. Lily’s Rice Dressing Ingredients: §4 cups chicken or turkey stock §2 cups rice §1
pound chicken gizzards §½ pound
chicken livers §½ pound ground
beef §½ pound pork §½ cup oil or meat drippings §1 large onion, chopped §2
stalks celery, chopped §1 bell pepper,
chopped §2 cloves garlic, minced §3 tablespoons parsley, chopped §1 bunch green onions, chopped §Salt, pepper, to taste Directions: Bring chicken stock to a boil in a large saucepan. Add rice, reduce heat, cover and simmer until done, about 20 minutes.
Set aside. Simmer chicken gizzards in water to cover until fork tender, about 30 minutes, add livers and cook about 10 more
minutes until livers are done. Drain and remove the tender meat from the gizzards, discarding the tough gristle.
Grind or process gizzard meat and livers together until coarse. Set aside. In a large pot, brown the ground
beef and pork, drain and set aside. In the same pot, heat the oil and sauté onions, celery and bell pepper until soft.
Add garlic and sauté briefly. Away from the heat, add rice, meat, green onions, parsley and seasonings, and toss lightly.
As all of you aspiring authors know, few publishers accept direct
submissions from authors anymore. Such direct submissions used to go to a place that editors called the “slush pile.”
Readers “mined” these slush piles, hoping to find the next great author. A talent-spotting reader discovered author
Philip Roth this way when part of his slush pile submission grew into Goodbye, Columbus. Because of copyright infringement fears, slush piles are largely
gone. Publishers now rely on agents to act as go-betweens. As every author that has ever tried to secure an agent knows, it
is all but impossible to do so and the lack of an agent prevents many wonderful writers from ever being published. A new website
founded by editors from the publisher Harper Collins seeks to remedy this industry shortcoming.
The new site is Authonomy and it brings together talented, undiscovered writers and avid readers. Authors upload entire books that are free to read
and comment on.Harper Collins has even published some of the books discovered in the site’s “slush
pile.”
I uploaded my novel Prairie Sunset to the site. If you are either writer, reader or - like me - both, I urge you to check out the site. While you are there,
please take a look at Prairie Sunset.
My ex-mother-in-law Lily was a wonderful
cook. Not only could she cook Cajun and Creole dishes, she also knew how to prepare traditional southern dishes, famous from
Florida to Texas. Meatloaf, without question, is a southern comfort food, and here is Lily’s Creole version of the recipe. Chalmette Meatloaf
Ingredients ·2 bay leaves, whole ·1 tablespoon salt ·1 teaspoon ground red pepper ( cayenne) ·1 teaspoon black pepper
·½ teaspoon cumin, ground ·½ teaspoon nutmeg,
ground ·4 tablespoons butter, unsalted ·½ cup of celery,
finely chopped ·½ cup bell pepper, finely chopped ·¼ cup greens
onions, chopped ·12 teaspoons of garlic, minced ·1 tablespoon Tabasco
sauce ·1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce ·½ cup milk ·½ cup catsup ·2 pounds beef, ground ·½ pound of pork,
ground ·2 eggs lightly beaten ·1 cup bread crumbs
Instructions Combine the seasoning
mix ingredients in a small bowl and set aside. Melt the butter in 1 quart saucepan over medium heat. Add the onions, celery,
and bell pepper, green onions, garlic, Tabasco, Worcestershire and seasoning mix. Sauté about 6 minutes, stirring occasionally and scraping
the pan bottom well. Stir in the milk and ½ cup catsup. Continue cooking for about 2 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Remove from the heat and allow mixture to cool to room temperature.Place the ground beef and pork in an
ungreased 13 x 9 inch baking pan. Remove the bay leaves, add the eggs, the cooked vegetable mixture and the bread crumbs. Mix by hand until thoroughly combined
in the center of the pan. Shape the mixture into a loaf that is about 1 ½ inches high x 6 inches wide and 12 inches
long. Bake uncovered at 350 for 25 minutes, then raise heat to 400 and continue cooking until done, about 35 minutes longer. Eric'sWeb
I grew up eating my Mother's home cooking. I didn't know that we were poor, but we were - moneywise, that is.
We never missed a meal, and, as I look back, I now see that everyone was a culinary masterpiece. That's what we're after
here - the realization that simpler is sometimes (if not always) best.
Please check out Eric Wilder's book Murder Etouffee for the best Cajun and Creole recipes, and so much more!
