Recipes By Vallery Lomas
47 recipes found
Pumpkin Cheesecake
This dessert delivers all the warm spices of pumpkin pie along with the tangy creaminess of cheesecake. To help the filling come together easily, make sure your ingredients are at room temperature, and refrain from mixing on high, which will incorporate too much air, causing the cheesecake to rise, then fall. The cake is finished in the oven with the heat turned off; that gentle reduction in heat eliminates the need for a water bath and reduces the likelihood of cracks or a grainy texture.
Shrimp Étouffée
Found in both Creole and Cajun cuisines, étouffée is most commonly made with crawfish tails, which have a distinct flavor, but crawfish have a short season and aren’t readily available in most places. This version, with shrimp, is more than a worthy substitute, and an excellent dish all its own. The dish takes its name from the French word "étouffée,” which nods to its protein being smothered with sauce. This recipe uses a shortcut version of a roux: The flour is added after the onion, celery, bell pepper and garlic have already been sautéed in the butter. If you omit the hot sauce, add apple cider vinegar in its place.
Glazed Sweet Potatoes
Less sugary than traditional candied yams, these sweet potatoes rely on the natural sweetness of pineapple juice, with just a hint of brown sugar to form a syrup that’s flavored with vanilla and cinnamon. The pineapple adds some tangy acidity that further balances the sweetness of the potatoes and the syrup that coats them. By parboiling the sweet potatoes before baking them in this recipe (which can be done a day or two ahead), you’re cutting down the cook time — and ensuring that you’ll get fork-tender spuds. This dish is finished on the stovetop, which helps the syrup to thicken and come together quickly.
Vegetarian Gumbo
This meatless gumbo has a distinct Louisiana flavor, thanks to the roux, Creole seasoning and the “holy trinity” of Creole cooking (onion, celery, bell pepper). Gumbo is traditionally made with a variety of smoked meats and seafood, but this version gets an added bit of smokiness from an optional splash of liquid smoke. Here, the okra is roasted in the oven before being added to the pot, which eliminates the gooeyness. There is also no skimping on vegetables in this gumbo, and the red lentils thicken it while adding protein. Serving this gumbo over white rice helps make it a complete meal.
Strawberry Jelly Cake
This layer cake is affectionately referred to as “Grandma’s Cake” by many Southerners. Using jelly as the filling and the frosting is a wonderful way to add fruity flavor to a cake year-round. The jelly seeps into the cake, so there’s no need to brush on a simple syrup to keep it moist. This recipe uses cake flour, which has less protein than all-purpose flour and yields a more tender crumb. But it can be prone to clumping. Sift it into the mixing bowl, or use a whisk to aerate it and break up any lumps. “Frost” the sides of the cake with jelly or buttercream, or just let it drip down the sides. When making this cake in the summer, you can top it with sliced fresh strawberries.
Sweet Tea
This sweet tea toes the line between just right and puckery sweet. The formula reflects the way my grandmother Leona Johnson made sweet tea: strong tea, lots of lemon juice and even more sugar. Start by adding half a cup of sugar to the batch, then add up to 4 more tablespoons to your preference. By making it extra potent, tart and sweet, this brew still tastes good even after the ice starts to melt.
Blackened Fish With Quick Grits
Blackening is a cooking technique that uses high heat and lots of seasoning to develop distinctive flavor by nearly charring the food in a cast-iron skillet. It’s particularly good for firm, lean white fish, such as catfish, snapper, trout or redfish. The fish is traditionally dipped in melted butter, then cooked in a dry skillet, but that can create billows of smoke. This smokeless method cooks seasoned fillets in oil to create a lovely texture. The cheese grits cook in just under 5 minutes, but are extra flavorful from cooking in chicken stock and still creamy as a result of added milk and butter.
Braised Mustard Greens
Mustard greens are a delectable option for the simplest weeknight meal or the grandest holiday table. Though they’re from the same plant family as collard greens, mustard greens are more peppery and the cooked leaves are more tender. (They also cook down a lot more, so it takes a lot of mustard greens to make a decent serving amount!) This recipe is generous with the liquid, because as it cooks it becomes something just as delicious as the greens themselves: pot likker. Smoked meats are often used for their flavor, but a small amount of liquid smoke keeps this recipe meat-free. Be sure to serve your greens in a bowl, so you can slurp up the resulting pot likker afterward.
Grits and Greens
This weeknight dinner is the perfect homey and rustic dish. Quick-cooking grits become extra flavorful because they are simmered in vegetable stock and get a creamy bite from the combination of milk and sharp Cheddar that’s stirred in once the grits are tender. Using both collard greens and Swiss chard lends more interesting and varied tastes and textures. Because the leaves are cooked just until wilted, apple cider vinegar is added at the end to help balance out any bitterness. A little hot sauce splashed on just before serving helps tie the entire dish together, awakening the flavors in both the greens and grits.
Quick-Pickled Okra
Quartering the okra significantly cuts down pickling time in this recipe: The vegetable pickles more quickly because its insides are exposed. Most picklers have their own special way of seasoning the love-it or leave-it vegetable. “Pickled okra had to grow on me,” Kenneth Garrett, a lifelong New Orleans resident and avid pickler, said. Now, he eagerly awaits okra’s growing season, and he makes pickled okra with basil and oregano, all from his garden. He serves it alongside fried chicken or as a snack. Mr. Garrett adds Creole seasoning, but this recipe uses whole peppercorns instead. Feel free to be creative with spices here. This recipe is ready in hours, but you can minimize okra’s characteristic gooeyness by refrigerating the pickles for two weeks before enjoying. Lastly, whenever preserving or canning, even for a “quick” job like this, it’s important to maintain a sterile environment. Wash the jars, lids and rims with hot, soapy water and dry them with clean towels.
Heirloom Tomato Tart
Heirloom tomatoes may seem flawed, but it’s actually their uniformly red counterparts who are the genetic deviants of the tomato family. Decades ago, many businesses decided to prioritize cookie-cutter-like hybrid tomatoes, which grow year-round and can survive a long, bumpy journey. It left heirloom tomatoes on the wrong side of the deal. The varieties that remain have a shorter shelf life and are relegated to just a few months of summer, but they’re sweeter with a more robust flavor. This tart celebrates juicy, vibrant tomatoes in a cheesy, herby, custard-filled, flaky crust, with each bite punctuated with pesto.
Shrimp Creole
Much like gumbo, this shrimp and tomato stew starts with a roux that thickens and adds a distinct flavor (though many takes on shrimp Creole skip the roux altogether). Next, the “holy trinity” of Creole cooking — onion, celery and bell pepper — is simmered in the roux. You’ll want to stir the bottom of the pot constantly to prevent the roux from sticking and burning, and make sure to keep a close eye: A burned roux can’t be saved. Creole cuisine relishes improvisation, so feel free to add other veggies or a different protein, or omit the hot sauce and add a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar in its place. This spicy stew is traditionally served over steamed white rice, but is also delicious served over brown rice or other whole grains, like quinoa.
Pasta With Andouille Sausage, Beans and Greens
Highly seasoned andouille sausage makes this pasta extra-zippy, while white beans and collard greens give it a rustic flair. They are not ingredients typically used in pasta, but this dish may become part of your regular rotation once you try it. This one-dish dinner is perfect for cold, cozy nights when you want something hearty to stick to your bones, but it will satisfy any time. Swirling in lemon juice and olive oil just before serving adds freshness and ties all of the flavors together.
Blackberry Fool
Whipping up this dessert may be the wisest decision you’ll make in the summer: It comes together quickly and uses only five ingredients. Mashed juicy berries folded into lightly whipped cream results in a simple dish that manages to feel both decadent and light. Macerating ripe in-season blackberries in sugar extracts their natural sweetness and goodness. Serve this dish with shortbread cookies for a buttery crumble to contrast the creamy blend.
Chili- and Cinnamon-Roasted Butternut Squash
Roasting butternut squash at a high temperature helps the sugars caramelize, bringing out a sweetness that pairs perfectly with fall flavors like cinnamon and cayenne. This recipe plays on the duality of butternut squash – its savory and sweet components. The ground cinnamon complements the caramelization, and the chili powder and cayenne play on the vegetable’s more savory profile. The cayenne also adds a kick, though you can omit it if you prefer to keep this dish’s heat limited to the more subtle chili powder.
Shrimp and Grits
Grits go from breakfast accompaniment to dinnertime star in this dish. Enjoying grits with seafood, such as blackened fish, is nothing new. But the relatively recent popularity of shrimp and grits in restaurants certainly is. The andouille sausage in this recipe accentuates the Creole flavors while enhancing the shrimp, which is sautéed in the sausage’s rendered fat. The reduced chicken stock and swirl of sour cream complete the savory sauce that pools in the cheesy grits. The corn-forward flavor of stone-ground grits takes this dish to the next level, and the sweetness of the corn pairs nicely with the shrimp. You can make the shrimp component while the stone-ground grits are cooking.
Stone-Ground Grits
Stone-ground grits are dried corn kernels that have been coarsely ground. Unlike instant and quick-cooking grits, their coarse nature requires a longer cooking time, but the resulting dish is more flavorful and, when cooked long enough, smells like popcorn. Don’t skimp on the cook time, and add more water if needed. You can find white and yellow stone-ground grits at many grocery stores, or purchase them online. This recipe is for cheesy grits, though some people prefer their grits sweet and add sugar. Extra-sharp Cheddar works wonderfully here, but feel free to use a smoked Cheddar or even smoked Gouda for even more flavor.
Succotash With Sausage and Shrimp
Succotash embodies the proverb “If it grows together, it goes together.” This dish is a celebration of summer: fresh corn, ripe tomatoes and shelled butter beans (also known as lima beans.) Succotash has earned its place of pride in regions across the U.S. — the Midwest, the Eastern Seaboard, and perhaps most notably, the South. This succotash is Cajun-style and a worthy entree, thanks to spicy andouille sausage and seasoned shrimp. But feel free to leave them out for a satisfying meatless option. The andouille sausage adds kick, so if you use regular sausage or eliminate it altogether, you can add some heat with ground cayenne and hot sauce.
Baked Pumpkin Doughnuts
These fuss-free (no electric mixer needed!) pumpkin doughnuts are flavored with cinnamon and nutmeg, classic spices we associate with fall. But they’re also loaded with pumpkin pureé, which makes them moist and flavorful and gives them their orangey hue. They’re finished with a simple — and forgiving — vanilla glaze that sets beautifully. If your glaze is too thick to dip, just add a little more milk. If your glaze is too thin and runs off the doughnut, add a little more confectioners’ sugar.
Apricot Upside-Down Cake
Apricot halves, baked in a faux caramel of melted butter, brown sugar and spices, burst with punchy flavor in every bite of this cake. The sticky topping complements the almost-tart, fleshy stone fruit, and offers a textural contrast to the buttery cake. A hint of almond further accentuates the apricot flavor. This rustic beauty is perfect by itself, but you can serve it with whipped cream or ice cream, if you want to be fancy.
Quick Jambalaya
This recipe makes quick work out of jambalaya by using leftover rice, and it tastes great with freshly cooked grains, too. To make this meal meatless, use vegan andouille sausage or stick with pork sausage, if you prefer. Either option, along with creole seasoning and the classic trinity of creole cooking — onion, celery and green bell pepper — result in a dish that is unmistakably Louisianan. Though many jambalaya recipes skip tomatoes, this version uses a blend of tomato paste and diced tomatoes to add bulk, and an acidity that helps lighten up the otherwise hearty one-pot meal.
Pimento Mac and Cheese
This recipe combines two classic Southern dishes to create something special: Pimento cheese, a spread for sandwiches, crackers and vegetables, meets mac and cheese for a peppery and spicier version of the traditional baked casserole. The core ingredients of pimento cheese — sharp yellow Cheddar, pimento peppers and cream cheese — cook into a sauce that’s creamier and tangier than the usual purely cheese base.
Spicy Crab Dip
This style of crab dip, often referred to as Maryland crab dip because of its Chesapeake Bay origins, makes for a festive appetizer. Here, it’s served hot out of the oven and is extra creamy thanks to the combination of cream cheese and a little mayonnaise. Though crabs are plentiful this time of year — and you can certainly make this with freshly steamed and picked meat if you’d like — canned lump crabmeat makes this dish simple to assemble. Just be careful to leave the clumps of meat as intact as possible when mixing. A sprinkle of cayenne pepper and a generous douse of hot sauce add heat to this flavorful dish.