Crawdadding with Cousins Means Jambalaya #FishFridayFoodies

It's time for Fish Friday Foodies' July 2020 event. We are a group of seafood-loving bloggers, rallied by Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm, to share fish and seafood recipes on the third Friday of the month. 

And this month, Wendy is hosting. She asked the bloggers to share recipes of fish cooked outside, writing, "Think of the type of meal you would make while camping or picnicking.  Foil packets, grilled on a grate, placed in a fish basket and cooked over a campfire.  Or how about an old fashiioned outdoor fish boil.  Anything is game as long as it is cooked outside."

Here's the July 2020 line-up from the #FishFridayFoodies. I cannot wait to try these recipes...

• Cajun Boil on the Grill from Making Miracles 
• Charcoal Grilled Soy Ginger Salmon by Food Lust People Love
• Crawdadding with Cousins Means Jambalaya by Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Green Chilly Basil Pesto Grilled Prawns by Sneha's Recipe 
• Grilled Garlic Shrimp with Yuzu Kosho by Karen's Kitchen Stories 
• Grilled Mahi-Mahi with Mojo Sauce from Veggies First Then Dessert 
• Grilled Mahi Mahi with Blueberry Wild Rice Pilaf by A Day in the Life on the Farm 
• Grilled Shrimp Souvlaki on Pita from Palatable Pastime
• Spiced Shrimp on a Stick from Sid's Sea Palm Cooking  

Outside Cooking

Every summer, we do a ten-day camping trip around Northern California. We spend three or four days with my in-laws at our favorite lake in Modoc National Forest. Then we camp all the way home, either taking the coastal redwood route or sticking to the Eastern Sierras. 

With Jake's dad and brothers, the boys go out on the lake and fish for hours. Then they clean the fish and I get to cook it.

In 2018 I made a huge seafood boil for the family with shellfish that we brought up on ice, spicy sausage from a butcher friend, local organic potatoes and corn, and lemons from our tree. There's nothing like a platter of food to feed a hungry crowd, right?!

This summer plans are, sadly, up in the air as our county has reverted to more strict shelter-in-place guidelines once again. I know it's the right move amidst this coronavirus pandemic, but I'll be dreaming about and longing for all of our meals cooked outdoors on a fire and grill! Some of our favorites have been Campfire Salmon and cooking our fresh-caught Blue Lake trout.

Crawdadding with Cousins 

Means Jambalaya

This isn't a recipe because I didn't cook anything. My lovely sister-in-law Olivia did the honors. And these photos are also a couple of years old as R and I missed family camping last summer. But I wanted to share this culinary adventure of crawdadding with the cousins because it's definitely a case of teaching the kids from where food comes...and cooking outdoors is always a treat. Thanks for the nudge, Wendy, to dig out these photos and write about Liv's jambalaya.

Crawdadding is a family tradition at Blue Lake. We hike or kayak over to the bridge and the kids catch as many crawdads as they can. We do set traps, but they love just spotting them in the water and grabbing them with their hands!

Back at camp, Liv boils the crawdads...

and the kids peel them as soon as they are cool enough to handle.

And, in the end, we get this: a delectable camp meal of jambalaya. It's one of my favorite dinners every summer.

That summer, I brought the wine, a bottle of Syrah from the Klipsun Vineyard by Hundred Suns Wine! I love that wine...and the winemakers. Cheers.

And that' a wrap for July's #FishFridayFoodies event - cooking outdoors - but we'll be back next month with Mexican seafood recipes hosted by Rebekah of Making Miracles. Stay tuned.