This year’s Festing in Place was made even more special by recipes from New Orleans musicians!

We have been doing various versions of our own virtual festing since 2011 whenever we can’t make it down for the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Fest. But last year, with the dawn of the Covid Pandemic, we had lots of company. We joined in the fun, listing to WWOZ constantly, enjoying fests of old and cooking up all our fest favorites like Crawfish Monica.

But here we are in 2021, the second fest to be cancelled due to the pandemic. Bummed, but ready to celebrate per usual, we were STOKED to find that WWOZ had been collecting all sorts recipes from New Orleans musicians! I had only come across Dr. John’s Raccoon stew which we made when he passed, but here was Louis Armstrong’s Red Beans and Rice, Crawfish Étoufée the Craig Klein Way, Tab Benoit’s Redfish Couvillion, Chubby Carrier’s Creole Chicken, and all sorts of great stuff! Find their full list of “Next Fest Things” here.

Once we stopped drooling, we got to work sourcing the ingredients, cooked lots of amazing food, and shared it with lucky fest-loving friends in nearby.

Here is the menu, presented in the order in which you should make everything. For top flavor (and ease!) the red beans of rice is hopefully sitting in the fridge, but don’t forget that the coffee needs to start brewing in the fridge the night before. Then, the morning of, make your beignet dough, roll in some crawfih (or not) and fry ’em up, heat up your beans to top with a fried egg, and nibble on some pralines to close it out.

• Louis Armstrong’s Red Beans + Rice w/ a fried egg (RB&R from yesterday is best)
• New Orleans Style Cold-Brewed Iced Coffee
• Classic Beignets
• Crawfish Beignets (recipe in part 1)
• Crawfish Scrambled Eggs
• Pralines (if you ate them, you will just need to make more.)

Note: this “part 2” portrait captures brunch! For dinner and dessert, head over to the “part 1” post (tempting photo below).

Of course, you should already be listening live to WWOZ, but if not, then take a moment to put it on. This should be a permalink to their festing in place, but just google it if it breaks.

As these portraits are part time capsule, I will include the 2021 cubes here.

Pro-tip: read it through ahead of time and circle the must=make slots ensure you don’t miss your favorites!

Hopefully you planned ahead on this one because the essential step here is that coffee needs to brew overnight in the fridge. Chilling a hot brew will not get the same flavor and velvet mouthfeel. It is worth the wait!

While you are probably familiar with now-ubiquitous cold-brew, and you may have even tasted the famous Grady’s New Orleans-Style Cold brew, you can find in most grocery stores, did you know all you need is some coffee w/ chicory, and some milk to make your own New Orleans-Style Cold-Brewed Iced Coffee?

Some folks in those parts like to used sweetened condensed milk, but we just used whole milk or 2% milk. The chicory adds a sweetness so you may not even want to add sugar, but a drop or two of maple syrup is great, too.

Pile a fried egg on top of your red beans and rice and you have yourself a great brunch. Bonus points and flavor if you let some cajun spices bloom in the butter before you crack the egg. A few splashes of hot sauce kick it up a notch, and if you want to get all fancy-like, add some sliced scallions. Deeee-lish.

This time around we used Louis’ Armstrong’s version of red beans and rice, but Mama K’s version is nice, too.

The above were made with the Café Du Monde mix, and although tasty were not at all what we remembered from Café du Monde below, in 2015

Next time we will try Joy the Baker’s recipe for beignets, Fall Festing in Place? Stay tuned.

Just tuck some of that delicious crawfish pie filling into some beignet dough and fry it up!

If you ate all your red beans and rice but want some fest-inspired eggs, you can look to other leftovers. Maybe you have some extra crawfish pie filling? Or andouille sausage? We tried both. Simple and delish.

Crawfish Pie Scramble: Heat nonstick pain to medium heat. Meanwhile, whisk some eggs and salt and keep aside. Add butter to grease the pan. Add reserved crawfish pie filling and stir until heated through. Add the eggs and cook, stirring occasionally until blended and eggs are cooked. That’s it. Add your fav cajun hot sauce to punch it up.

Andouille Scramble: Heat nonstick pain to medium heat. Meanwhile, whisk some eggs and salt and keep aside. Add butter to grease the pan. Add chopped andouille sausage and cook until heated through and browning a tad. Add the eggs and cook, stirring occasionally until blended and eggs are cooked. That’s it. Add your fav cajun hot sauce to punch it up.

These are just too, too good. And dangerously easy. We make them all the time and I make sure to give away at least half lest I end up eating the entire batch. In an hour.

You can dig into festing in place from 2020 or even from year’s prior, before it was a hashtag and we simply missed our beloved fest. Within those you will find recipes for jambalaya, crawfish Meghna (my take on crawfish monica), red beans and rice, and more.

And of course there’s the multi-sensory tribute to jazzfest favorite the one-and-only Dr John where you can make his favorite Raccoon Stew (or veal if it’s what you got/prefer).

Or make yourself a nice little second line umbrella! There’s always a second line in the lineup.