Author: Emily Gautreaux

Summer Recipes to Enjoy before Transitioning to Fall

As summer begins to wind down, those summer recipes that are prepared, served, and enjoyed on the weekends are highly celebrated, and with this collected list of 44 Recipes to End Your Summer from Food 52, you’ll conclude your summer season the right way.

When it comes to sending the summer off with good meals, it’s common to do so by hosting an event for the neighborhood or family to do the same. Most of the time, this means that a barbecue or outdoor weekend meal is the right way to sing that summer swan song. So light up the grill, ignite the buffet burners, and set up the patio lights, because the following recipes are designed for a special evening on the horizon. The full article organizes the recipes by culinary genre, so here’s a sampling of the best of the best.

Meats

Simple and reliable, this recipe for Grilled Ribs With Salt & Pepper lets the quality of the meat and your cooking prowess do the talking. This is mostly due to the sparse, traditional seasoning method of only putting kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper onto a half-pound of pork baby back ribs. If you season the meat liberally and throw the rack of ribs onto a hot grill until they’re slightly charred on the outside and cooked through, then you’ll have a meal to brag about. The pork’s internal temperature should be 145°F before you remove it from the grill and enjoy the classic taste of good grilled meat without the disguise of sugary barbecue sauce.

Seafood

These grilled tacos are always a summer recipe crowd-pleaser, and if you combine the protein and unique flavor palette of salmon with a hearty avocado sauce, then you’re all set! Beware though, fish can certainly get messy on the grill, so you’re going to want to have clean, oiled, and heated grates before you begin. The key to infusing an incredible texture onto the salmon is all about how long you leave it on the grill. Once the salmon is on the grates, you’ll want to cook it about 75% of the way through before you flip it. After that, wait an additional minute and then take it off; don’t worry because it’ll continue to cook through as it’s taken off the grill. Though, it’s the avocado spice paste that really helps set this recipe apart. The unique combination of olive oil, brown sugar, cumin, chili powder, coriander, salt, and lime juice is both rubbed into the salmon as a marinade and saved for a topping.

Vegetarian

Just because a meal is without meat doesn’t mean that it forgoes protein and doesn’t pack a punch. Case and point is this black bean and corn burger that stands alone as the most popular recipe ever accessed on the Food 52 website. What stands out about this recipe is the spice that is packed with every bite of the burger. The spice mixture is made up of paprika, cumin, and chili, and it pairs nicely with the sweetness of the fresh summer corn that’s a part of the burger patty. Be sure to try out this recipe the next time you want to leave meat behind but savor the delicious savory flavor.

Side Dishes

What’s a better summer recipe than a fresh, delicious salad? A grilled caesar salad “on-the-go,” and that’s entirely possible with these grilled chicken caesar lettuce wraps! This is a classic salad that you can eat with your very hands! Try out this classic caesar dressing-covered salad wrap and let it reinvigorate how you think about salads the next time you’re whipping up some side dishes.

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Several Louisiana Schools Welcome Students Displaced from Hurricane Ida

Several Louisiana school systems, colleges, and universities are stepping up to help students that were affected by the detrimental impact of Hurricane Ida, according to several articles from the Acadiana Advocate.

On August 29th Hurricane Ida had made its way to the southern Louisiana Coast through Port Fourchon before it headed through northeast Louisiana leaving much destruction in its wake.  When this occurred most Louisiana public school systems and universities had just started the new school year earlier that month.

As a result, many schools were badly affected by the storm, and hundreds of students had evacuated across the state, but thanks to the generous spirit of several Louisiana Universities and school districts that weren’t as significantly impacted by Hurricane Ida, those displaced students will be welcomed into a new school or college with open arms.

For instance, on the Wednesday following the storm, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette had welcomed 61 student evacuees from the University of New Orleans. These students will be staying in on-campus housing and be able to utilize student facilities such as the University’s computer labs, science labs, food services, and gymnasiums. In addition to the UNO students, ULL’s campus also opened its doors, gyms, and facilities to student-athletes from McNeese so that they can continue to practice for the fall season.

These students enrolling at ULL are resident students at UNO, and they will continue to take their courses virtually while utilizing the atmosphere, resources, and facilities at UL Lafayette. The UL Lafayette Dean of Students Margarita Perez commented on the situation saying, “We were fortunate we did not see any impacts from Hurricane Ida. UL Lafayette will accommodate the visitors for “as long as it takes.”

In Northern Louisiana, the Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts (LSMSA) in Natchitoches reopened its admissions process mid-semester in order to support and accommodate families and students who were impacted by Hurricane Ida and had to evacuate South Louisiana. Students enrolling into LSMSA will receive supplies and tuition assistance from donations made to the LSMSA Foundation.

LSMSA’s executive director Dr. Steve Horton said of this opportunity, “we want to encourage families to apply regardless of any cost concerns. We are fortunate to have generous donors who know the value of a Louisiana School education and who prioritize helping families — most recently, those affected by Hurricanes Laura and Delta. We can’t rebuild houses, but we can offer students the best education possible, and we can offer their families the peace of mind in knowing their children have a safe and secure residence and a strong foundation for academic success.”

Other than colleges and universities, public school students displaced by Hurricane Ida were able to enroll in school districts across the state. For instance the Lafayette Parish School System organized an opportunity for displaced families to look into enrolling their child at one of the many schools in the district. The enrollment event was a week-long orchestration with LPSS staff members assessing students’ levels of education, importing grades from their previous district, and getting them acclimated to their new learning environment.

Students and families who arrived at the LPSS Vermillion Conference Center to see about the enrollment opportunity were assisted by members of the district’s displaced and homeless education services team. Members of this team were on staff to assist students in receiving uniforms and school supplies as well as locating any necessary documents for enrollment like birth certificates, social security information, and vaccination records. Specific support teams like this help to make the transition and assimilation process as seemless a possible, which further assists families in such tough times.

For more education-related information, click here.

Hurricane Ida Relief for Louisiana Citizens

Many Louisiana citizens and their families were unfavorably affected by the dangerous winds, storm surges, and torrential conditions of Hurricane Ida in August, but many Louisiana organizations and communities have banded together to create a plethora of resources for anyone affected by the storm to take advantage of, according to several news outlets, including KATC.

Hurricane Ida was the second major hurricane of the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season, and it stands as one of the most damaging hurricanes to ever strike Louisiana. Worth noting, Hurricane Ida made landfall near Port Fourchon on August 29, 2021: the sixteenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. In its path, it left destruction that devastated the bayou and river parishes of Louisiana. In true Louisiana form, citizens across the state in areas less affected by the storm jumped at the opportunity to provide valuable resources and start mutual aid funds and donation drives for those impacted.

FEMA Assistance

All homeowners and renters in the 25 Louisiana parishes hit by Hurricane Ida can now begin to apply for FEMA assistance. On the Wednesday following the storm, Governor John Bel Edwards announced, “everybody out there who is a Hurricane Ida survivor needs to apply to FEMA for individual assistance. It doesn’t happen automatically. To apply, go to disasterassistance.gov or call 1-800-621-3362.

Operation Blue Roof

One of the more immediately helpful resources available to homeowners in select parishes is the ability to apply to have the Army Corps of Engineers cover their damaged roofs for free by using fiber-reinforced sheeting throughOperation Blue Roof. To sign up, go to blueroof.us or call 1-888-766-3258. The Army Corp had installed approximately 14,000 blue tarps in southwest Louisiana last year after Hurricane Laura.

Food Assistance

In Ida’s wake, many grocery stores were closed, damaged, or both, meaning that much of their food supply was lost, defrosted, or destroyed as a result. This led to many food banks thinking of unconventional ways to procure food for the communities they serve. When they were made aware of this, authorities at the parish, state, and federal level began siling and processing paperwork to expand the state’s food stamp program to those suffering from the storm who wouldn’t otherwise qualify for food stamps due to their income level being too high.

In light of Hurricane Ida,  DSNAP,  the Disaster Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is expected to be activated soon. This version of the program not only expands SNAP benefits to more people but also waives some previously-held restrictions such as participants not being allowed to purchase “hot food products prepared for immediate consumption” with their benefits. The waiver being applied for will allow for “SNAP recipients to use their benefits to buy prepared foods available at any retailer that accepts EBT cards, usually grocery stores.”

It’s expected that DSNAP benefits are be approved and go into effect one to two weeks after Ida made landfall, so until then citizens should pre-register by visiting www.dcfs.louisiana.gov/cafe or by calling 225-342-6700 between the hours of 8:00 am and 5:00 PM Monday through Friday. Additionally, anyone wanting to receive DSNAP updates should text ‘LADSNAP’ to 898-211.

Outside of DNSAP benefits, Louisiana’s food banks have been hard at work coordinating with the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry for supplies. Additionally, Koret Patty, the executive director of the statewide association of food banks known as Feeding Louisiana, applied on the Tuesday following Ida’s impact to temporarily suspend the proof of income documentation required for those receiving commodities from a food bank.

In the week following the storm, food banks in the greater Baton Rouge and New Orleans areas were setting up food and water stations across their respective cities; the Red Cross had set up mobile kitchens in LaPlace, Morgan City, and Hammond; several food and supply stations were installed across Lafourche Parish in Thibodaux, Raceland, Lockport, and Golden Meadow; and the Louisiana Workforce Commission was supervising the feedings conducted at state shelters.

Places to Donate

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LSU Students Create an Automated Robotic Arm for Crawfish Harvesting

For every pound of delicious Louisiana crawfish, there is a talented and exhausted crawfish farmer whose strenuous, intensive crawfish harvesting labor might soon be aided by a robotic arm designed by students at Louisiana State University, as reported by The Advocate.

When crawfish farmers are harvesting the crop of crustaceans in the summer months, they are oftentimes operating their boat with one foot while leaning over the side, grabbing traps from the waters. Then in an efficiently choreographed, rheumatic motion, they flip the trap at an angle, toss in more bait, and set it back in the water with tactical precision. This method yields 100 million pounds of crawfish every spring, but it is incredibly labor-intensive.

Advocate reporter Caroline Savoie spoke to David Vercher, one of the six LSU biological engineering students who helped to bring an automated crawfish trap-retrieving arm to life. Vercher worked many, many seasons on his family’s farm where they harvested 300,000 pounds of crawfish a day, and he reported that “experienced crawfish farmers get the job done pretty quickly, but it’s hard on their bodies. If they have a device that will make their jobs easier and more sustainable“that makes all the difference.”

Vercher designed, coded, and manufactured the device, which can lift, empty, and re-bait crawfish traps just with a tap of a Playstation 4 controller. The engineering team at the helm of this project are all natives of the state of Louisiana, and they believe that this harvesting arm could save time, money, and potentially prevent back injuries. Funding for the device came from the United States Department of Agriculture.

Tests conducted using the prototype, which is about ⅓ of the size of a commercial crawfish trap, show that it can complete the harvesting task of crawfishing in an average of about 18.3 seconds, which is comparable to a person’s speed.

After she became aware of high costs and labor shortages in the crawfish industry, senior project advisor Professor Chandra Theegala suggested the idea to create the robotic harvester as one of several options for her students’ final assignments. She said of the prototype, “it’s a high-tech project. I originally planned to have a graduate student working on this, but COVID restrictions prohibited that. So I decided to put a team of undergraduates together, and I was extremely impressed with their dedication and interest.” Professor Theegala hopes that the completed project will provide proof of concept to eventually build a harvesting arm to scale.

The project team had worked mostly through Zoom meetings and group messages to delegate the project’s responsibilities according to their enterprises. Vercher has designed the bait reloading device, Ben Thomas programmed and coded the arm’s motion, Damien Glaser constructed the budget and ordered parts, Bryan Tassin conducted background research and managed the team so that everyone was on task, and Sarah Mitchell brought the project to life.

Mitchell accomplished this through the use of her personal 3D printer, which allowed her to produce the harvesting arm’s trap tops, grips, “crawfish,” and “bait” out of PETG plastic, a material that is used in single-use water bottles.

After its completion, the only component of the design that isn’t automatic is aligning the hand with a crawfish trap. This slight incompatibility fuels Thomas’s goal to make the arm entirely automatic so that it can align itself on an actively moving boat. He said that to make his goal a reality, the device would have to also be waterproof, adding, “it would be much quicker. Ideally, the boat would keep moving, and the arm would be able to sense and grab traps at the front of the boat.”

Upon the project’s completion, team member Sarah Mitchell expressed her satisfaction, saying, “I never expected to work on a school project that could make a real difference. It was just our little robot.”

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Nicholls Awarded Nearly $500,000 For Coastal Research

In an effort to save the eroding coast of the state of Louisiana, students from Nicholls State University have been given nearly $500,000 to conduct coastal research, according to Houma Today.

This hefty amount that will be used to research the Louisiana coastline is among eight Louisiana research grants announced recently by the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority and the Water Institute of the Gulf. These eight grants all together amount to a pledged $2.5 million.

The Water Institute of the Gulf is responsible for “vetting” grant proposals on behalf of the State of Louisiana. Afterward, they select recipients whose proposals will be funded by oil money, which is required to be spent on coastal restoration projects. In fact, the $495,368 research grant going to Nicholls students consists of funds originating from penalties and fines that have been levied against BP and other companies that were involved in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

An assistant professor of biological sciences at Nicholls, Dr. Jonathan Willis, said of the aim of their research, “our understanding of how ridges function and the ecological and sociological communities they support is limited. By resolving targeted data gaps and providing conceptual models of ridge function, we can facilitate planning for coastal ridge restoration projects.”

The students at Nicholls will focus their research on ridges in particular. Ridges are strips of elevated land created by the Mississippi River, area bayous, and other waterways when collected sediment overflows their water banks. In most cases, that process ended sometime after flood-prevention levees were built along the Mississippi River and some of its connected tributaries in the late 1920s, and as a result, many of these ridges have since eroded and can no longer buffer communities and wetlands from flooding.

The Dean of Nicholls College of Science and Technology and the director of coastal initiatives, Dr. John Doucet said of the research grant, “this funding is recognition of the strong reputation of Nicholls scientists and students and the important coastal work they’ve been conducting over the years. This grant award is a win for Nicholls and the Coastal Center but it is also a win for the communities of the Terrebonne-Lafourche-Barataria region.”

Students at the University will conduct their research through a portion of south Louisiana between the Atchafalaya and Mississippi rivers known as the Barataria-Terrebonne Estuary, including all of Terrebonne and Lafourche. This area has lost 598,730 acres or 935 square miles of land to erosion and rising seas since 1935.

Contributing to the research will be multiple members of faculty and students from Nicholls’ Biology, English,Geomatics, and History departments. These contributors will be in the field conducting surveys, performing lab analysis, conducting historical reviews, using drones to take aerial video and photography, and interviewing estuary residents. Nicholls State University reports that the work will begin this upcoming fall and continue well through 2023.

With this multi-year research project beginning soon, Nicholls will be positioning itself as a leading center in the region for coastal education and research. In fact, the school will begin preliminary work in the next year on a $14.5 million Coastal Center that will serve as a hub for research on Louisiana’s eroding wetlands that will give guidance on how they can be preserved and eventually restored. Gov. John Bel Edwards announced in 2019 that Nicholls expects to receive bids by the year’s end to start groundwork on the 33,000-square foot building with the work being financed by $2.5 million from the state coastal agency. They are expecting to get to work and break ground early next year.

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End of Summer Garden Salsa Recipe

When the summer season begins to wind down, the summer garden harvest has a tendency to leave behind an overwhelming pile of produce, but luckily A Fresh Legacy and Smitten Kitchen have recipes to ensure that you make the most of your summertime yield. This garden salsa recipe is perfect to make the most of your remaining summer garden crop.

“Quick, Easy Garden Salsa” Recipe (Smitten Kitchen)

If your garden is aboud with pounds of whole tomatoes come summer’s end, then this garden salsa recipe is the way to make the most out of that popular garden vegetable!

Garden Salsa Ingredients:

10 to 12 whole tomatoes (peeled)

½-¼ of a large white onion

1 fresh jalapeño (trimmed)

1 clove garlic (peeled)

½ cup of fresh cilantro leaves (chopped)

½ teaspoon of kosher salt

Juice from half of a lime (2-3 tablespoons)

Garden Salsa Directions:

  1. Begin your summertime salsa by placing your whole tomatoes in a large mixing bowl and press them so that their juices expel and they become open and crushed. Using a colander, separate the excess tomato juice from the whole tomatoes, and set the juice aside.
  2. Finely chop your white onion, jalapeño, and garlic. Remove the seeds from the jalapeño at this stage if you want your salsa to be on the milder side of spicy, as jalapeño seeds are known to hold more of that fiery kick.
  3. Add your onion, jalapeño, and garlic to a blender or large food processor along with your chopped cilantro leaves and salt. Grind or blend the ingredients with a few pulses and then add in your drained tomatoes and lime juice and continue pulsing the machine until you reach your desired consistency. If the salsa mixture ever seems too thick, add some of your reserved tomato juice one tablespoon at a time.
  4. Adjust seasoning to taste, and then serve in a salsa bowl alongside tortilla chips and enjoy. Leftovers of this fresh salsa can keep up to one week in the refrigerator.

“Summer Yogurt Dip” (A Fresh Legacy)

This recipe is perfect for gardens that yield cucumbers and herbs. The yogurt base pairs particularly well with the herbal notes of mint leaves, leaving you with a refreshingly cool summer dip.

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups of peeled & grated cucumbers (3-4)

½ tablespoon of a freshly juiced lemon

½ cup of plain yogurt

1 clove garlic

A handful of fresh mint leaves (finely chopped)

½ teaspoon of sumac

Directions:

  1. Combine your ingredients together in a mixing bowl with a wooden spoon. Begin with your yogurt and place the remaining herbs, vegetables, and juice atop the dairy-based yogurt.
  2. Sprinkle the sumac on top of your mixture.
  3. Serve the yogurt dip alongside crusty bread or as a side with other raw vegetables from your garden such as zucchini, squash, or carrots.

“Baked Summer Vegetable Dip” (A Fresh Legacy)

This recipe takes about 20 minutes of preparation and 25 minutes of cooking time to produce a roasted tray of various summer vegetables. Feel free to add your excess to the sheet tray, because with this recipe, there’s not much that can go wrong.

Ingredients:

Half a pound of tomatoes (approximately 2-3)

1 capsicum (roughly chopped)

1 zucchini (chopped into large pieces)

2 cloves garlic (roughly chopped)

Large drizzle of olive oil

⅓ cup walnuts

3 stems and leaves of fresh basil

Directions:

  1. Begin by preheating your oven to 325°F.
  2. On a baking pan with a parchment paper lining, add your tomatoes, capsicum, zucchini, and garlic. Drizzle the vegetables with olive oil, toss them together, and then bake for 20 minutes.
  3. Remove them from the oven, allowing them to cool. Then, place the contents of the bake into a food processor or blender with your walnuts and basil leaves.
  4. Pulse the food processor until it’s all well-combined, and pour the dip into a bowl.
  5. Serve alongside pita bread triangles or similar starches such as crackers.

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