When I’m feeling crappy and stressed, sometimes I like to cook something slightly more involved. This is probably a little crazy, but having lots of stuff to keep track of and do with my hands is kind of mantra-like for me. And so yet again I profess my love for Emeril Lagasse and his recipes.

And yeah, this looks a lot like the recipe I made last week. Sue me. I actually tend to do recipes I’m trying to perfect several times until I perfect them. In this case, I used the same technique for making shrimp stock as I did in the gumbo recipe, but I got it right this time. More salt, more simmering, no covering. It made all the difference in this recipe.

Anyway, this is a recipe from Emeril 20-40-60 which is full of awesome. I found an online version of it here. What’s great about it is the roux shortcut – instead of 20 minutes of stirring over a hot stove, you cook the veggies down in butter (mostly covered, just give it a few stirs) and then add the flour and scrape your pot for about 3 minutes until it browns. Insta-roux! That’s the only intense stirring you have to do. So it was a little work to chop up all the veg and peel the shrimp (easy peel shrimp rock my world), but it was really not bad. And it was deeeeeelicious. The toddler loved it, the husband loved it, and most importantly I loved it.