🌹Mother's Day Recipe Videos - 84 & Still Cooking 💖

I owe it all to Mom, at least where I get my cooking chops (and any good sense I have.) Just check out our cooking videos below to see what I mean.

She grew up in Texas on the Gulf Coast, in a small shrimping and fishing town called Port O'Connor. There, I learned to love seafood.

Her father was a shrimp boat captain. So, while we couldn't afford steak, we had all the fresh caught seafood Big Daddy would skim off the top of the catch. Shrimp season was short, but crab and oyster season soon followed. And you could always cast a line into the warm Gulf waters for bountiful fishing.

Big Daddy & Big Mama

The following recipe comes from her parent's kitchen, Shrimp and Rice. It uses locally caught shrimp, cheap canned tomato paste and rice. We always had creamy pinto beans, and flour tortillas to scoop up all the deliciousness. Our family seldom had steak as it was too expensive, but we had all the Gulf seafood we could eat. Looking back I didn't realize how good we had it !

Mom's Shrimp & Rice - VIDEO

 

Mom had movie star looks (like a young Elizabeth Taylor) and smarts, and a scholarship to college if she wanted it, but had no encouragement from her parents.

So after high school graduation, she was soon married and I arrived on the scene, followed by my brother and sister.

Billy, Berry and Brenda

My Dad was in the military so we moved around. Mom and us kids eventually settled back in Port O'Connor, after a divorce. Dad was quite a character and the life of the party, but he was also a little too profligate in the alcohol consumption department.

Billy Doyle Robinson

Mom went back to work as a waitress, so I learned how to literally pinch pennies when she poured handfuls of customer tips on the kitchen table for us kids to separate and count.

Mom got back on her feet and found love again with this shuffleboard-playing fellow below, Ken.

After a couple years, Mom married Ken and a final sister was born (catch up with youngest sister Denise's Eggplant Recipe, video here.)

We moved to neighboring Louisiana the year I enrolled in Junior High School. There she picked up a whole other way of cooking, Cajun-style.

My high school daze were spent in Gonzales, Louisiana, the self-professed Jambalaya Capital of the World. So you know this town is serious about chow. Click here to see a culinary video tour of some local Cajun cuisine at the weekend Flea Market, including: Crawfish Pie, Boudin Balls and, of course, Jambalaya.

And here's our first video we made together in my Los Angeles kitchen - and my late wife, Amy, even makes an appearance at the very end of the video. You'll get a kick out of Mom rockin' the cast iron kettle. I make her Cajun Jambalaya more than any other recipe - it's simply delicious.

Cherry Pie - Recipe Video

Here is a link to her Jambalaya recipe with text and yummy photos.

Mom was always popular with my high school buddies, especially during lunch or dinner time. She brought her Tex-Mex Enchiladas to Cajun Country, and my Louisiana friend Marvin ate them up!

Me, Marvin & Dennis

During a recent Louisiana visit, I had him over when I filmed Mom making Tex-Mex Enchilidas. Marvin liked the Enchiladas so much, he had a flashback to our high school daze.

Make sure to watch my wacky recipe video to the end, that's when our flashback hijinx really gets smoking (wink, nudge.)

Mom's Chili Cheese Enchiladas - Recipe Video

Mom takes a star turn with her next video recipe, her popular Chicken and Sausage Gumbo.

It's a traditional Southern dish and its cheap, too. Just chicken, sausage and the Cajun veggie trinity of bell pepper, celery and onion. What gives Gumbo it's unique taste is a dark brown roux, which is flour cooked in oil until chocolate brown.

Just check out the video below - Mom will take you through the steps. And, as an added bonus, my oldest sister Brenda makes a nagging appearance a few minutes in.

Gumbo - Recipe Video

Click here to read all about making Mom's homemade Gumbo, from roux to rice!

My Mom's Cajun Potato Salad is the perfect side to her Gumbo and Jambalaya. When she visited me in Los Angeles I got her to do it on camera. I couldn't help but give her a hard time about the recipe. I called it Cajun Mashed Potatoes and she called it Cajun Potato Salad - well, I guess you'll have to watch the video below to see who wins that argument!

Mom's Cajun Potato Salad - Recipe Video

I satiate my sweet tooth during visits with Mom. And the best of her pastry delights are Mini-Pecan Pies. If I couldn't make it for the Christmas holiday, then she would send a shoe-boxed size package with a dozen of these tasty pies.

Mom attracts a kitchen-full of hungry relatives when these pies come hot out of the oven. And it's a miracle they were done right because this Chef de Shutterbug was shoving a camera in her face (and a hot oven) during the whole procedure. We butted heads a few times, but fortunately, it all turned out fine.

I even came up with a way to dodge the high prices for pecans - so check out the video below to learn my budget secrets.

Cherry Pie - Recipe Video

And click here to see Mom's Mini-Pecan Pies recipe with text and tasty photos.

Mom has lived half her life in Gonzales, Louisiana. One of my visits there fell on Christmas, and she pulled out all the stops with a huge holiday spread, that included Pumpkin Pie. I got her on video making it, and it turned out perfect, as you will see below.

The recipe is a traditional one made with simple ingredients. The pumpkin came from a can, but the crust was handmade with wheat flour.

Pumpkin Pie - Recipe Video

All the easy to follow steps are written out here, and with delish photos, too.

Now, Mom is no angel -- hey, who is? Recently my brother from another daddy, the Swamp Chef, with his Spanish moss and all.

When I asked Mom: "Who's the Swamp Chef's daddy?" Her reply was: "That's a very good question!" I guess Mom will spill the beans one day, until then, check out the video below for a dessert good enough to cajole the Swamp Chef out of the bayou!

Cherry Pie - Recipe Video

Happy Mother's Day to all you lovely ladies, and especially to my Mom - I love you!

Mom's Shrimp & Rice - Video Recipe

Mom is back and she cooks up one of her family classics for you, it's her Shrimp & Rice recipe. It's so good I had to make a video.

This Tex-Mex dish is the real thing, too. When I was a kid, we lived for a few years on the Gulf Coast in Port O'Connor, Texas with Mom's parents, Big Mama and Big Daddy. He was a shrimp boat captain, so you know there was always a freezer full of jumbo shrimp he would skim off the catch.

We had shrimp fried, grilled, and, of course, steamed in rice with tomato sauce. There was always a pot of pinto beans on the stove top, so beans were mixed into the Shrimp & Rice and scooped up with warm flour tortillas homemade by Big Mama. Boy, was that a filling seafood meal. I look back on it now and realize how good we had it.

Well, I finally got around to getting Mom to make our family recipe of Shrimp & Rice for you - on camera this time.

Shrimp is quite expensive, so it's always a special occasion when Mom cooks Shrimp & Rice. And the grapevine starts simmering when it gets out Shrimp & Rice is on the menu, so expect a lot of drop-ins, like my niece Candyse.

Be sure to watch the video all the way through to check out all the freeloaders, I mean, close family -- including me, the biggest moocher of them all.

The recipe is easy to do, but there is one peculiar culinary twist, Mom learned to first saute the raw rice in oil. Toasting rice is a Mexican technique that will keep the rice from clumping and sticking together, and the rice kernels will split open when steamed. So the rice texture is different than you may be used to.

Mom doesn't saute the rice too long; just look for some of the rice grains to turn light brown, then add the wet ingredients and spices.  You don't want all the rice to brown, or some will surely scorch, then you will have a slightly burnt undertaste.

The other main ingredient is a small 8 ounce cheap can of tomato sauce. Mom adds extra spice with ground cumin and creole seasoning. The Creole seasoning is a nod to her present home in Louisiana.

Click on any photo to see larger.

She also adds dried cilantro. But if you don't have cumin, cilantro or Creole seasonings then leave them out -- I'm sure they did not have those spices easily available to her mom, Big Mama, when she was growing up.

This recipe calls for a pound of peeled shrimp. Now the trick to cooking shrimp is not to overcook them. So she adds peeled shrimp during the last 10 minutes, when the rice is almost done.

You know how expensive shrimp are these days, but sometimes they do come on sale for less than $5 per pound. I even get small bay shrimp at my local Dollar Tree and 99c only Stores. But because Mom has Gulf Coast shrimp connections for free shrimp,  this video recipe is going all out!

If you are fortunate to find raw unpeeled jumbo shrimp then make sure to pay attention when Mom shows you how to peel and devein a jumbo shrimp. Large shrimp sometimes have a gritty black thin vein along the shrimp backbone side. It's easy enough to remove and Mom has all the moves down pat.

Cheaper tiny Bay shrimp don't have a gritty vein to worry about, and if you get peeled and packaged shrimp they are ready to cook.

Removing vein from jumbo shrimp.

Mom's Shrimp & Rice recipe uses more water for cooking the rice than normal. She adds an extra half cup of water at the end, when she also adds the raw shrimp. She is going for a slight soupy finish - kinda like a risotto. We always had the recipe with white rice, but okay to use brown rice.

When the extra water and raw shrimp are added you finish cooking it altogether another 10 minutes. Turn off the heat and let the rice and shrimp set for another 10 minutes so all the flavors come together.

While you are waiting, heat up pinto beans and a few flour tortillas -- that's the Tex-Mex way. Mom always has a couple of Ziploc bags of Homemade Pinto Beans in the freezer ready to be defrosted.

My recipe to make your own Pinto Beans is a click away, here. It's okay to use any fave canned pinto beans, too.

I gotta give it up to Mom who is so generous to share her family's famous Shrimp & Rice recipe. It's actually a simple recipe made with a whole lotta love and care, just what you expect from my Mom.

Mom's Shrimp & Rice - VIDEO

Play it here, video runs 8 minutes 51 seconds.

My YouTube video link for viewing or embedding, just click here.

Ingredients (about 4-6 servings with pinto beans)

• 1 pound peeled shrimp - Mom uses jumbo shrimp, but it's okay to use any size shrimp you find on sale, including tiny bay shrimp or salad shrimp.
• 1 cup of rice - white or brown rice
• 2 tablespoons olive oil - okay to use regular vegetable oil. Oil is for browning the rice.
• 1/2 onion - chopped
• 2 cloves garlic - about a teaspoon chopped.
• 1/2 green bell pepper- chopped
• 1 whole green onion - chopped
• 2 1/2 cups water - to steam rice. Start with 2 cups water, then during last 10 minutes of cooking, add half a cup more.
• 8 ounce can tomato sauce - to flavor rice.
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin - optional.
• Creole seasoning to taste - optional.
• 1 teaspoon dried cilantro -  optional. Okay to use fresh cilantro. 
• Salt and pepper to taste - if you use Creole seasoning, it's okay to leave out salt.

First chop the veggies, so you can add them right when the rice is browned and ready to steam.  Chop half an onion and 2 cloves of garlic.

Also, chop half a green bell pepper and one whole green onion.

Add 2 tablespoons of oil to a pot over low/medium heat. Pour in one cup of rice. You want to stir the rice to coat all the grains in oil, so it all cooks evenly.

Stir and saute the rice about 10 minutes (depending on the heat.) What you want is some of the rice grains to be lightly toasted and brown. It is better to under-brown than burn the rice.

Stir the rice as it browns, so it doesn't burn. When the rice is toasted add the chopped onion, garlic, bell pepper and green onion.

Saute the veggies and rice about 5 minutes, to soften veggies.

Pour in the water and a small 8 ounce of tomato sauce.

Now add the spices. One teaspoon ground cumin and dried cilantro (these spices are optional.)

Season with salt and pepper to taste. Since Mom lives in Louisiana she has to add a few big shakes of Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning (again, optional.)

Mix all the ingredients well. Turn up the heat to high and bring the rice and liquid up to a boil. As soon as it starts to boil, reduce heat to low and cover the pot of rice.  You want to cook the rice at a low simmer for 20 minutes.

While the rice cooks, you prepare the shrimp if necessary. You can use prepared packaged shrimp that are already peeled and deveined.

Small Bay shrimp are usually ready to cook, and sometimes even pre-cooked.  If you use precooked shrimp then you add them at the very end of this recipe. All you want to do with precooked shrimp is heat them up for no more than 5 minutes total.

If you are working with unpeeled shrimp it is not hard to clean them. Mom uses headless shrimp with the shell on.  What you do is peel a couple of shell segments on where the shrimp head was. Once a couple of shell segments are removed you can pinch the tail and pull off the segments that are left, along with the tail.

Peel off shrimp shell

Sometimes the shrimp tail breaks-off, so you will have to peel each and every shrimp shell segment.  As with any task, practice makes perfect, so the more you do it the better you get. Again you can use peeled shrimp that are ready to cook. You might want to go the prepared route if you have never peeled raw shrimp before.

Large and jumbo shrimp may have a gritty dark "vein" along the backside of a peeled shrimp. Just slice into the back of a shrimp and remove it. Watch the GIF below to see how Mom does it. Some shrimp have the vein and some don't -- kind of depends how large the shrimp are. Small bay shrimp don't have "veins" large enough to notice.

De-vein shrimp

Because the jumbo shrimp are so large she slices each shrimp into bite sizes. For small shrimp, you can leave them whole, or just slice once or twice to make bite-sized.

Once the rice has cooked for 20 minutes uncover and add half a cup more of water. Add the peeled and sliced shrimp to rice.

Adding extra water during the final cooking phase will give Shrimp & Rice a risotto-like dampness.

Bring rice and water to a boil, reduce heat to low. Cover and cook another 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes turn off heat and let it all just set for a final ten minutes, so all the ingredients blend and flavor the Shrimp & Rice.

You can serve with flour tortillas and pinto beans - that's the way we do it, Tex-Mex style.