HEAVENLY RECIPES

Robin makes Seafood Cornbread Dressing

STORY BY JANET MARCEL

This month’s Heavenly Recipe, Seafood Cornbread Dressing, comes from Robin Lapeyrouse, mother of the Rev. Mr. Joseph Lapeyrouse who is scheduled to be ordained a priest for the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux this month.

“My dad got this recipe years and years ago; he modified and adjusted it, so it really became his recipe,” says Robin. “Since he passed away, the recipe is even more special to us now. I usually make it for Halloween. It’s everybody’s favorite.”

Robin says she does most of the cooking at home and it is something she enjoys when she has the time. Her husband also cooks sometimes, but he really likes to grill.

She learned to cook from her mother, whom she says is a fabulous cook and baker. “I’ll never be as good as her. I bake a little, but my mother is the dessert maker.”

Robin retired last year from the Terrebonne Parish public school system, where she worked as a speech therapist.

Some of her hobbies are reading, binge watching some of her favorite T.V. shows, spending time with family and friends, and going to events at Tulane and Tulane football games with her husband. She is also a member of the Mardi Gras Krewe of Hyacinthians.

The Chauvin native moved to Houma after she got married. She and her husband Chris have been married 36 years this month. They are parishioners of the Cathedral of St. Francis de Sales in Houma. Other than her son Joseph, who is 26, they also have a daughter Emma Dufrene, who is 29. Emma and her husband John are expecting their first child – Robin and Chris’ first grandchild –in September.

Robin says she first noticed Joseph might be thinking about becoming a priest during his first semester of college. “I could tell he wasn’t happy … that something wasn’t going right, but he said everything with school was fine. Then in the middle of the semester, he made up his mind to enter the seminary and discern if he was being called to the priesthood. Joseph was always quiet and introverted so him wanting to become a priest was surprising to me, but it was typical for Joseph to make decisions on his own like that, so that part wasn’t surprising.”

Joseph was studying engineering and he told them he knew that wasn’t what he was supposed to be doing with his life.

Robin says any fears or reservations she may have had about his decision to become a priest, Joseph quickly put to rest. “I asked him if he would be able to do things like give homilies and marry people since he was so introverted, and he said he ‘wasn’t worried about knowing what to say because God would give him the words.’”

INGREDIENTS:

3 boxes Jiffy Cornbread, baked and crumbled

1 small bunch of parsley, chopped

2 large yellow onions

2 bunches green onions

DIRECTIONS:

1-1/2 cans chicken broth

1 lb. crabmeat (claw meat)

3 lbs. small shrimp

1/2 stick of butter

Tony Chachere’s Creole

Seasoning

Sauté green onions and yellow onions in butter until tender; add crabmeat, shrimp, parsley and some Tony Chachere’s seasoning. Cook for 10 minutes on medium heat.

Mix chicken broth, cornbread, crab and shrimp – mixture should be very soft to allow for loss of moisture during baking. Pour into buttered baking dish. Sprinkle Tony Chachere’s seasoning over top. Bake at 300 degrees in a buttered 9 X 13 inch baking dish (or two smaller baking dishes) for 1 hour until done.

If preparing in advance, bake for 45 minutes, cool, then refrigerate. Remove from refrigerator to warm a little then finish baking until center is hot. This recipe may also be split into two smaller pans for sharing or serving at separate meals.

The only other “fear” she and her husband had was that they didn’t know how to help him because they didn’t know how a person becomes a priest. “That’s a scary thing for a parent when you don’t know how to help your child get to where they want to be. When he entered St. Joseph Seminary, Robin says they told her and Chris, “Our job is to make men into good priests. Give him to us and we will do that.”

“The person we watched him evolve into is who he is supposed to be. He’s so different from the person he started out as before he went to the seminary. He’s grown so much in knowledge and in his faith. We’re just so proud of him. He is so certain that he is doing what he is supposed to do, and he is where God wants him to be. He completely gave himself to this journey and dedicated his whole life to it,” says his mother. “It was a long, hard journey but it is what they (seminarians) need and it’s all worth it in the end. And, as parents we are on that journey with them, also; and we have to learn to kind of give them up and just support them and love them.”