You may have seen advertisements for the Great American Seafood cook off on the Food Network.  It is brought to you by the Louisiana Seafood Promotion Board.

I visited the site and reviewed the recipes.  Since I’m partial to creole cooking I selected the Mississippi Redfish Courtboullion with Seafood Dirty Rice.  The recipe was created by Chef John Currence of Mississippi. The picture makes the recipe look yummy…I’m hungry just thinking about it.  Or maybe I’m hungry because I skipped breakfast this morning.  It still looks yummy though.

There is one thing that I would change about the recipe.  I would replace the Top Shock beer in the dirty rice portion of the recipe with Bell’s Oberon beer.  Oberon is a local favorite and would give the dirty rice more of a Michigan flair.  Hmm I’m thinking of giving the recipe a try this weekend.

All the recipes include domestic seafood. This means that the seafood is both fresh and locally caught.  Of course fresh seafood has better taste and texture than seafood that has been sitting in a container ship of days.  Buying seafood caught locally helps our economy and this year the economy needs the help.

Due to regulations that apply to domestic fishing our seafood is a sustainable resource.  There is no need to worry about over fishing that could create a shortage that could lead to higher seafood prices.

So check out the contest and the recipes at www.GreatAmericanSeafoodCookOff.com.  If you enter and vote you could even win a trip to New Orleans!