We get really excited when our Desperation Dinners newspaper readers “redo” our recipes. Why?

For starters, it lets us know we’re not working in a vacuum – that folks out there really are using our recipes. It makes us try harder to get them right – to make these recipes the best they can be. But try as we might, and as hard as we might work on them, recipes at their best really are a collective effort. (Most of them, anyway.)

So when Anne Marshall, a Desperation Dinners reader from Statesville, N.C., wrote to us about her “redo” of our Faux Maque Choux, a Cajun-style corn and tomato stew, we felt the need to pass along the results of her efforts:

“I tried your Maque Choux recipe and loved it,” Anne said. “The next time I made it, I saved even more time by buying the celery, onion and green peppers already chopped up at the grocery store. Then I put the chopped vegetables in a microwave-safe bowl and sauteed them for about 4-5 minutes.

“Then instead of adding the flour into the vegetables, I added it to the corn and chicken broth while I pulverized it. Also I wanted to have a more-hearty stew so I cooked 1 cup of medium macaroni and cut up a ring of kielbasa into one-inch pieces and added them to the stew. Delicious!”

We think it sounds pretty delicious, too. So thanks Anne for your take on this easy, quick stew. Click here for our version, and feel free to try Anne’s updates. Then tell us what YOU think!