Jumble of Jambalaya



soupy goodness
refined recipe will arrive here one day!

Leftovers are truly a blessing.  I've been enjoying them thoroughly this week.  I made a great curried soup on Sunday which contained Lentils, Quinoa, Sweet Potato, and Swiss Chard.   It was actually very good but the recipe needs some refinement before I share it (but see the picture included in this post).  Let's call it a work in progress.   I had the last of it for lunch today - delish.

  The recipe I do want to share is a great weeknight recipe.  See, sometimes I love to cook and go all out with the best and greatest ever, you know - do something special.  Sometimes though special is something easy, simple, good tasting and RELIABLE.



Messy and delicious JAMBALAYA

Since I already cook like I have  family of four, I've become a watcher of things that family mom's look at, such as Kraftcanada.com and Canadianliving.com  This recipe is adapted from Canadian Living.

JAMBALAYA

You can spice it up, keep it low on spice, use real sausage, use smoked sausage, omit the shrimp, use ham instead! Whatever, I think the whole point of jambalaya is that you can do whatever you want and it's tasty.  period. 

 The original link is here:  http://www.canadianliving.com/food/traditional_jambalaya.php

My version (extremely similar)  is here:

1lb of boneless skinless chicken breast meat cubed
8oz of Kielbasa sausage (lean, or turkey) - sliced and quartered (make it chunky)
2 t of veg oil
1 small red pepper chopped
1 small green pepper chopped
2 stalks of celery chopped
1 small onion chopped fine
2 cloves of garlic minced
2 bay leaves
2t of chili powder
1t cumin
few shakes of hot sauce or a couple nice dashes of cayenne
1/4 t of salt
fresh ground pepper (a few turns)
1 1/4C parboiled rice
2C turkey stock (I had a surplus of this in the freezer in 2C servings, chicken stock or broth is perfect too)
1 19oz can of chili style stewed tomatoes
1/3 C or so of white wine or sparkling cider
About a cup of frozen peas (leave these out to thaw a bit during the cooking process)
8 oz of large shrimp, uncooked, peeled, washed, de-tailed.

Heat your oil on medium+ cook your chicken (until cooked and browned) remove, put in the kielbasa and stir around until nice and brown (3 or 4 minutes) remove.  Put in your onion and garlic chili powder and cumin, stir around until golden.  Add your cider or white wine to deglaze the pan.  Add your peppers, celery and rice - and stir well and make sure everything's nice and coated.  Put in tomatoes, stock, bay leaves, meats, salt and pepper, and a few dashes of your hot sauce.  Boil and then cover and bring to a simmer for about 20 minutes.  Remove lid - add your shrimp and peas and give a good stir.  Jambalaya is ready when the shrimp is pink and cooked through.   For a more mild version omit the hot sauce.


Makes 4 insanely generous servings.