Recipe: Jambalaya {bad things happen when I don’t eat}

July 19, 2011 11 Comments

Somehow in the past few months I seemed to have forgotten my passion for cooking. Let’s take a moment to ponder how the heck this is even possible. Somewhere between leaving a job of over four years, attempting to sell a house, subsequently becoming a landlord, selling off and donating an insane amount of my possessions, a crazy condo hunt, leaving my family and home state of 26 years, a HORRIBLE moving experience, starting a new job, and immersing myself in the culinary delights of a new city I forgot how much fun and just how darn rewarding a home cooked meal can be.

Blasphemy!

Through these past few whirlwind months I’ve been a little *ahem* emotional. Ok, not just emotional. Let’s also throw in irrational, brash, and downright scary at times. This Saturday I actually cried over burnt pizza. I CRIED, PEOPLE. And then I sat on the living room floor with my knees clenched up to my chest and just stared off into nothingness as my body seethed in furry searching for some sort of carbohydrate to peak my bottomed out blood sugar.

I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again: bad things happen when I don’t eat.

While I was in the midst of nuclear shutdown, the BF came over, sat down beside me, and put his arm around his little sugar feigning zombie. And we sat. And then he did what any good man would do: he didn’t talk, didn’t ask questions, he just got up from the floor sauntered over to the kitchen and made me a snack.

I know, right?

Why can’t I see things so simply? Is it really just a man thing? Are women really just crazy complex, overanalyzing, (often) emotional basket cases? Whatever the case may be (lord knows I don’t have the answers) the BF does a pretty darn good job of reeling me back from Mary’s Land of Anxious Gloom by trying to insert some of the simple things into my life. Sunday morning he convinced me to simply sit on the porch and drink mimosas, and Sunday night we simply made jambalaya for dinner.

This was simply stick to your ribs delicious, guys. I’m serious. It gave the jambalaya we had in New Orleans a run for the money!

Jambalaya

Recipe adapted from Cooking Light’s Jambalaya.

2 links hot chicken or turkey sausage (cooked and sliced)
1 cup white onion (chopped)
1/2 cup celery (chopped)
1/2 cup green pepper (chopped)
3 cloves garlic (minced)
1.5 cups uncooked long grain brown rice
3 cups fat-free low-sodium chicken broth
1 tbsp paprika (smoked, if you have it)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground thyme
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepepr
16oz cooked chicken breast (cubed)
14.5oz can diced tomatoes with green peppers and onions (undrained)
4oz shrimp (uncooked)
1/2 cup green onions (thinly sliced)

Note: I recommend Uncle Ben’s Fast & Natural Whole Grain Brown Rice and Harris Teeter hot chicken sausage or Jennie-O Turkey Sausage.

Step 1: Coat a large pot with cooking spray then heat over medium-high heat. Add sausage, onion, green pepper, celery, and garlic. Cover, reduce heat to low, and cook 12 minutes or until vegetables are tender, stirring occasionally.

Step 2: Stir in uncooked rice and cook for two minutes, stirring constantly. Add broth and all the spices and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 15 minutes.

Step 3: Add chicken and tomatoes, half of the green onions, and shrimp. Stir, then cover and cook 8 minutes or until shrimp are done.

Step 4: Remove from heat, sprinkle with remaining green onions, and eat your face off.

Stats on 1 serving: 344 calories, 45g carbs, 6g fat, 33g protein, 4g fiber

Looking for a Jambalaya-for-one recipe? Check out this post.

Looking for a crazy, borderline incoherent, slightly volatile woman? Catch me on a day when I miss my midmorning snack.

Recipes

Jambalaya. Jealous?

November 1, 2010 9 Comments

Every time I think of New Orleans, I hear the Zatarain’s rice commercial in my head. You know… Zatarain’s! (Said with much sass and flavor while jazz music wails in the background). Even before my trip to the Big Easy, I had this funny mental quirk.

This thought popped into my head tonight when I began to think about what to make for dinner. I was presented with the following challenge: what do you make when you’ve got leftover meats out the wazoo?

JAMBALAYA of course! It seems like ages since I last made Jambalaya! Well at least four months anyway. I had some chicken leftover from last week’s lunch and the turkey sausage was leftover from my Zuppa Tuscana…

Lucky for me, I keep frozen shrimp in the freezer at all times in case of emergency. So whipping together a 3-meat entre was easy peasy tonight!

3 meats, one dish:

The meats were ready to roll, so I heated the oven up to 400 degrees and got to choppin 2 roma tomatoes, 1/2 a white onion, and 1 green pepper:

I tossed the veggies into a bowl with:

1 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp onion powder
2 tsp minced garlic

I gave everything a good toss, then added:

1 cup brown rice
1 cup low sodium chicken broth

I intended on using 1.5 cups of brown rice, but I ran out! Ooops! That’s what happens when I grocery shop without taking inventory first! Dangit!

I divided the mix up evenly among three foil packets that I had sprayed down with some nonstick cooking spray:

One for my dinner, one for my lunch, and one for the BF’s lunch because I’m clearly dabomb.com.

I popped the packets into the oven for 30 minutes, and VOOOOILLLAAA!

Oh so spicy, and ohhhhh so delicious!

Yes, the jambalaya we had in New Orleans (and again) was a teensy bit tastier than my healthified version, but I’d like to see NOLA try and stack up to these stats:

Stats on 1 serving: 314 calories, 33g carbs, 9g fat, 27g protein, 3g fiber

Jambalaya Ingredients List (serves 3):

6 large shrimp, tails removed
2 links Jennie-O Hot Turkey Sausage
3 ounces grilled chicken
1 green bell pepper
2 plum tomatoes
1/2 a white onion
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp onion powder
1 cup reduced sodium low fat chicken broth

Recipes

Jambalaya!

June 21, 2010 10 Comments

Ever since I saw the recipe for Cajun Jambalaya in the July 2010 issue of Clean Eating magazine, I’ve been dying to try it!

Luckily, I already had some leftover grilled chicken from last week and leftover turkey sausage from the “corn dog” I made over the weekend, so there wasn’t a ton of prep work for me to do. You could definitely use raw meats though–everything is chopped into bite size pieces so it cooks through pretty fast.

I can’t believe how ridiculously easy this was! Basically, I mixed the following list of items together in a bowl:

4 raw medium size shrimp, tails removed
1/2 link Jennie-O Hot Turkey Sausage
2 ounces grilled chicken
1/2 medium green bell pepper, chopped
1 plum tomato, chopped
1/4 cup white onion chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
Sprinkling of S&P, onion powder, red pepper flakes
1/2 cup dry brown rice
1/4 cup low sodium chicken broth

Then I layed out a big piece of foil, sprayed it down with olive oil cooking spray, and dumped everything onto the foil:

Then you just wrap it up like a Chipotle burrito — making sure that the edges are sealed tight so the liquid doesn’t leak out. Pop into a 400 degree oven for 25 minutes, and VOILA!

JAMBALAYA!

This was spiiiiiiicy! I loved it! And it made a TON of food. One note for next time — some of the rice that was sitting on the top of the pile got a little crunchy. I think this can be fixed by either soaking the rice in water before putting it in the mix, or by adding more liquid to the pouch.

I’m in love with this foil pouch cooking method!

Stats on the Jambalaya: 384 calories, 46g carbs, 8g fat, 30g protein, 5g fiber