Another version of jambalaya

Cajun Jambalaya
Cooking Healthy Across America Copyright 2005

½ pound chopped ham, tasso, andouille sausage, or smoked sausage
1 large onion, chopped
2 ribs celery, chopped
1 large green bell pepper, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 ½ cups uncooked rice
1 14-ounce cans reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 teaspoon seasoned salt
1 bay leaf
½ pound cooked chicken, cut into bite-size pieces
½ to 1 teaspoon hot sauce

Brown the ham or the sausage in a heavy 3-quart kettle, over high heat for about 5 to 7 minutes. Reduce heat to medium. Add the onion, celery, green pepper and garlic. Cook and stir until the vegetables are lightly browned and wilted, about 5 minutes.

Add the dry rice and stir for about 5 minutes, until the rice has some color. Add the chicken broth and stir to loosen any scrapings from the bottom of the pot. Add the seasoned salt and bay leaf. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cook on low for 25 minutes, or until all the liquid is absorbed.

Remove the bay leaf; fluff the rice. Stir in the chicken and hot sauce. I splashed some hot sauce on the top too.

Makes 8 servings. Per 1 ¾ cup serving: 320 cal, 12 g fat, 4 g sat fat, 45 mg chol, 520 mg sodium, 32 g carbs, 2 g fiber, 21 g protein
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Gosh, how many times have I made jambalaya? Several times but still probably not often enough. It's something that we all enjoy. Even my son asked for seconds. I really should put it on the menu more often.

Some recipes call for tomato but this one did not. It was still pretty good but I might prefer versions with a bit of tomato. I used up a couple of links of Polish sausage that I had in the freezer for the pork portion of this recipe. I love when I get rid of something out of the freezer.

I froze this since I made it Sunday and we weren't eating it until later in the week. It didn't suffer too much from the freezing.

I'll say it again, cooking ahead of time on the weekend has done wonders for my weekdays. I just have to figure out a way to make it take less time out of my weekend.

Question of the Day: Do you have anything in your freezer right now that is fully-cooked that you could pull out for dinner tonight if you had to? Something you would just need to heat and heat?

Not a bad little pasta dish

Bow Ties with Chicken and Mushrooms
The Spaghetti Sauce Gourmet Copyright 2006

12 ounces bow-tie pasta I used Smart Taste rotini
1 pound chicken tenders, cut into 2-inch long strips I used chicken breasts
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound cremini or white mushrooms I sliced them, I'm not sure if I was supposed to or not
1 tablespoon preminced oil-packed garlic I used regular jarred garlic
1 teaspoon dried thyme
½ cup dry white wine or sherry I used sherry
1 ½ cups refrigerated or jarred alfredo sauce I used light alfredo sauce, an entire jar
¼ cup chopped fresh parsley I used some dried

Cook the pasta according to package directions.

Meanwhile, lightly season the chicken with salt and pepper. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and cook until no longer pink, about 5 minutes, turning once or twice. Remove to a plate and cover to keep warm.

Add the mushrooms, garlic and thyme to the pan. Cook until mushrooms begin to release their liquid, about 5 minutes. Add the wine and simmer, scraping the pan bottom, until liquid is almost gone, 3 to 4 minutes.

Reduce the heat to low and add the Alfredo sauce and 2 tablespoons of the parsley. Return the chicken to the pan and heat through, 2 to 3 minutes.

Drain the pasta mix with ½ cup of the sauce to moisten Divide among the pasta plates and spoon the sauce over the top. Scatter on the remaining parsley.

Makes 4 servings.
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I had a bottle of light Alfredo sauce that bought on a whim thinking it would make a quick dinner. I also had mushrooms that I bought for another recipe that never got made. This seemed like a good recipe to make use of those ingredients. All of the other items I needed are staples.

I made this ahead of time so the pasta absorbed most of the sauce by the time I photographed it. The flavor was still there, it just wasn't as creamy as it should have been, as it was when it was fresh. I should have kept the pasta and sauce separate until we ate this but I had a million things going on in the kitchen on Sunday. Is it worth losing the creamy sauce to cook ahead? I'd have to say yes. As much as I felt put out doing all of that cooking on Sunday, it's been a dream to come home and just heat up dinner all week.

Well it's been snowing and sleeting so we'll be home today. Maybe I can catch up with life a bit. There's more than a day's worth of catching up to do though.

Question of the Day: Do you use other jarred pasta sauces besides your basic tomato sauces? I rarely do. Sometimes I use a white sauce for pizza. I was on a pesto kick a few years ago but I avoid that now as we avoid all nuts (I know, pine nuts are a seed but until my son is old enough to understand the nuances, we are a bit more strict in what we avoid).

Enjoying the fruits of another blogger's labor

Crock-Pot Pulled Pork
from Cassie's Ruminations

1 pork shoulder roast, 4-5 pounds
2 12-oz cans Barq’s Root Beer (Cassie suggest the spicier bite of Barq’s so I used her suggestion)
10 fl oz (a bit more than ½ a bottle) Sweet Baby Ray’s Barbecue Sauce This was Cassie's preference and I went right along with it
8 kaiser rolls
1 small jar pepperoncini, aka pickled peppers

Put the roast into a large crock-pot and pour the root beer over the top. Cook on low for 8 hours.

Remove the roast to a large plate or bowl. Drain the liquid from the crock-pot, reserving about ½ cup. Pull the pork into pieces using two forks or your fingers. Return the meat to the crock-pot. Pour the barbecue sauce over the top and add the reserved ½ cup of cooking liquid. Stir to combine and cook for another ½-1 hour on low. Serve on toasted rolls (I didn't toast - too lazy) with extra barbecue sauce and pickled peppers, if desired.

(Cassie has the nutritional info if you want it but this isn't all that healthy. That's why I went light on the meat.)
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Before getting to this recipe, let me just clarify that yesterday wasn't my swan song but it was just to let you know that I am going to stop making excuses and apologizing for not posting regularly anymore since it's most likely that I just won't be posting regularly anymore and the excuses and apologies are getting old. I'm still going to be posting as much as I can muster.

For the longest time I've tried to stick to the theme here, mainly posting cookbook recipes. Yes, I strayed every now and then, but I really did make a concentrated effort.

The problem with doing that however is that I was so busy trying to work in cookbook recipes that I didn't have time to make the recipes that I was coming across on the blogs that I enjoy reading - recipes that someone else has already done the legwork for me. I'm no longer going to hold back - when I see a recipe I want to make I'm going to make it and I'm probably going to tell you about it here.

You can see that I wasted no time in trying Cassie's recipe for pulled pork. She posted it on the 20th and I made it on the 25th (although we ended up having it for dinner on the 26th since my husband was recovering from a stomach bug on the 25th). I'm a huge fan of pulled pork. I often order it when I see it on a menu.

I've not had the best luck making it myself - until now. I believe the key is adding the barbecue sauce at the end and only using some of the cooking liquid. Other recipes often have the pork simmer in what is to become the sauce. The meat is shredded and placed back in the sauce but the cooking liquid tends to be quite diluted so you don't get that full flavor. Removing the pork from the cooking liquid, adding the thick barbecue sauce and just enough cooking liquid to round it out really makes this perfect. This recipe does depend on the quality of your barbecue sauce but there is no shortage of quality barbecue sauces out there. I highly recommend Sweet Baby Ray's (original version) for this. And you do need a fatty piece of pork for this. It just won't be the same with lean pork.

This was so much like I would expect to get in a restaurant. I loved it. My only regret was that Aunt Nancy's Coleslaw would have been perfect with this but as easy as it is to make (and I've already made it twice), I just didn't have any extra bit of time to make it.

I should have saved more of the cooking liquid since I needed to reheat this the next day and while it wasn't dry, it wasn't quite as saucy as it should have been (as it was the day that I made it). I thought about adding a splash of root beer but I didn't want to take a chance of messing up the flavor at that point.

I loved the pepperoncini on this too. They cut the sweetness of the pork. I think they also elevated this meal from something my husband would tolerate (he's not the big pork fan that I am) to something that he really enjoyed since he loves any sort of spicy pepper. My son ate his meat bunless and asked for seconds. He said it was like chili. He loves root beer and he saw me use it in this recipe so I think that helped pique his interest in this recipe too.

Cassie has many great recipes on her blog so be sure to check it out.

Question of the Day: What's your favorite commercial barbecue sauce? (I feel as if I've asked that before but I lose track of these questions. ) We like Sweet Baby Ray's and Jack Daniel's but I also don't mind Hunt's which is very inexpensive.

Has the cheese finally slipped off my cracker?

I keep thinking things are going to settle down but maybe I'm wrong. After the baby got sick Wednesday night, I got sick Friday night and my husband was sick on Sunday. I just keep falling further and further behind in life.

I've been trying to do most of my cooking for the week on Sunday which helps me a lot during the week but it doesn't do much for my Sundays. When I rush through all that cooking at once, it's hard to get pictures and post about it all.

I really love my blog but I'm not sure where it should fall in my list if priorities right now so bear with me while I figure this all out.

Maybe, just maybe, I'll be joining the ranks of those casual bloggers who only post every now and again. Maybe I have already become one of those and I just don't realize it?

Sorry

This time it was the baby who caught the stomach bug. I just can't seem to get back into my 5 posts a week routine no matter how hard I try.