Jambalayayayayaya

Jambalaya

Hello friends! It's been a long month and some days. I was at training for a new job and then David was away for 2 weeks and I wasn't really in the food experimenting mood. It's nice to have someone around who likes everything I cook. This week we are making all kinds of new things, and I have a few on back log to update on too! I feel like I've spent so much time blogging, but I have like 5 recipes on here. So I'm going to try to be more effective. Between making my cards (See other tab) and loving my crock pot, I'll be quite busy in the next few months!

Weekly Groceries:

This week we spent $60 on groceries (actually 59.58, UNDER BUDGET!) ($60 not including coffee and baggies).

Meals this week include:

Jambalaya

Black Bean, Corn, and Chicken Salad

Chicken Soup

Quiche

Pulled pork with Turnip tops (they didn't have collared greens)

Hamburgers

Ranch Baked Chicken

Here is: Jambalaya!

Ingredients:

Group 1:

1 Diced Chicken breast

4 chopped spicy Italian sausages

1 chopped white onion

1 large green bell pepper, seeded and chopped $

3 stalks celery, chopped $

1 (28 oz.) can diced tomatoes with juice $

3 big scoops minced garlic

2 cups chicken broth

1 tablespoon Creole spice mix

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 pound shrimp, peeled and de-veined

Group 2:

1 package Uncle Ben's Mixed long-grain rice (without seasoning)

What I did:

STEP 1: Dice chicken breast, cut up sausage, and shell/de-vein shrimp. Set aside.

STEP 2: Chop onion and celery ( I usually cut celery in 3 long pieces and then chop across because it's easier to handle and be consistent in size.) Add to crock pot.

STEP 3: Add 2 C. chicken broth and big can of diced tomatoes.

STEP 4: Slowly add the meats, stirring as you go so that the meats separate and don't all cook stuck in big chunks.

STEP 5: Add all of the spices. And a few shots of Tabasco!

**Let sit on Low for 5-6 hours***

STEP 6: 30 minutes before you're ready to eat, add in the box of rice (save the seasonings for another night!) and set the timer. We ate oven toast with salt and pepper and butter on the side.

Notes: The original recipe says to add the shrimp at the very end but I was just so excited that I accidentally added it all at the beginning. I do know that from cooking shows and stuff, that cooking shrimp in the shells brings out the flavor way more, but David isn't really into pulling shells out of his food so I gave him a break on that one.

Funny Note: When I was at the grocery store, the fish man was very much interested in telling me how to cook shrimp. (David says that that is because I told him I wanted cooked shrimp and then pointed at the uncooked shrimp so he thought I was clueless, but I think it was something else.) I laughed, because I have been eating shrimp for at least as long as he has been working there I'm sure. I think it was like in the top 10 hard foods I ate or something. I'm just making that up, but I've literally been eating shrimp for as long as I can remember.

Happy Cooking!-Charlotte