shrimp and sausage jambalaya

Oh dear. Oh my. This is very, very good.

I've been wanting to try my hand at jambalaya for a while now. When I saw Amelia Durand make her northern Louisiana family's recipe on Barefoot Contessa, I knew the time had come.

I followed her recipe pretty closely, except for only using 2 cans of chicken broth. The next time I make it, I'll probably leave out the ham - it didn't add enough to the flavor of the dish to be worth what it added in fat.

It also gave me a chance to teach you a few of my favorite kitchen tricks, like chopping veggies while the protein browns, easily and efficiently chopping peppers, onions, jalapenos and scallions, using the most brilliant pantry item ever - tomato paste in a tube, and my favorite trick: stacking my chopped herbs next to the measuring cup so I won't have to wash it. Laziness begets cleverness! Or something like that. Enjoy!

Amelia Durand's fabulous Shrimp and Sausage Jambalaya recipe can be found here.

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new orleans style shrimp

This is not a cookbook review. I read through some recent posts and decided that I am still too angry with Cooks Illustrated to give them a fair shake, and I haven't made any actual entrees from Ellie Krieger's cookbook.

So I decided to spend a week cooking out of The Food You Crave, then try a few more Best Light Recipe things, and then you'll get your review. Girl Scout's honor.

But FIRST, I had to make this shrimp recipe. Because shrimp was on sale. And because we had a french loaf going unused. And because it is heaven.

It will change your life.

Promise.

Here it is:

New Orleans Style Shrimp

serves 4 (I've halved the recipe in photos)

prep/cook time: 1 hour

3 T. Worchestershire sauce

2 T. fresh Lemon Juice

1 T. Olive Oil

2 tsp. chopped fresh Rosemary

2 tsp. chopped Garlic

1/2 tsp. Hot Sauce

1/4 tsp. Black Pepper

pinch Red Pepper Flakes

2 lb. large peeled and de-veined Shrimp

2 Lemons, 1/4" slices

4 tsp. Butter, divided

French Baguette

Combine everything but last three ingredients in a large zip-top back, squish ingredients around in bag until well mixed, refrigerate for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 425F.

Make little cups out of four (12" x 12" ish) squares of aluminum foil. Place in baking dish/pan.

Add 1/4 of shrimp mixture (about 2.5 c.), 1/4 of Lemon slices and 1 tsp. Butter to each foil cup.

Fold and pinch top of each foil cup to seal. Bake at 425F for 20 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes.

Unfold packets carefully. Swoon.

Place in bowl and serve immediately with a reasonable amount of french bread. Make SURE to get every drop of liquid out of the foil cup

because once you've eaten the shrimp and discover the delicious, savory cooking liquid in the bottom of the bowl, you'll need about this much french bread.

Enjoy!

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coming soon!

The results of The Battle of the Healthy Cookbooks are in!

When the luxurious laziness of Mother's Day Weekend is over and the shock of real life hits on Monday, I'll need a moment to escape (so soon? sad, right?) and you can reap the benefits of my recent cooking flops (and successes!! there have been some!).

Look for a full review (or something like it) on Monday or Tuesday of these cookbooks:

The Food You Crave by Ellie Krieger

The Best Light Recipe from the editors of Cook's Illustrated

Consider it my Mother's Day present to you.

There. Now you can't say I never gave you anything.

(My mom loves to say that. I am her. It happens.)

See you then!

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flop update

The only thing worse than a flop, is having it happen again.

The very next day.

Cooks Illustrated and I are in a fight.

Home, fresh from the grocery, all required ingredients assembled and accounted for, I was so ready to take on the Chicken Enchilada recipe from the new Cooks Illustrated cookbook I mentioned yesterday.

I dutifully mise-en-placed. I read the recipe all the way through. Twice. I tallied up the cook times and counted back from Brad's 6:00 eta and set to work.

At 6:45, the enchiladas were still no where near being done. Either the Cooks Illustrated authors grossly underestimated the time required for simmering chicken to reach 160F, the chicken breasts were abnormally large, or user error was somehow involved (however unlikely that seems, considering the cook).

With the Bean's bed time looming ever closer and our tummies grumbling ever louder, Brad interrupted my inept-cookbook-author/elephantine-chicken defense, took the spatula out of my hands and drove us to Chik-fil-a.

We can have the enchiladas another night.

When I'm done being mad at them.

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flop, near-flop, flop again

It was just that kind of weekend.

Saturday started with the absolutely fabulous third birthday party of our friend Little Man. There were friends, fun, fire trucks (the Bean was in heaven), fire men (mommy was in heaven), pizza and cake: a perfect recipe for fun. But mommy and daddy forgot to combine our sugar-intake-tallies for the Bean as the party progressed, and the day ended in a massive sugar-induced meltdown. Parenting flop.

We regrouped Sunday morning and made it to and home from church with little event, and even managed to have a pretty good time.

This gave me just enough false confidence to take on a long-neglected sewing project: the Bean's dust ruffle for her big girl bed.

I took measurements, I made charts, graphs and diagrams, I cut, I sewed, I pressed, I repeated. And sure enough, in about an hour, I had a rather simple, but perfect little dust ruffle with box pleats. See?

What is that you say? It's not perfect? Oh I see. The box pleats aren't equidistant apart.

And there are seven inches missing up here.

And there are seven extra inches over here. What just happened? But, but, but I made a diagram, see?

There are no misplaced inches or wonky-pleat-distances on my diagram for heaven's sake!

[heavy sigh]

[regroup]

[unsew, re-cut, re-sew, re-press, repeat]

There. That's better.

That too.

Only a sewing near-flop. And when you put the bookcase back, the wonky-pleat-distances aren't so obvious. Unless you're me. Then the asymmetry makes you twitch every time you walk in the room. But that's my own issue. I'll deal. Moving on.

So no matter how emotionally traumatized by dust ruffle asymmetry a mommy is, her family still needs to eat. And when the recipe is from this fabulous new cookbook from Cook's Illustrated, that is alright with me.

And when the recipe is for Chicken Enchiladas, even better! And since I meal-plan



and make exhaustively researched grocery lists



everything is right here and ready to go!!!!

Except the onions. And chili powder. And cilantro.

And part of my soul.

Thank you Brad. And Dominos.

I'm going to bed now.

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