Jambalaya

This was the first week of our new session for my cooking group and our theme this round is "fall." I switched weeks with someone, so I ended up having to post the first recipe. After a lot of debate I ended up going with jambalaya. I decided to go with this recipe because it's filling, it's versatile, the entire dish can be made in one pot and is a good for watching football!

Jambalaya is a lot like chili, everyone has a recipe and believes theirs is the best. As this was my first time making jambalaya, I look forward to trying out other versions. You can make jambalaya as healthy or unhealthy as you wish. Healthier choices include: brown rice (will increase your cooking time), low sodium products, white meat chicken and turkey sausage.

I used chicken breast instead of thigh and added turkey sausage because it's what I had. I also omitted the shrimp because we didn't have any on hand. Green onions make an excellent substitution for scallions. I had some problems with the meat & rice cooking in the begining. I'm pretty sure it was because my pot wasn't big enough, as it was nowhere near close to being done in the 20 minutes the recipe indicated. I put the mixture in a larger pot and cooked until finished. While I was looking around online, I noticed a lot of people cook theirs in the oven, I think I might try that next time around.

I served the jambalaya with sourdough bread and some white wine. The husband and I both thought the jambalaya was delicious and it made even better leftovers!

Brown Sugar Salmon & Chicken.

Tonight we tried out last week's recipe from my cooking club, brown sugar salmon. Since I don't eat seafood, it's a texture thing, I had two chicken tenders and the husband had a salmon fillet. The recipe called for baking, but the poster of the recipe thought it would be good grilled so we went that route. Additionally, I used the juice from a whole lemon in lieu of the white wine and I used butter instead of margarine. Another reviewer from our club used olive oil instead of butter, which would add to the overall healthiness of the dish.

Our verdict.....we both thought the marinade was good, but probably not something we'd ever want to make again. Actually, the husband thought it was better than I did but he thought it might have just been the fish - I hardly ever make it at home & he really likes it. I just felt like it was a little plain and didn't have that much of a wow factor for me.

In all honesty, if I didn't happen to have some salmon on hand, I likely wouldn't have tried this recipe. Mainly because I don't like seafood and wouldn't have trecked out to buy some (call me lazy or selfish).

Oh and I did try a bit of the husband's salmon, I always try a bite of whatever he gets. But again it reconfirmed that I just don't like seafood, blah...tastes like styrofoam peanuts!