I’ll admit it. I used to make my kids Hamburger Helper. Not a lot. Usually on a night that I was going out or was in a huge rush. I haven’t made it in probably 2 years now, but my kids always enjoyed it. I always made the lasagna one, which is strange because my kids don’t love lasagna, but I knew they wouldn’t like those ones with the fake cheese sauces, so the lasagna seemed the safest.

I decided to try and come up with my own version. Now granted, this did take longer to make than a package of Hamburger Helper does, but not that much longer, and the results were worth it. It was delicious.

Home-Made Hamburger Helper

5 oz. bacon, stacked and sliced into 1/4″ slices
¾ cup finely diced onion
¾ cup finely diced green bell pepper
½ cup finely diced carrot
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and diced finely
4 garlic cloves pressed through a garlic press
1 ¼ pounds ground beef
1 tablespoons tomato paste
¾ cup tomato sauce
½ of a 14.5oz. can petite-diced tomatoes
1 cup shredded cheese (I used a mixture of cheddar & jack)
salt & pepper to taste
1 lb. elbow macaroni, cooked al dente & drained

Brown the bacon over medium-low heat until nicely browned but not too crisp. Raise heat to medium and add the onion, bell pepper, carrot and jalapeno and garlic and cook until just tender.



Add the ground beef and cook until no longer pink, stirring frequently, over medium heat-high heat. Do not brown the meat. When the meat is cooked through add the tomato paste, tomato sauce and petite-diced tomatoes. Stir to combine and once boiling, turn heat down to a simmer.



Now take your pot or bowl of drained, al dente cooked macaroni and pour this mixture over it. Stir to combine. Throw in about 1 cup of shredded cheese and stir again until the cheese is combined. Taste and add salt and pepper if needed. I found mine didn’t need any at all, but yours might. Serve immediately.




 Print This Recipe

Spicy peanut sesame noodles is one of my favorite meals to eat in the summer, and my kids love it too. As soon as it started to get warm here my craving for sesame noodles came back. Of course it doesn’t seem to stay warm here this spring, so luckily I jumped right on my craving while the weather was, briefly, still nice. I like to serve this warm, but not hot. You can eat it cold, but the sauce gets a little coagulated — even that word is unattractive — and you don’t want it hot or the vegetables will get wilted. I’ve reworked and tweaked this recipe over the years. I think it’s finally just about perfect.

Sesame Noodles

Recipe by Crafty Farm Girl, 2011.

Yield: 6-8 servings

Ingredients:

For peanut sauce:
1 (16 ounce) package linguine pasta
6 tablespoons soy sauce
1/4-1/3 cup chunky peanut butter
6 tablespoons vegetable or canola oil
4 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons sesame oil
2 teaspoons chili sauce or hot chili oil
6 cloves garlic, minced or pressed through a garlic press
2 tablespoons minced or grated ginger
4 tablespoons sugar

For Chicken:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cleaned of any fat and skin
32 ounces low-sodium chicken broth
1 garlic clove, sliced
3/4″ ginger, peeled and sliced
a few stems of cilantro

4 carrots, peeled and thinly julienned
6 green onions, sliced
1 teaspoon sesame seeds, toasted

Directions:

Place the garlic, ginger and cilantro into a medium pot. Add the chicken stock and bring to a simmer. Drop the chicken breasts into the simmering broth, cover and poach the breasts until cooked through, 15-20 minutes. Slice into the thickest part of a breast to check for doneness. You do not want them raw, but you do not want them to cook longer than necessary or they will get tough.

Remove chicken from the pot and discard the poaching liquid. Cool breasts until you can handle them and then slice them into thin strips. Place sliced chicken in a bowl and set aside.



Prepare all of your other ingredients before you cook your pasta.

Bring a pot of lightly salted water to boil. Add pasta, and cook until al dente, about 8 to 10 minutes. Drain, and transfer to a serving bowl.



While pasta is cooking whisk together the soy sauce with the sugar and peanut butter; it will look awful and then will come together to form a paste. Slowly drizzle in the oil while whisking, then whisk in the rice vinegar. Drizzle and whisk in the sesame oil and chili oil or chili paste. Finally whisk in the garlic and ginger.



Pour sauce over linguine, and then add chicken, green onions, chopped cilantro and julienned carrots and toss to coat. Garnish with sesame seeds.



Serve warm. Delicious!

 Print This Recipe

My stepmom told me a few weeks ago that she’d made chicken scarapiello because my sister was coming down for dinner. I hadn’t heard of this dish before, but when she explained what it was I hit the internet and found a few recipes for it. One just called for chicken in it, but Donna said that the one she’d made had sausage in it too. The recipe from the New York Times that I found seemed to be more like the one she had described, but the Rachel Ray recipe that I found had a delicious-sounding lemon orzo that you served it on. I combined the two recipes and fiddled with them a bit and came up with the following. Do take the extra steps and make the lemon orzo — the combination of the slightly spicy chicken with the lemon infused orzo was really taste.

Chicken Scarpariello

Original recipe from the New York Times, which was adapted from ”Rao’s Cookbook”. Adapted again by Crafty Farm Girl, 2011.

The original NYT recipe created 6 servings. I fiddled around with quantities since I knew I wanted to create dinner for 2 nights. I would say that this recipe would serve 10, but you can adjust quantities down to serve less if you would like. The original recipe also called for 1-1/2 cups of vegetable oil. Short of deep frying the chicken, I couldn’t possibly imagine why it called for so much oil. I used about 5-6 tablespoons to brown everything and found that to be plenty. If you find things dry or sticking to the pan excessively, then add a little more oil. The original recipe also called for potatoes, but since I knew I wanted to use the lemon orzo, I eliminated this.

YIELD 10 servings

NOTE:  This is even better if prepared a day ahead. Prepare until the chicken has cooked through, then let cool and refrigerate. Reheat, covered, until heated through. Uncover and continue simmering until sauce is reduced slightly.

Ingredients

5-6 tablespoons vegetable oil

5-6 pounds chickens, rinsed & patted dry (I used skin-in breasts, whole legs & thighs)

8 links Italian sausage (4 hot and 4 sweet), in the casings, cut into 1-inch pieces

3 large bell peppers (red, yellow or green), seeded and cut into thin strips

3 jalapeño peppers, seeded and cut into thin rounds

1 large sweet onion, cut in half lengthwise and sliced

1 teaspoon minced garlic

6 to 8 hot vinegared cherry peppers, left whole

2 to 3 small potatoes, peeled, boiled and sliced (optional)

2 cups chicken broth

1 cup dry white wine

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon dried oregano leaves

Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation

Heat the oil in a dutch oven over medium-high heat. In batches, brown the chicken, about 5 minutes on each side. Remove the chicken and drain on paper towels.

Add the sausage and sauté until brown. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain. In the same pan, sauté the bell peppers, jalapeños, onion and garlic until soft and beginning to brown, about 5 minutes. As I typed this up I realized that I forgot to add the onions! I had them sitting on the counter, but must have missed that step in the directions and omitted them. I would certainy add them the next time, although it was delicious without it too. Remove and drain. Drain any oil from the pan.

Pour chicken broth, wine, vinegar, oregano, salt & pepper into saute pan and heat on medium, whisking to stir up the brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Place the sausage, chicken and vegetables into a large dutch oven (or a crock pot if you prefer). I don’t often use a crock pot, but several of the recipes I looked at called for using one, so I decided to try it. I quickly abandoned it as it wasn’t cooking things quickly enough for me. I then switched everything to a large dutch oven and used the oven. After cooking I cooled it down, put it in the fridge overnight and ate it the next day for dinner. Letting is sit overnight certainly does improve the flavor. Pour the heated liquids over the chicken, sausage & vegetables. Add the hot cherry peppers. Cover and simmer on low until chicken is cooked through, about 15-20 minutes. Uncover and continue cooking until the sauce has reduced slightly, about 10 minutes. Alternatively you can place in a 275 degree oven and cook for an hour. Serve hot over the lemon orzo.

Orzo with Parsley and Lemon Zest

• 1 pound orzo
• Coarse salt
• 4 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, eyeball it
• 4 large lemons, zested
• Black pepper
• 1/3 cup finely chopped flat leaf parsley, a couple of handfuls

Cook orzo in salted water about 12 minutes, to al dente. Drain orzo well. Do not run under cold water. You want the cooked pasta to remain hot. Transfer pasta to a serving bowl. Drizzle orzo with a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Add lemon zest and parsley and toss to combine the flavors with the pasta.




 Print This Recipe

Not too long ago when I had time to read other people’s blogs, one of my favorites was Smitten Kitchen. There is something about the little bit of a story she tells along with the clear directions. lovely photographs and cooking hints that appeals to me.

In my newfound organizational spree I was cleaning out a box of papers (junk) last week and came across this Smitten Kitchen recipe that I’d printed out ages ago to try for myself. It was already 2:15 in the afternoon and I’d already bought other stuff to make for dinner, but once I’d read through the recipe again I knew I had to try it that night. I ran to the store to get what I needed, and am proud to say we were sitting down to eat it by 5:30, and that’s with the kids coming home from school, train pickups, homework help, etc. So don’t let the word “tiny meatballs” or “bechamel sauce” deter you from trying this dish. Perhaps it’s the lingering cold weather, but it was the absolute perfect meal for yesterday.

Baked Rigatoni with Tiny Meatballs

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen, who adapted it from Marcella Hazan. Adapted yet one more time by Crafty Farm Girl, 2011.

Serves 8 but I think Americans would say this serves 6-8, depending on how hungry they are.

This is not a tomato-based baked pasta dish. It’s done with a light white bechamel sauce. Smitten Kithchen upped the sauce from Marcella’s original recipe, and I lowered it a little, as I knew too much of it would have my kids protesting (surprisingly, they are not big mac and cheese fans). I also increased the quantities for the meatballs, as I knew those would be the most popular part of this dish. This is still a subtle baked pasta.

There’s a lot of room for tweaking here: If you’re certain you won’t be happy without a veritable oozing of cheese, you could tear up some fresh mozzarella and toss it in with the dish before you baked it. If you cannot bring yourself to eat this unless it contains one form of vegetable matter, I imagine a bit of cooked spinach, steamed broccoli bits or even eensy cubes of roasted carrot and parsnip would work in here.

For the meatballs:
1/3 cup milk
2 slices good white bread trimmed of its crust
2 pounds ground pork (I used a mix of beef, lamb & pork)
2 teaspoon chopped garlic
3 tablespoons chopped parsley
1/2 cup freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano (Parmesan)
1 large egg
Salt
Black pepper in a grinder
1-1/2 cup flour, spread on a plate
Vegetable oil for frying

For the bèchamel:
4 cups milk
6 tablespoons butter
5 tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

To finish:
1 pound rigatoni
3/4 cup freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 cup milk

Make the meatballs: Heat the milk, but don’t let it simmer. Tear pieces of the white bread into it and let it soak for 5 minutes, and then mash it up with a fork. Put it, along with the meat, into a large mixing bowl.

[

Add the garlic, parsley, grated cheese, egg, salt, and pepper. The original recipe called for mixing this all with a fork, but I cannot imagine ever making meatballs without mashing it together with your hands so you can really see and feel that everything is evenly mixed and distributed. So, wash your hands well. Combine all the ingredients with your hands until they are evenly mixed.



Pinch off a small lump of meat, about the size of a large raspberry, or maybe a blackberry, and roll the lump into a ball in the palm of your hands. I used a tiny ice cream scoop I have to measure the meatballs out. (Hazan says if you are good with your hands, you can try making 3 balls at a time. I am not coordinated enough to accomplish this feat.) When all the meatballs have been shaped (a process that took less time than I had expected), roll them in the flour, 15 to 20 at a time. Place the floured meatballs in a strainer and shake it smartly to dispose of excess flour.



Put enough vegetable oil in a skillet to rise 1/4-inch up the sides of the pan and turn on the heat to medium high. When the oil is hot, put as many meatballs in the skillet as will fit without overcrowding. Brown them until they form a nice crust all around. When one batch is done, transfer it with a slotted spoon to a platter covered with paper towels to drain and do the next batch until all are done.

Make the bèchamel: Heat the milk over low heat in a saucepan until it forms a ring of pearly bubbles, but do not let it break into a boil. In a larger saucepan, melt the butter over low heat, add the flour and stirring constantly with a wooden spoon or flat whisk until combined. Now here I differed from the original recipe as I cooked the flour and butter mixture, whisking constantly, until it had a little color, creating more of a roux. This will add more flavor to the sauce. Add 2 tablespoons of milk at a time to the flour and butter mixture, stirring steadily and thoroughly, then repeat through 8 additions. Now do not panic while you are doing this. It will get really ugly before it comes together. Keep whisking and adding the milk, and around 2/3 of the way through you will end up with a beautiful creamy sauce. At this point, you can add the milk in 1/2 cup increments, stirring constantly to keep it smooth. Add the salt, pepper and nutmeg and stir the sauce until it thickens. Next time I might even add a bit of chicken stock to the milk to give the sauce even more flavor.




Assemble the dish: Cook the rigatoni in a pot of well salted water. Drain when still al dente, and combine immediately in bowl with two-thirds of the bèchamel, half the grated cheese, and all the meatballs.



Preheat the oven to 400°F. Heavily butter a 9×13 baking dish. (Original recipe calls for a 12-inch springform, which I am sure would be lovely but is not the commonest U.S. cake pan.) I chose to use individual casserole dishes for serving. Spread the rigatoni and meatball mixture in the pan, leveling it off with a spatula. Pour the milk over the dish, the spread the rest of bèchamel on top, and sprinkle with the remaining grated cheese.



Place in the uppermost level of the preheated oven. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until a golden brown crust forms on top.

 Print This Recipe

I first tried this recipe this summer, and it was a nice combination. I liked the slightly spicy cajun sauce with lots of chicken and all of the vegetables. I’m always a sucker for pasta, but this was a refreshingly different taste. Jim’s brother-in-law was coming down to spend the night this week before he and Jim headed off skiing, so I thought this would be a nice meal for Peter to have.

Cajun Chicken Pasta

Original recipe from Pioneer Woman, adapted slightly by Crafty Farm Girl, 2011

Prep Time: 10 Minutes  •  Cook Time: 15 Minutes  •  Difficulty: Easy  •  Servings: 6-8

Ingredients
4 whole Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts, Cut Into Cubes
3-1/2 teaspoons Cajun Spice Mix, More To Taste
1 pound Fettuccine
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
2 Tablespoons Butter
1 whole Green Bell Pepper, Seeded And Sliced
1 whole Red Bell Pepper, Seeded And Sliced
½ whole Large Red Onion, Sliced
3 cloves Garlic, Minced
4 whole plum Tomatoes, Diced
2 cups Low Sodium Chicken Broth
½ cups White Wine
3/4 cup Heavy Cream
Cayenne Pepper To Taste
Freshly Ground Black Pepper, To Taste
Salt To Taste
Chopped Fresh Parsley, To Taste

Preparation Instructions

Have all of your ingredients prepped and assembled right next to the stove. This comes together quickly and you must have everything ready and at-hand. Bring a large pot of salted water to boil for pasta.I first tried this recipe this summer, and it was a nice combination. I liked the slightly spicy cajun sauce with lots of chicken and all of the vegetables. I’m always a sucker for pasta, but this was a refreshingly different taste. Jim’s brother-in-law was coming down to spend the night this week before he and Jim headed off skiing, so I thought this would be a nice meal for Peter to have.



Sprinkle 1 1/2 teaspoons Cajun spice over chicken pieces. Toss around to coat. Heat 1 tablespoon oil and 1 tablespoon butter in a heavy skillet over high heat. Add half the chicken in a single layer; do not stir. Allow chicken to brown on one side, about 1 minute. Flip to the other side and cook an additional minute. Remove with a slotted spoon and place on a clean plate. Repeat with remaining chicken.


Remove chicken, leaving pan on high heat. Add remaining olive oil and butter. When heated, add peppers, onions, and garlic. Sprinkle on remaining Cajun spice, and add salt if needed. Cook over very high heat for 1 minute, stirring gently and trying to get the vegetables as dark/black as possible. Add tomatoes and cook for an additional 30 seconds. Remove all vegetables from the pan.



Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain when pasta is still al dente; do not overcook!

With the pan over high heat, pour in the wine and chicken broth. Cook on high for 3 to 5 minutes, scraping the bottom of the pan to deglaze. Reduce heat to medium-low and pour in cream, stirring/whisking constantly. Cook sauce over medium-low heat for a few minutes, until cream starts to thicken the mixture. Taste sauce and adjust with more salt, pepper or cayenne if necessary. Sauce should be spicy!



Finally, add chicken and vegetables to sauce, making sure to include all the juices that have drained onto the plate. Stir and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, until mixture is bubbly and hot. Add sauce to pot of drained fettuccine and toss well to evenly coat pasta with sauce. Top with chopped fresh parsley serve immediately.

 Print This Recipe

There is nothing more delightful for me than the occasional special dinner of cheese, salamis and ripe fruit. We are fortunate to have an amazing cheese shop here in town, and while going to the grocery today I longingly looked over at it and decided it had been too long since my last cheese plate dinner. I bought two different types of salamis;  Saucisson Lyon from New York, and Cervalot, a pork & beef salami also from New York. Three types of cheeses — St. Nectaire from France, a soft raw cow’s milk cheese that had a wonderful earthy flavor, Challerhocker, a hard raw cow’s milk cheese from the Rufertschwil region in Switzerland. amd Grayson, a raw cow’s milk cheese from Virginia. I paried all of these lovely things with fresh green grapes, ripe pear and apple slices, along with slices of fresh baguette. Heaven.

I originally posted this on CraftyFarmGirl.com in April of last year. The circumstances under which I cooked the chili was a little different though, as we’d had a huge storm that knocked out power for 5 days so I cooked it outside over a fire. I decided I would re-post it cooking it in the more traditional, stove-top way.

Beef Chili with Bacon; Black Beans & Corn

Original recipe published in Cook’s Illustrated Magazine, March 1, 2003. Revised by Crafty Farm Girl, 2010 and 2011

Makes about 3 quarts, serving 8 to 10

Adding the spices to the pan with the aromatics boosts their potency. For this chili recipe, add the beans with the tomatoes so they cook enough to absorb flavor but not so much that they fall apart. Cooking the chili with the lid on for half of the cooking time resulted in the best consistency.

Good choices for condiments include diced fresh tomatoes, diced avocado, sliced scallions, chopped red onion, chopped cilantro leaves, sour cream, and shredded Monterey Jack or cheddar cheese. If you are a fan of spicy food, you can use a little more of the red pepper flakes or cayenne — or both. The flavor of the chili improves with age; if possible, make it a day or up to five days in advance and reheat before serving. Leftovers can be frozen for up to a month. This is one of the only chili’s that I make that I use no toppings whatsoever on; no cheese, no onion, nothing — it’s great just the way it is.


Ingredients

• 10-12 ounces bacon, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 2 medium onions, chopped fine (about 2 cups)
• 1 red bell pepper, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
• 6-8 medium cloves garlic, minced or pressed through garlic press (about 2 tablespoons)
• 1/4 cup chili powder
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 2 pounds 85 percent lean ground beef
• 2 cans (16 oz. each) black beans, drained & rinsed
• 1 (28-ounce) can petite-diced tomatoes, with juice
• 1 can (28-ounce) tomato puree
• Table salt to taste
• 1 bag frozen corn
• Beef broth (for thinning if needed)

Instructions

Fry bacon in large heavy-bottomed nonreactive Dutch oven over medium heat, stirring frequently, until browned, about 8 minutes. Pour off all but 2 tablespoons fat, leaving bacon in pot.



Add onions, bell pepper, garlic, chili powder, cumin, coriander, pepper flakes, oregano, and cayenne; cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are softened and beginning to brown, about 10 minutes.



Increase heat to medium-high and add half the beef; cook, breaking up pieces with wooden spoon, until no longer pink and just beginning to brown, 3 to 4 minutes. Add remaining beef and cook, breaking up pieces with wooden spoon, until no longer pink, 3 to 4 minutes.


Add beans, tomatoes, tomato puree, and 1/2 teaspoon salt; bring to boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, for 1 hour. Remove cover and continue to simmer 1/2 an hour, then add the bag of frozen corm and cook 1/2 hour longer, stirring occasionally (if chili begins to stick to bottom of pot, stir in 1/2 cup or more of beef stock or water and continue to simmer), until beef is tender and chili is dark, rich, and slightly thickened. Adjust seasoning with additional salt. Note: If you can’t get your stove-top heat to a really-low-barely-simmering state, then you can put the entire oven-proof pot into the oven for the same amount of time at 325 degrees F.



Serve with condiments if desired. 



 Print This Recipe

Mardi Gras is right around the corner here on March 8th. I’ve never been to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, nor do I have any desire to. As a non-drinker that does not sound like a particularly appealing event. However, I did attend the New Orleans Jazz Festival probably 10 or 12 years ago and that was a blast. I love the south. New Orleans was a little too hot and humid though for my taste. It’s becoming a great foodie town though.

This month’s issue of Bon Appetit had some Mardi Gras recipes in it and this recipe caught my eye. When Amanda’s dad and I were still married I used to make a lot more southern food that I do now. I made a fair amount of jambalaya back then, but it’s been years since I’ve made it. Since Foodily.com is doing a feature on Mardi Gras recipes, I thought I’d give this one a whirl. A lot of jambalaya recipes call for seafood of some kind; crawfish or shrimp usually. I don’t eat any shellfish, so that made the fact that this recipe didn’t have any made it even more appealing.

Sausage & Chicken Jambalaya

Original recipe from Bon Appetit Magazine March issue, 2011. Revised by Crafty Farm Girl^©, March, 2011

10-12 servings**

PREP TIME: 1 hour*

COOKING TIME: about 1 hour



*Now right out of the box here let me talk about the above stated prep time they called for. I’m a good cook, I’m an efficient cook, and I was familiar with all of the ingredients, and I would say the one hour prep time they claim was an underestimation. I would say that between chopping and cooking it was closer to an hour and 15 minutes to an hour and a half.

I also changed quantities on a few things. I added more bacon, because let’s face it — everything is better with bacon — and the more the better. They called for 1 1/2 pounds of linguica (I’ve never heard of it), but offered a substitution of smoked, fully-cooked sausage. I used half beef kielbasa and half smoked kielbasa. I could not find tasso ham so used the black forest they suggested as a substitution. They said to cut it into 1/2″ cubes, but my dice was smaller; more like 1/3″ cubes; I just had the deli counter cut me a 1/3″ thick (+-) slice and diced it. They also called for both peppers to be coarsely chopped, but I thought a diced pepper would look better in the dish, so I did not chop the peppers, I diced them. I was able to find a nice large red pepper, but no so with the green, so I used two of the green peppers, and I also used 3 stalks celery instead of the called for 2. Andouille sausage is very spicy. I cut it lengthwise into quarters and then into 1/4″ slices instead of the called for 1/2″ slice. My kids like spicy food, but I thought a 1/2″ thick slice of andouille sausage might be too much for them.

The nice thing about recipes like this is that you can play around with the ingredients and be pretty confident that it will still be fine.

Ingredients

1 pound thick-sliced applewood-smoked bacon, stacked, but in half horizontally and then diced

1 3/4 pounds smoked fully cooked sausage (I used half beef kielbasa and half smoked sausage), halved lengthwise, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick semi-circles

1 pound andouille sausages, quartered lengthwise, and then sliced

1/2 pound tasso or smoked ham (I used Black Forest), cut into 1/2-inch cubes

1 1/2 pounds onions, chopped (4 to 5 cups)

3 large celery stalks, chopped

1 large red bell pepper, diced

2 green bell pepper, diced

6 large skinless boneless chicken thighs, cut into 1- to 1 1/2-inch pieces

2 tablespoons paprika (I used 1 1/2 tablespoons regular paprika and 1/2 a tablespoon smoky paprika)

1 1/4 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme

1 tablespoon chili powder

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

3 10-ounce cans diced tomatoes and green chiles

3 cups beef broth**

3 cups (19 to 20 ounces) long-grain white rice

1 green green italian frying pepper, finaly diced

Preparation

Position rack in bottom third of oven and preheat to 350°F.

Cook bacon in very large pot over medium-high heat until brown but not yet crisp, stirring often, 8 to 10 minutes. Add smoked sausage, andouille, and tasso. Sauté until meats start to brown in spots, about 10 minutes.



Add onions, celery, and bell peppers. Cook until vegetables begin to soften, stirring occasionally, 10 to 12 minutes.



Mix in chicken. Cook until outside of chicken turns white, stirring often, 5 to 6 minutes.



Mix in paprika, thyme, chili powder, and 1/4 teaspoon cayenne. Cook 1 minute.



Add diced tomatoes with chiles and broth; stir to blend well. Add more cayenne, if desired (I do not recommend this unless you like your food really spicy). Mix in rice.



Bring jambalaya to boil. Cover pot. Place in oven and bake until rice is tender and liquids are absorbed, 45 to 48 minutes. Uncover pot. Mix chopped green onions into jambalaya; sprinkle jambalaya with chopped parsley and serve.

** The original recipe called for 2 1/2 cups of beef broth. I did not find that this was enough and ended up using 3 cups. It probably could have even used 3 1/2 cups, so keep this in mind and add more broth as you see necessary. They also claim that this recipe serves 10-12. I have smaller kids that don’t eat all that much, but I would say it serves more to 12-14.

 Print This Recipe