Hodgepodge Jambalaya

Whenever I think about jambalaya, that catchy jingle for Zatarain's gets stuck in my head. I can say with fairly strong certainty that I've never had Zatarain's jambalaya, but I'm sure I've seen their commercials more than a few times. I sincerely hope that the jambalaya we made for our Sunday night dinner was nothing like Zatarain's however (unless you think jambalaya mix out of the box is awesome, in which case, I'll allow the comparison).

The husband really wanted to wait until one of our teams was playing New Orleans to make jambalaya because it seemed fitting, which I totally get. However, upon further investigation, I realized that this wasn't going to happen at all this season. To avoid the potential wait until next season or beyond, we decided to go ahead and make it this past Sunday. New Orleans was playing on Monday, which I figure counts as close enough, especially considering we had enough leftovers to last all week. The jambalaya just so happened to be perfectly timed because we were able to incorporate leftovers from Saturday's dinner.

We had my brother-in-law, sister-in-law and nephew over for dinner on Saturday. The nephew recently turned four - we weren't really sure if he'd eat chicken or his old standby and favorite, pb&j. We made enough chicken just in case, but ended up having a good amount of leftovers. Turns out he doesn't eat chicken breasts but does sing Blurred Lines (or at least try). It's awesome and I'm completely fine with that as a trade off. Unfortunately I don't have a video of this, but I think this picture sums it up pretty well.

Not only did we have leftover chicken, but we actually had leftover jumbo lump crab meat that I didn't use when I made crab dip as an appetizer on Saturday. It wasn't a large amount, but enough to include in the jambalaya as an extra flavor. If my mother is reading this, she's probably gasping at the fact that I had leftover crab meat (at least it was jumbo lump!). I opted not to load up the crab dip that I made, as would likely be tradition for a Baltimore native (sorry mom), but it ended up contributing to a really good dinner.

This jambalaya turned out to be protein-packed, with chicken, crab, sausage and shrimp. I think that's one of the great things about jambalaya, you can almost make it however you want. Here's how we made this super easy dish.

Ingredients (it's a long list, but it's really simple, you'll see):

• 3 - 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into pieces
• 1 lb sausage, cut into 1-inch slices (we used andouille sausage)
• 1 medium yellow onion
• 3 celery stalks
• 1 large green bell pepper
• 2-14.5 oz cans diced tomatoes (we used Hunt's with celery, onions, and green peppers)
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1 tbsp Cajun seasoning
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 lb shrimp, peeled & deveined (we got shrimp already seasoned with an Old Bay mix)
• 1/4 lb lump crab meat
• 2 cups long grain rice

Veggies, chicken, sausage and spices - pre-cooking

Directions:

1. Chop the onion, celery, green pepper and garlic
2. Combine chicken and next 10 ingredients (everything except the shrimp, crab and rice) in the crock pot
3. Cook on low for 5 hours
4. Cook rice on stove according to package directions
5. Add shrimp, crab and rice to crock pot and cook for an additional 30 minutes

We served this with cornbread (Jiffy, of course) - the slightly sweet flavor was a perfect complement to the Cajun seasoning of the jambalaya. This recipe also makes a ton! It completely filled the crock pot. We had so many leftovers we sent my friend Kelly, who came over for dinner, home with a small Tupperware container that seemed to weigh about 5 pounds. After that, we then had a giant container leftover for ourselves (which the husband has been slowly chipping away at for lunch).

Unfortunately I didn't manage to get a picture of the full meal after it was cooked before we dug in to eating...again, so my apologies. I'll do better next time, promise!

Thinking about the word "jambalaya", my mind wandered a bit...jam...jimmy jam...you just got jammed! I couldn't help but think of that catchphrase from the sporadically present yet always irritating Councilman Jamm on Parks & Rec, so I'll leave you with that until next time. Happy weekend everyone! 

Note: I love Parks & Rec. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend checking it out.