J-j-jambalaya!

I was going to blog yesterday but I had a major fail where all of my posts were deleted from my cake blog.  I spent a bit of time trying to put some of the posts back together and got tired of blogging so I put it to rest for the night.

Since I have committed myself to getting into running I created a schedule where I run on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.  I will be the first to admit that I am pretty lazy on weekends so this helps to keep me on point.  I’ve also started reading Jeff Galloway’s Getting Started Book and he suggests not running on consecutive days so that your muscles can recover.  He’s the master so I’m not going to question it!  I’ve only just started reading the book so I  hope to share new (to me) and interesting facts that I have read. 

I will do this running thing.

I will.

Anyway – I need to show you a recipe I tried the other day.  It was another one from Dairy Goodness – Easy Jambalaya.  This recipe looked fairly simple and delicious enough to try, but I had to make some mods.  Instead of rice I used Quinoa and I used Kubasa (Ukrainian Sausage) as the meat.

Easy Jambalaya – Quinoa Version

1 cup (250 mL) long-grain white rice (I used organic quinoa)
4 oz (125 g) lean smoked turkey sausages, sliced (or 1 cup / 250 mL diced lean smoked ham)
3 stalks celery, sliced
1 onion, chopped
1/2 cup (125 mL) water
2 tbsp (30 mL) all-purpose flour
1 tbsp (15 mL) Cajun seasoning (I used some chili pepper, Epicure Spices and pepper)
2 1/2 cups (625 mL) milk
1 each, small sweet green and red pepper, chopped
1 can (19 oz / 540 mL) stewed tomatoes, drained and chopped if large
Salt
Fresh Italian parsley (optional)

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add rice, sausage, celery and onion; cook, stirring, for 2 min. Add water. Whisk flour and Cajun seasoning into milk; gradually stir into skillet. Bring just to a simmer, stirring often. Reduce heat to medium-low; cover and simmer gently for 15 to 20 min or until rice is almost tender.

Gently stir in green and red peppers; cover and simmer for 5 min longer or until rice is tender and peppers are tender-crisp. Remove from heat.

Sprinkle tomatoes over rice mixture; cover and let stand for 5 min. Stir gently to combine and season with salt to taste. Garnish with parsley, if desired.

Here are the starter ingredients sitting in the pot – looks good right?

After I added the water & milk, etc things started to look a litle interesting.  I wasn’t sure if I needed to alter the cooking times since I was using Quinoa instead of rice.  I’ve never overcooked it before and wasn’t sure what the ‘breaking point’ would be… so I just kept at it.

Things started bubbling and foaming and I started to get worried.  The mixture stayed “soupy” for a while and I worried it would just be mush.  I prepared Dave for this and he reassured me, “It’d be fine!”

I am not 100% sold on this recipe but here’s how it turned out (looks a bit mushier than it actually was).

For Dessert we enjoyed a ‘peach crumble’.  The crumble was made of oats, brown sugar and some butter.  It wasn’t too shabby.

This has been said time and time again by myself but I really hope to get back into a regular blogging routine.  I do enjoy it and miss it when I’m not blogging.  The support of the readers (if there are any out there after my flakiness lol) is undeniable, so thank you all!