When I made my Shrimp Scampi a couple weeks ago I knew I’d be craving jambalaya come Mardi Gras, and while I was too busy the week of Fat Tuesday to make one of my signature dishes, I was happy to have the shrimp stock I made conveniently frozen and ready to add to this dish. I didn’t want to use my beautiful jumbo shrimp in this dish, but the flavor of the shrimp was still intense!!

Whenever Woodmans has a sale on Daisy Brand Chicken Sausage I always stock up to freeze it, especially when it’s the Andouille Smoked Sauage. Perfectly spiced with the lightness of chicken sausage — seriously, does it get any better?

Here’s how tonight’s Jambalaya came together so you can try it for yourself. Want a shortcut version? Try my Fat Cat Tuesday Jambalaya from the archives!

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 cups seafood stock, chicken broth or water
• 1 Knorr Chipotle Bouillon Cube (a bit of powdered chipotle or chili powder works too); leave out if you don’t want your jambalaya spicy)
• Juice from 1 can of tomatoes
• 1 cup brown rice

Start the broth, juice and bouillon on a back burner. When boiling, add the rice and reduce heat to simmer. Cover and let this go while you get the rest going. Pay attention to when you started this!

• 2 Links Andouille Chicken Sausage, diced (a regular smoked sausage works too)
• 1 chicken breast, diced
• 1/2 medium onion or one small onion, chopped
• 1 red or green pepper, diced
• 2 cloves fresh garlic, minced (or 1 tbsp jarred garlic)
• 1/2 cup Trader Joe’s Roasted Corn
• 1 can tomatoes (add the juice to the rice)
• Penzey’s Cajun Seasoning (generously, to taste)
• Dash of Penzey’s Gumbo Filé.

Add the onion and garlic to a deep sauté pan (I love my Pampered Chef Flat-bottomed Wok for this) with a little bit of olive oil and sauté until the onions start to sweat. Toss in the chicken breast and sausage and a few shakes of Cajun Seasoning and cook until the chicken is white on the outside.

Add the tomatoes and some more seasoning and toss until everything is coated. Add the rice and the cooking liquid and toss to combine. Reduce heat to low and cover, checking to stir and taste every 10 minutes. Add more cajun seasoning to taste, a little each time.

You’ll want the rice to go about a total of 45 minutes, so continue cooking until your rice has hit 45 minutes.  When it’s nearly done, add the roasted corn.

Recently I spotted a new addition to the always interesting ethnic foods section at our local Woodmans. Something South African’s bagged sauces caught my attention immediately and I knew I had to try them. I started with the Durban curry, and I’m so glad I did.

Earlier in the week I roasted my first duck, a feat that went kind of wasted in some ways — one duck is entirely too much food for two people. But, live and learn, and use the leftovers!! In addition to making an awesome stock, I also used the leftovers for this very unique meal. I’m not sure if duck is ever used traditionally in Durban curry, but it worked beautifully in this dish.

Truth be told, I’d never even heard of durban curry, so I just kind of made the dish up as I went, chopping a green pepper and half an onion and dicing some golden potatoes and carrots and tossing some peas in at the end. I added a little curry powder when I cooked up the vegetables to enrich the flavor a bit and a tiny splash of Sriracha to spice it up some more, but it didn’t need much.

I served this over some basmati rice. I can’t recommend this sauce enough and cannot wait to try the other varieties!

These enormous shrimp were so cheap it was amazing they were still fresh and delicious, but their seafood’s never done us wrong. Shrimp scampi is actually incredibly easy to make. I like cooking it with the shells because there’s so much flavor in the shells.

To make shrimp scampi, all you need is butter and a little fresh garlic (though a little Tastefully Simple Garlic Garlic can make a great substitute!). Here are some QUICK TIPS for making awesome shrimp scampi:

• Don’t forget to devein your shrimp! And yes, you CAN devein your shrimp with the shell on!
• Be generous with the butter! For ten of these jumbo badboys I used about 3/4 stick of butter
• …and the garlic!! Three huge cloves of garlic and a squeeze of lemon juice rounded out the flavor
• Keep the shells on! Makes them harder to eat, but
  • the shells hold in flavor and add flavor to the butter sauce
  • you can save the shells to make a delicious stock!

I served this over some leftover Chinese takeout rice with a little bit of roasted corn. I tossed the browned butter and garlic with the rice for an outstanding flavor!

Also, a handful of shrimp shells goes a LONG way! I saved these garlic-soaked babies and tossed them in a quart of water to boil for about an hour and a half with a carrot and half an onion to make an amazing seafood stock that I froze to use later (perhaps in a delicious Jambalaya?).

This actually wasn’t the plan when I picked up some pork cubed steaks from the discount meat bin, but when I started poking around for recipe ideas for cubed steak I felt silly for never considering it! Also, it’s ridiculous how easy this was to make. So easy that I’m sure this will become a regular meal in the house!

My shortcut? You know from my Shepherd’s Pie recipe that I never skimp on the mashed potatoes, but use a pressure cooker to make it clean and simple. Nope, the secret’s dry country gravy mix. Not only does using a dry gravy mix save a ton of time; it’s also much lighter than traditional gravy. You’ll be trading richness for quick-and-light, but there’s so much flavor in the steak, you won’t miss it. I promise.

INGREDIENTS:

• 3 cube steaks (pork or beef)
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1 tsp Paprika
• 1 tsp salt
• 6 turns fresh ground white pepper
• garlic salt (generously)
  
• 1 egg
• splash of half & half
• vegetable oil, fill the bottom of the pan about 1/3″
  

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl flat and deep enough to dredge. Mix egg and milk/cream in another.

Salt and pepper the cube steak before dredging in the egg wash, then dredge in flour mixture. Dredge again in egg then in flour to thicken the coating.

Heat oil until drop of batter sets it bubbling. Cook on each side ’til it’s browned, about 4–5 minutes per side, flipping with a pair of tongs when halfway done. When cooked through, lay the steaks on paper towel to soak up the moisture and grease.

For dinner serve with mashed potatoes; for breakfast serve with eggs and hash browns and smother with country gravy.

Bravado? Maybe a bit, but it’s true. My meatloaf, even when not in MEATCAKE! form, is the stuff of legend. Back when I made the MEATCAKE! I promised a recipe but failed to deliver. Today I give you my secret (modified from Mark Bittman’s recipe in How To Cook Everything). You’re welcome.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 lb ground pork (I usually buy country ribs—about $1/lb—and grind it myself)
• 1/2 cup breadcrumbs (I like Progresso’s Garlic and Herb breadcrumbs) soaked in
• 1/2 cup milk (until soggy; takes a few minutes)
• 1 egg, beaten
• 2 large cloves minced garlic
• Dash of Penzey’s Chicago Steak Seasoning
• 1 large carrot, shredded
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 1 stalk celery, diced fine (optional)
• 1/2 green pepper, diced fine (optional)

Combine all the above ingredients well. And USE YOUR DAMN HANDS. Get ‘em messy. You can wash them. There’s no way to combine this well enough without using your hands. Form into a loaf and place in a bread pan (I use a silicone bread pan). Bake at 350ºF for about an hour, or until the internal temp is about 160ºF. Drain the grease and transfer to a cookie sheet to set.

KETCHUP GLAZE (from Black Widow Bakery, where I learned to make the MEATCAKE!):

• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 1/8 cup dark brown sugar
• Splash of Worcestershire sauce

To make the glaze, heat ketcup, sugar and worcestershire sauce until combined. Spread over meatload. Clean your pan IMMEDIATELY afterward or it’ll be a pain to clean.

That’s it!! It’s super easy and so, so very good.

Italian restaurants and I have a tricky relationship. It’s because I make REALLY good Italian food. I’m better at some cuisines than others, but Italian is easily the one I understand the most completely. Because of this I find a lot of Americanized Italian food bland, often salty, and usually end up saying “My lasagna/ravioli/pesto is better.”

However, there’s one dish that they make at Basilico in Norridge, Illinois, that I crave regularly called “Pollo Bella Vista.” It’s “Breast of chicken topped with prosciutto, eggplant, mozzarella, tomato, and artichoke hearts; baked in a light marinara and wine sauce” and it is absolutely divine. I decided to try to create the flavor at home and while I didn’t get it exact (lacking the eggplant and didn’t use wine), what I created is definitely going to be a new favorite in this house. So, in honor of Basilico’s delicious recipe, I call this one “Baked Pasta Bella Vista.”

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 chicken breasts, diced or sliced
• 4 slices prosciutto, chopped
• 2 large cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 4-6 sundried tomatoes, softened and chopped
• 1 can artichoke hearts, drained but left in can; set aside
• 1 jar good spaghetti sauce (Classico Spinach Florentine is my absolute favorite)
• 2 cups shredded mozzarella
• 1/2 lb penne pasta, cooked al-dente and rinsed

Preheat your broiler to HIGH. In a large sauté pan or flat-bottomed wok, sauté chicken, prosciutto, onion and garlic in a little olive oil until cooked through. While this is going, take each artichoke heart and squeeze the juice into the pan. It’s a little labor-intensive but it’s worth it for the flavor. Then, chop all the artichoke hearts. By now your chicken should be cooked through, so you can add the artichokes.

Cook down until the sauce this creates reduces a bit. Now add your jar of sauce and toss it all until combined.

Put the cooked pasta into a casserole dish and cover with 1/2 of the cheese. Spoon the sauce over this and stir it all until combined. Top with the remaining mozzarella. On a shelf in the middle of the oven, broil uncovered until cheese is browned and bubbly (about 10-15 minutes). You can skip the broiling step if you don’t have a broiler, but the burnt cheese on the top just adds to the flavor.

CONFESSION: I love cookbooks. Like LOVE cookbooks, even though I rarely use the recipes as described. I like browsing through for fun, getting ideas, learning new techniques I can apply elsewhere. Sure, I use the internet to find recipes on occasion, but my first stop is almost always my shelf of cookbooks. And that’s where I found this recipe.

Looks pretty foul, doesn’t it? If you don’t eat Indian food regularly I’m sure it does, but after the discovery of an adorable little Indian grocer I needed to try to make my own version of one of my favorite Indian dishes. QUICK TIP: Don’t make substitutions when cooking a cuisine you’re not experienced with. Since I’m still learning the subtleties of cooking Indian food, this was a recipe I needed to follow to the letter. Which I didn’t. Which is why it was kind of meh, but I’m going to try it again. Moral of the story: Don’t replace the tomatoes with tomato paste. It won’t work.

This (very slightly modified) recipe came from The Best Ever Indian by Brian Wilson, which has a thousand and one delicious things I’m DYING to try. It’s a beautiful book and I recommend it highly.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 bag fresh spinach leaves (about 1/lb)
• 3 tbsp vegetable oil (I used considerably less, but I don’t think that had an effect it)
• 8 oz paneer, cubed (Indian cottage cheese—if you don’t have it, you can use chicken as well if you brown it first)
• 1 sweet onion, finely chopped
• 1 tsp ginger paste (I use The Ginger People ginger paste… YUM)
• 7 oz (about half a can) canned tomatoes, drained (yeah… I skipped this part because I lacked the ingredients and used tomato paste instead. Don’t skip it.)
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 1/4 tsp ground turmeric
• *Penzey’s Garam Masala to taste
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1/4 stick butter

*I found the recipe pretty bland as far as spice with these teensy amounts, so I seasoned the heck out of it with Garam Masala curry powder.

Bring a large pot of water to boil. Add the spinach leaves and blanch for 4–5 minutes. Drain well and reserve some broth. Add the tomatoes and, using a hand blender (I use the KitchenAid Immersion Blender given to me by my friend Angela) or food processor, puree the spinach.

Heat the oil in a skillet and add the paneer, tossing frequently until lightly browned. Remove and drain on a paper towel.

Add the onion to the same skillet and cook until softened. Add the ginger paste and cook, stirring constantly, about 2 minutes. Add the spinach, spices, lemon juice and butter and cook, stirring constantly. If mixture’s too dry, add a little of the reserved broth from blanching the spinach.

The intensity of the flavor will increase overnight, but let it sit at least 15 minutes to let the flavors meld together.

Would I make this again? Absolutely. That said, I still think the Palak Paneer from Kitchens of India is far superior, and also cheaper to make.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 Smoked Sausage, sliced
• 2 Sweet Potatoes, peeled and diced
• 1/2 Poblano Pepper, cut in strips
• 1 tbsp Brown Sugar

Sauté the sweet potatoes in a splash of vegetable oil until they start to become soft and add the smoked sausage and peppers. When the water has mostly evaporated, add the brown sugar and toss until coated.

Seriously, that’s it. It’s super easy and the combination is complex and delicious!

Admittedly I was skeptical about trying this recipe, but it sounded so, so good. We picked up some smoked salmon for a steal from the discount meat bin at Woodman’s and I found the recipe when I was searching for ways to work smoked salmon in with pasta.

My shortcut? Vodka sauce from a little fresh Italian place nearby that sells fresh homemade sauces. I simply crumbled up the smoked salmon and sautéed it with olive oil and garlic before mixing it in with the vodka sauce. I served it over bucatini (thick, hollow spaghetti)  and the flavor was shocking.

I’d never have imagined the smoked salmon and vodka sauce could possibly complement each other so well. The sweetness and saltiness played off each other to create such a complex, evolving flavor. It was absolutely sensational. I might try it with a jarred vodka sauce next time.

CONFESSION: My secret to my chili isn’t shortcut at all. In fact, it’s a gigantic pain, but it makes it so much better. I grind my own very lean meat.

From there it’s hard to say. My chili’s never really the same twice, though I follow the same steps. Brown the meat with plenty of onions and garlic and lots of Penzey’s chili powder, some cumin and chipotle pepper, and plenty of canned tomatoes. Add diced poblano peppers for spice and simmer on very low heat for several hours. I serve it with diced white onion, sour cream and shredded cheese and have been told more than once it’s the best around. I don’t know about that, but it’s good stuff.

But seriously, if you have the means, grind your own meat. We grind chicken, turkey and beef with our KitchenAid Food Grinder Attachment, and it really makes all the difference.