Jambalaya … With A Punch

Chop the fresh vegetables into small pieces. Slice the sausage into discs and the chicken into cubes. Sprinkle the chicken with some Cajun seasoning or salt and pepper.

Heat the oils in a pan on medium high and add the chopped vegetables followed by the chicken and sausage. When the chicken is just about cooked and browned, add the rice and stir. Add the garlic, tomatoes, chicken broth, tomato paste, cayenne pepper, paprika, thyme, bay leaf, oregano, hot sauce and Cajun seasoning. (Depending how much rice you go with, you may need to add some more water.)

Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer covered about 35 minutes, just stirring occasionally. Add water as needed, if it gets too dry. While there is still liquid (about 10 minutes to go or less), add the thawed shrimp and stir thoroughly.

This is spicy, so cut down spices as need be—as in most everything I cook. Note that I didn’t add any additional salt. Also, it took much longer to cook than it usually takes me to cook brown rice (which is 45 minutes), so I’m not entirely sure what happened there. Using white rice will definitely shorten the cooking time.