Jambalaya

Dinner tonight. The beautiful thing about cooking is that there is so much room for interpretation. Jambalaya is as diverse as chili, soup, casserole or stew. So go with the flow. If you only have one pepper and it's green, who cares. Chop it up and toss it in. It always helps to refer to a few recipes when making something at home. Don't rely too much on exact ingredients. There are always perfectly acceptable substitutions. If you don't like sausage, try shrimp. If peppers aren't your thing, try zucchini. You get me. So here we go.

Peppers, onion and garlic.

4 garlic links, simmering until cooked.

4 tsp louisiana hot sauce, several shakes of the tobasco, 1 can diced tomatoes, 1 can tomato paste, 1 cup chicken broth and 1 cup water.

1 tsp thyme, 3 bay leaves, salt and fresh cracked pepper to taste.

While the sausage simmers cut the peppers into chunks and dice the onion.

Remove the cooked sausage and add a tbsp of oil to the skillet. Saute your veg on high heat just to soften.

In a preheated crockpot add the sauces and seasonings, sliced cooked sausages and 1/2 cup of rice. Once the veggies are done add them in too. Cover and let cook for atleast 2 hrs or at least until the rice is cooked. Taste and correct the seasonings before serving.

My corrections

1. I didn't have any celery which I find pretty standard so I added celery seed for extra flavour.
2. I have a sick obsession with onion and garlic powder...so in they went.
3. I would have really liked to have added some big juicy shrimp, but alas I don't just keep those expensive buggers on hand.
4. I like extra spicy so I added cayenne pepper and the hubby's special spicy blend*.

* the hubby loves to garden which is probably just a means to feed his obsession with anything hot. 2 years ago he grew enough peppers, to make enough dried spice to last a lifetime. It consists of habeneros, cayenne, fish peppers, banana peppers, jalapenos, cherry hot, hungarian wax and probably 10 more I can't remember. It's damn good stuff. Unfortunately the jars of sauces and salsas he made have long since been eaten.