My Best Dish Yet

This week has been pretty busy. With the cloud cover in Portland keeping the air nice and cool, I've been able to work on lots of projects and stepped back into the kitchen. Last night we were out late for a game night our friends' house in Sellwood. I forgot how fun Balderdash (or impromptu version) is and laughed harder than I have in quite a while. While playing games, we were treated to tasty homemade pizza and a giant cookie that blew my mind. The cookie dough reminded me a lot of the strawberry bars that we made for Jesse's office competition. Jesse's alarm went off at 7am and for some reason I was wide awake. As a result, I'm feeling like another cup of coffee might be in order to make it through the afternoon.

However, I'm excited to report that I experimented with another rice and chicken dish on Wednesday night. Ever since I received the America's Test Kitchen Best Recipes cookbook, I have tried to make a successful batch of their version of chicken, shrimp, and sausage jambalaya. After failing miserably the first three times, this was its last chance. The only reason that I kept going back for more was that the test kitchen managed to make a one-pot dish that had an insanely good flavor (most likely attributed to the addition of clam juice as part of the cooking stock) that permeated the chicken and rice. Given that the original version clearly had some rice to liquid ratio troubles, I decided to go rogue and alter the recipe entirely.

Using the knowledge I gained from my previous baked rice concoctions, along with Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen for inspiration, I managed to put together a hybrid jambalaya that was probably my best ever. This time I used brown rice and instead of cooking it on the stove, I covered the dutch oven and put it in the oven. This produced much better rice and meat results. The rice was almost perfection and the chicken fell right off the bone. I'm eating leftovers now for breakfast -- it's that' good. I picked up more fresh green beans at the farmers market and we whipped together another bean, corn, and tomato salad. It was the perfect crunchy side for the rich and savory rice. I posted the recipe online, should you care to try it yourself. Given my penchant for all things fresh and frugal, I think a quick shrimp stock would be just as tasty (or even more so) than the clam juice. (And yes, Brasilliant's Mom, you have to use the shrimp stock or clam juice. The flavor is subtle, but totally makes the dish.)

Today, I am off again to run errands and have a giant sewing project that I'm trying to finish before my class starts on July 20th. I feel a push to get a lot of things accomplished this week and next, because the end of July and all of August will be so busy that I'm afraid it will go entirely too quickly!