Saturday: Jambalaya

Sort of. At the fondue party at Scarlett's, I sort of committed to throwing a bit of a party for Valentines Day. That's cool, as I like the peeps who were there, so it'll be fun. I don't have Valentines plans anyway, so that's cool. Fun Saturday. Cool!

I've decided to do a sort of Jambalaya. Reason why, I emptied my freezer today, throwing out a few sketchy things and making room for the lobster tails. Ha!

Anyway, I have random odds and sods of chicken. Maybe 6 thighs, 2 medium breasts, 1 giant breast. Plus I have 2 ends of bags but still perfect prawns, and some smoked pork loin from farmers market in the summer, but it was cryovac'd so it's perfect. This is the base. Then I'll do the usual tomato base, with some tomato paste, tomato sauce, maybe a bit of both white and red wine *my recent discovery for depth in tomato sauces that aren't beef/red meat based* and the usual saute of onion, celery, peppers, and spices.. I'm thinking oregano, parsley, thyme, some worcestershire, chile, garlic, and of course a couple sausages rendered for the paprika flavored fat. Good times. I'll let that do it's thing and just add the prawns last minute... But it can cook in the dutch oven *from xmas* for a couple hours on saturday afternoon and get ridiculously flavorful...

I'll serve with mounds of fluffy jasmine rice from the rice cooker *no effort* and a gigantic fantastic salad my stylie. translation: lots of wild greens, rough choppy chop romaine hearts, some onion or shallot of some kind scrunched through lemon juice *thank you jamie oliver* and tomatoes, maybe some crispy onions or cornbread croutons and maybe some roasted pumpkin seeds with my vinaigrette....

That and a couple Italian Pagnotta's just chucked on the table so people can rip pieces off... and some chipotle butter or something...

I'm also going to make a giant trough of "hurricanes" which are these glorious rum and cirtus boozy filled cocktails... Should be awesome!

Will report back with review.