jambalaya!

the girls on the best buy team at work LOVE to eat which means there is a lot of recipe trading that occurs. jess made this jambalaya recipe from emeril recently and was raving about it so obviously it got into my head and then i decided it needed to happen this weekend. (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/cajun-jambalaya-recipe2/index.html). lucky me i was able to convince brian and will to make it with me while we watched pirate radio on saturday night.

this recipe is very easy--truly the most difficult part of the entire thing is going out to get the ingredients. i made the spice mix and from reading the reviews, i toned down the cayenne a little and only added half the amount of salt that it called for. i like spicy food as much as the next person but i hate when it's SO spicy you can't even taste or enjoy it. one of the readers accidentally swapped the cayenne pepper (1 tbsp) with the paprika (2 1/2 tbsp). hahahahaha. dummy. clearly she did not know the power that cayenne possesses because that is one mistake you do not make.

instead of regular shrimp we got tiger prawns since we were at costco. i would recommend cutting up the chicken and shrimp into smaller pieces so that it cooks quicker when you add it into your rice mixture that is already going. besides, i've always been a fan of bite size pieces. but nooo will had to be stubborn. liked his chunks. then later admitted ok maybe i should've cut them down smaller. see? cb always knows best.

we also added a little more rice than it called for (1 1/4 cups total) instead of the 3/4 because it just didn't seem like very much. we compensated with adding a little bit more of the chicken broth but underestimated how much liquid would expel from the chicken once it got cooking in the mixture so our end result was a little soupier/gumbo like than straight up jambalaya. to be honest, i've always thought jambalaya is supposed to be more soupier than just a rice dish but that's not what i've been told. regardless, the three of us loved the way it came out and wouldn't change a thing. the spice mixture was also great! a lot of heat, but not too much we couldn't taste the food.

can't wait to make it again!