Posts Tagged cajun
Cajun Stir Fry
Posted by Thomas in Microwave, beef stir fry recipe, cajun recipe, dorm recipe, easy recipe on May 12, 2009
Oh Snap! This dish was amazing, easily the best thing I’ve made so far. I went grocery shopping with my mom and sister this past weekend and I was thinking of things to cook during the week. At the time I pictured myself cooking onions and bell peppers with a nice chicken breast in the oven, but when it came time to make dinner last night I just wasn’t feeling it.
Instead I decided to use the stew meat (beef cut into chunks) instead of the chicken, and I wanted to do the whole thing on the stove top in a pan. When I started making the dish I decided to eat the beef, onion, and pepper mix over a bed of rice and peas, but as I was cooking and the smell overcame me I couldn’t allow myself to waste any of the gravy in the pan. I decided to just throw the brown rice and peas into the pan and let it absorb all of the gravy. It was a great decision! Like I said earlier, this was the best thing I’ve made yet.
The best thing is that I’m pretty sure I could make this in the dorm as well. At the end of the post I’ll tell you what to do if you want to make this without an oven.
Ingredients:
8oz of stew meat (any type of cubed beef)
1 medium green bell pepper
1 large onion
1 cup of Brown rice
1 can of no salt peas (8.5 oz)
4 tbsp of butter or margarine
1/3 cup of water
1 tbsp Tony Chacheres
1.5 tbsp of Kitchen Bouquet browning sauce
1 tbsp of worcestershire sauce
2 tsp of black pepper
1 tsp of cayenne pepper
Optional Ingredients:
Other sliced vegetables
white rice
Noodles
IngredientsStep 1) Throw one cup of brown rice, two cups of water, and the can of peas into a dish and microwave it for 20 minutes or so, until all the water is gone.
Cooked rice and peasStep 2) Take a pan and turn the stove top to medium-high heat. Chop up your onion and pepper into thin long strips. Throw them into the pan and put the butter on top. Stir and let cook for about 15 minutes or until the onion and pepper are a golden color and are no longer hard.
Cooked onions and peppersStep 3) Season your meat and throw it into the pan as well. Try to move the onions and pepper aside so that the meat can be touching the bottom of the pan. Just throw the onions and pepper on top of the meat. Let cook for about 10 minutes and then add your browning sauce. Stir the pan to make sure everything is nice and mixed.
After the meat is thrown inStep 4) By this time your rice and peas should be done. Pour the mix into the pan and add the water. Stir so that everything becomes mixed. Turn the stove down to medium, cover the pan, and let cook for about 10 minutes.
After the rice is thrown inThat’s it! Everything should be done now.
Now, if you want to make this using a microwave, here is how I would do it.
Step 1) Microwave the rice and peas same as above.
Step 2) Throw your seasoned meat into a separate, larger bowl and microwave it until it is completely cooked. Not sure how long this would take. I’m thinking about 15-20 minutes, just make sure to stir the meat every 5 minutes or so since the microwave cooks unevenly.
Step 3) Throw your onion, bell pepper, and butter into a third bowl and microwave until the onions and peppers are a golden brown color. I’m thinking at least 10 minutes, but I don’t know as I haven’t tried it yet.
Step 4) Mix all three bowls into one large bowl (hopefully one of the three was large enough to handle everything together) Throw in your browning sauce and water in as well and stir thoroughly. Stick back in the microwave for about five more minutes.
Done! I just want to say that I haven’t tried the microwave steps yet, that is what I would do in the dorm room though, feel free to make adjustments. Just make sure the meat is cooked, that is the most important step.
Chicken and Sausage Jambalaya
Posted by Thomas in cheap recipes, chicken, college recipes, dorm recipes, jambalaya, rice, sausage on April 5, 2009
I’ll admit, this was an adventure for me because I had not tried this recipe until today, so I really had no idea how it was going to turn out in the end. Taste and quality wise, I was aiming for somewhere between the boxed jambalaya meals and the home cooked dutch oven variety. I knew it wouldn’t be quite as good as the latter, but I was pretty sure it would be better than the former. I did mess up a little bit along the way and I wanted to point that out to everyone so that you all don’t make the same mistakes, but feel like I met my goal in the end.
“Great, he can’t even get this right, why should I try it?” Well, mine came out just fine, it was just a little over seasoned and a little over cooked. Both of those mistakes could have been corrected had I taken my time to do everything correctly. Which is something I wanted to point out as well. If you are trying to cook this super quick, you might want to quit while you’re ahead and go buy the boxed variety and throw it in the microwave, because this probably took me about an hour to prepare and cook. The upside, however, is that I could make about 10 servings of this in one batch if I wanted to (though this recipe is only for 4). So please, take your time, follow the instructions if you want to get the most from this recipe
One last note. I was able to make such a large batch because I went out and purchased a 14 cup tupperware dish. It cost around $6.00 and I feel it was WELL worth it. I can now make huge batches of everything I cook, meaning I don’t need to cook as often. It also gives me a lot more options because now I don’t have to worry about anything spilling over the side when I stick it in the microwave. So while this isn’t necessary, and the recipe below only filled about half of the container, I wouldn’t recommend trying the recipe if you don’t have at least a 10 cup tupperware dish or something similar in size.
Ingredients:
- One link of hot pork sausage cut up into 1/2 inch chunks (5.5oz) [$1.52]
- One chicken breast sliced up into 1/2 inch chunks. (5.5oz) [$1.25]
- Three cups of white rice [$0.93]
- One can of reduced sodium chicken broth (14oz can) [$1.22]
- 1 tsp of pepper
- 2 tsp of garlic
- 2 tsp of onion powder
- 1 tsp of tony chacheres (or season all)
- 1/2 tsp of cayenne pepper
- 2 tbsp of worcestershire sauce
- 1/2 tbsp of your favorite hot sauce
- 14 cup tupperware dish
Optional/Substitute Ingredients
- One link of any sausage, andouile, duck, etc
- Shrimp in place of chicken
- brown rice in place of white rice
- vegetable or beef broth instead of chicken
Ingredients(Ignore the chili powder, I didn’t use it)
This recipe will make about 4 servings or so. Total price excluding seasoning and tupperware dish comes out to only $1.23 per serving! If you throw in a vegetable side dish of some kind you could probably stretch it out to 5-6 servings.
Step 1: Start out by pouring your three cups of rice into the tupperware dish and run it under some water for a little while to get some of the starch out. Make sure to empty all of the water out of the dish when you’re done. Obviously the rice will still be damp, that is fine, we just don’t want a ton of water because it will mess up the next step.
*Note*
Now, It’s a rule when cooking jambalaya that you want 2 cups of liquid for every cup of rice that you put into the pot (or tupperware in this case). So we need six total cups of liquid to add to our rice. I keep saying liquid because we are going to use chicken broth as well as water. This just gives it a better taste. Normally we would cook the chicken and sausage in the same pot that the rice and water go into, but this isn’t the case for us so we are making up for it with the chicken broth.
Step 2: Pour the whole can of chicken broth into your dish. This comes out to be around 2.5 cups of liquid I believe. Then add 3.5 cups of water.
Step 3: Now is the most important part of the recipe!! This is where I messed up today, so please follow these steps. Begin seasoning with your tony chacheres and worcestershire sauce. Next pour in your garlic powder and onion powder. NOW, take a spoon and taste the liquid. The uncooked rice won’t hurt you (this is another reason why you washed the rice earlier). Does the liquid taste like something you would want to eat? If so, stop seasoning here!!! Remember that you want the liquid to be a little salty because the rice will absorb some of it during cooking. If you think it needs some more pepper (which I definitely require in my jambalaya) then start slowly pouring the cayenne, black pepper, and hot sauce into the liquid. Make sure to put a little bit of each at a time! You can always add more but you can’t take any out
My rice after seasoning
As you can see from this picture, I didn’t follow my own directions. I put all the seasoning in at once without trying it as I was going. This resulted in crazy-spicy jambalaya that was tasty, but a little much even for me. I also didn’t pour the liquid into the rice first, which I should have done as well.
Step 4: Cut your chicken and sausage into 1/2 inch chunks and throw them on your George Foreman grill for about 10-12 minutes. Make sure to check them every few minutes to make sure they aren’t burning.
Cut up Chicken and SausageStep 5: Throw the chicken and sausage into your rice/water mixture and put it into the microwave for about 20 minutes. After about 10 minutes I would take it out briefly to stir it up. The seasoning tends to stay at the top otherwise. I know you wouldn’t normally do this when cooking Jambalaya, but this isn’t a normal way to cook it, so don’t worry about it.
Step 6: After 20 minutes, let cool for a second and then take a bite of the rice. If it is still hard (uncooked), stick it in for another minute or two. The perfect consistency is for the rice to come out soft and slightly wet. Once the rice starts cooling off it will absorb a little more of the liquid. So if cook it for 25 minutes until the jambalaya is very dry straight out of the microwave, it will end up even drier in about five minutes, and you don’t want that!
After coming out of the microwaveStep 7: Pull out a plate, serve, and enjoy!
Like I said, I made a few mistakes along the way and that is the main reason why this post is so long. I love this recipe and I want everyone to enjoy it, so I’m trying to describe in as much detail as possible so yours will turn out even better than mine does.
Cajun Pork Loin with Herb and Butter Rice and a side of Green Beans and Potatoes
Ingredients:
-3 strips of 6-8oz pork loin
-Knorr’s Herb and Butter Rice
-Can of no salt added green beans
-Can of diced potatoes
-Seasoning (salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, cayenne pepper, chili powder, tony chacheres, hot sauce, worcestershire sauce)
This recipe will make three hefty servings. I usually make this much at one time and save it for later in the week. It usually takes about an hour to cook, and being in college I don’t have an hour to cook every night, so adjust the ingredients if you need.
Step 1: Season the meat as you see fit. I used all of the seasonings listed above. I never really measure the amounts I use, so I don’t really know what to tell you other than I pretty much had equal parts of everything. if you want me to measure the amounts I use from now on, just let me know
Step 2: Throw the three strips of pork onto the already hot GF grill. Allow to cook for probably 12-15 minutes, depending on the thickness of your meat. Always check your thickest piece of meat to see if it’s cooked inside.
Step 3: Use the microwavable instructions on the package of the Knorr’s Herb and Butter Rice. I basically just pour it into a microwavable tupperware dish and cover it with water. Just stick in in the microwave for about 15 minutes I believe and let it cook.
Optional step 1: I always try to add protein and fiber to my diet, so I always add a package of starkist herb and garlic tuna and a small can of no salt added peas to my herb and butter rice. It taste awesome to me and my roommate, but I know most people probably wouldn’t like it.
Step 4: Open and drain your green beans and potatoes, place in microwavable dish, season with salt and pepper, and let microwave for about 2 and a half minutes. I like to mash it all together once it comes out, but that is a personal preference.
Optional Step 2: I split up the rice into three separate containers and place one piece of pork on top of each dish of rice. I then split the green beans and potatoes into three separate dishes as well. I then put two of each of the dishes in the fridge and save for later. Obviously this step is unnecessary if you only made enough for one serving. I find this is a great way to make lunch/dinner for two-three days.