Cheater jambalaya

1. Ya start with a box of Zatarain's jambalaya mix.

Real 1. Strike that. You actually start with some sliced polish sausage. GOOD polish sausage.

2. Brown that in a big ole pot. When it's brown, add the water stated by the box directions, and scrape the bottom to get all the browned bits. Bring to a boil.

3. Add some chopped okra - either fresh or frozen. If frozen, you need to bring the water back to a boil.

4. Add the rice mixture.

5. 10 minutes before the rice is supposed to be done, add some chopped frozen shrimp (or whole, if they're small) and some already cooked & shredded chicken.

6. Serve with lotsa hot sauce.

It made for a good meal tonight.... finally got some seasonable temps after all the warmth. When my dad was alive, jambalaya making was a day-long event that would happen in the winter time. It would start in the early morning with cooking the chicken (or whatever game birds my dad's friend had recently given him) for shredding and to use the bones to make stock, and it went on all day from there and was 100% from scratch.

The first time my mom semi-half-assed the jambalaya from a box, we were all floored. It was damned close to the all day version. Good outcome with little effort.

And good for tonight... I'm pooped. Today was "moving day" at work... moving all the crap I've aquired over the past two years - and all the crap the other writers left in their cubes and going thru about 8 years backlog of files to see what we needed to keep - in to a new cube. Excuse me... a new DOUBLE cube that is all mine (for as long as I'm.... uh... without a firm layoff date, I guess). It's nice... I pretty much need a cube for me and my three PCs and laptop, and a cube for all the product samples I have (which we - I still have a mouse in my pocket - need to keep in case any testing or updates need to happen) and the backlog of doc samples, doc software, CD backups, various style manuals and other junk. Stuff is moved, about half unpacked. We'll see how big of a dent I can make in it by the end of the week.