Lena Hoschek: Happy Mardi Gras, Y’all

Since Mother and Daddy-O were in town and Sister and her littles were over for the day, we went ahead and celebrated Mardi Gras a day early. It was an exact replica of last year’s celebration, with a divine jambalaya, crusty garlic bread, Throw Me Something, Mister cocktail and a King Krispie Cake to finish us all off.

Last year’s tablescape was a little prettier and definitely more photogenic than what I was able to get amidst the doom and gloom of today’s monsoon.

I slightly altered my jambalaya recipe to be better suited to the littles and a little healthier. See the original here.

“Skinny” Tuesday Jambalaya
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 large onions, diced
2 green bell peppers, diced
4 celery stalks, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 (16-ounce) can crushed tomatoes
2 (14 1/2-ounce) cans reduced-sodium chicken broth
bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne
1 teaspoon browning sauce (Kitchen Bouquet brand is in a small bottle near condiments)
2 cups brown rice
1 1/2 pounds boneless chicken breasts, shredded
3/4 pound smoked turkey sausage, cut into slices
- Warm the oil in a large stockpot over medium-high heat. Add the onions, peppers, and celery and sauté until they are soft and tender, about 10 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook for 5 minutes more.
- Stir in the tomatoes, broth, bay leaf, cumin, thyme, cayenne, and browning sauce and bring the mixture to a boil. Add the rice, chicken, and sausage, cover the pan, and reduce the heat to medium-low.
- Cook the jambalaya until almost all the liquid is absorbed, about 30 minutes. Stir it occasionally to keep the rice from sticking to the bottom of the pot.
- Remove the pot from the heat and let the jambalaya stand until all the liquid is completely absorbed, about 10 minutes. Remove the bay leaf and serve.

Find the King Krispie Cake recipe here. This year I used colored sugar sprinkles from Michael’s and I definitely think the sugars I colored myself last year worked better. I’ve also decided that you can leave off the powdered sugar icing and just mold your regular rice krispie recipe into a ring and then douse with colored sugar.

Find the Throw Me Something, Mister cocktail recipe here. It’s inspired by the requisite Mardi Gras king cake and is really quite delish! I’m going to have to make this one more often.

Per usual, the littles were super silly. I’m not sure sweet CeeCee has much of a shot at being normal with the loons keeping her company most days :-)