Yeay! Dinner-time Fun

So, my dad asked me if I would mind whipping up dinner for the family tonight. I, of course, couldn't wait... but now I had to actually think about what recipes I would use. Hmm... well, we almost always eat "asian" style meals so I wanted to try cooking up something different. So, I decided to try some down-home Southern cooking. I would still be using rice and a lot of the vegetables that we had hanging around the house, but the taste would totally be different! I was so excited.

First off, I decided to try cooking some chicken-seafood jambalaya. Yup, I figured that since we've never eaten jambalaya/gumbo etc we had to try it out at least once. The recipe is basically an amalgamation of the one from http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/chicken-jambalaya,1745,RC.html and the one from http://www.emerils.com/recipe/2854/Andouille-and-Chicken-Jambalaya. Smashed together, this makes one great jambalaya (but then again, I've never had real jambalaya so I'm not too sure if it was great-great.

As the sides, I thought I needed to make some veggies. So, I sliced up some zucchini and made zucchini-chips; and then I steamed some broccoli and made some creamy cheese sauce. This meal was really to-die-for :)

Easy-Peasy Cheese Sauce

Ingredients:
- 1 can evaporated milk
- 3 tbsp butter
- 2 tbsp flour
- 1 1/2 cup cheddar cheese, shredded

Method:
1. Melt the butter in a small pot, add in the flour and mix until there are not clumps.
2. Add in the evaporated milk and cook over medium heat for 2mins, allowing it to thicken and watching that it doesn't burn.
3. Add in the cheese and stir until it melts.
4. Remove sauce from heat and serve with steamed vegetables.

Cheese Sauce
Mmm... the Jambalaya
Zucchini Chips

Zucchini Chips

Ingredients:

- 1 medium zucchini, sliced thinly

- 1/4 cup parmesan cheese

- 1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs

- salt and pepper to taste

- 1 egg, beaten + 1 tbsp milk

Method:

1. Combine the parmesan, panko, salt and pepper in a bowl. Set aside.

2. Place the egg and milk in a separate bowl.

3. Dip sliced zucchini into the egg mixture, and then into the panko mixture. Ensure all sides are well covered.

4. Place in a 350F oven and bake for 30mins or until they are nicely browned and give off a nice auroma.

All in all, the dinner was a success. I got my sisters to eat their veggies! So, the trick to getting kids to eat their greens is not hiding them in recipes like muffins and cakes... it's smothering and dousing them in CHEESE! Cheese makes everything delicious. Oh, and the jambalaya was a hit too; the chorizo sausages were a beautiful pairing to the chicken, seafood and tomato rice. Try it yourself and I guarantee you'll never see rice the same way again :)