Jacob’s Jambalaya

Alright, here’s my quick and easy Chicken and Sausage Jambalaya Recipe. I most often cook this during camping trips because it doesn’t take much cooking time as a typical pork Jambalaya often does. Gotta cook it in a well-seasoned cast iron pot, we love it..

Ingredients
1 – medium Onion
1 – Large Bell pepper
1 – 4 stalks of celery
4 – cloves of garlic
2#’s of boneless, skinless chicken thighs
2#’s of smoke pork sausage
10 cups of chicken broth
4 cups of parboiled rice
2 tablespoons of oil
Your favorite cajun seasoning, we like Slap Ya Mama

Cut up vegetables and set aside. Cut chicken thighs into 1″ x 1″ pieces and season well. Heat cast iron pot on medium to high and add oil. Place seasoned chicken thighs into pot and push down so that the chicken thighs are flat against the bottom of the pot. This will ensure you get a good browning of the chicken. When chicken is browning, don’t stir.

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Cut up sausage into 1/4″ slices and place on the side.

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Check out the browning of the chicken, look at a couple pieces, it should be a dark brown. After majority of chicken have browned, flip the chicken by stirring the pot. Don’t scrape the bottom, leave the “gradeau” (burnt stuff) on the bottom, this will make your jambalaya brown in color. Add the sausage to brown as well. This sausage is mostly cooked so it only needs to brown a short amount of time.

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After a good brown on the meat (mind the “gradeau” on the bottom), add the vegetables to the pot.

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Sautee these until the onions are transparent

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Add the 4 cups of parboiled rice. I like using parboiled because it’s more forgiving than regular rice. You can be off a bit on the chicken broth and the rice will still turn out perfect, my little secret. Nobody likes crunchy rice, right?! Now look on the back of the bag of rice, substitue the amount of water you would use to cook the rice with Chicken broth. Again, it doesn’t have to be perfect, we’re using parboiled. Add the broth to the pot. Remember that “gradeau” on the bottom, go ahead and stir it up. You should notice your liquid color get darker and darker, that’s the secret to deep brown jambalaya. After stirring up the bottom, raise the temperature to high and wait for it to boil.

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Once the boiling starts, immediately lower the temperature down to low and cover the pot.

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Let the rice cook for 1/2 hour. After time’s up, check the rice, it should be plump and soft and little to no liquid should be left. If not, cover the pot again and cook for 5 more minutes or until liquid is gone. Let cool for 10 minutes and enjoy, Bon Appetit!

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Day 3 – Lake Guntersville to Cherokee, NC

Hi there..Today we packed up the camper and headed out. We left Lake Guntersville State Park around 9:00 am. We hit the road and it wasn’t that long before our first stop, Camping World in Chattanooga, TN, whopp whoop!! We needed some supplies for the camper…
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We also needed groceries for our week in the Blue Ridge Mountains, so we stocked up at…wally world (Get your dance on Mrs. Denise). We had a nice lunch in the walmart parking lot, then we headed off to complete our journey to Cherokee, NC. The ride was so nice. We first passed through Ocoee National Forest, which consisted of high rock cliffs and beautiful lakes and streams..
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We stopped off at a lookout over a dam where various sports took place during the 1996 Summer Olympic Games..pretty cool!
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We drove through Ocoee National Forest, then arrived in Nantahala National Forest. There were a ton of people kayak and white water rafting, looks like fun!
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We finally made it to North Carolina…
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As we continued on, we passed through Cherokee National Forest. Again, the views were breath taking as we meandered along mountain passes and streams..
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We finally arrived at our campground, Indian Creek Campground in Cherokee, NC. It’s awesome little campground where you can hear mountain streams in the campground, cool!

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We set up shop, with a little help from the camp host (our space was tight to back in). I cooked a Jambalaya for supper tonight (see next post for recipe). We lit a fire as we were waiting for dinner to finish up and we ate by the fire tonight. In fact, I’m writing this post by the fire too, thanks to our Jefa TechWireless Repeater. We can get boost the campgrounds wireless network and the local router creates our own strong wireless network, I love my gadgets! Until tomorrow, Bon Soir!

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Day 2 – Exploring Lake Guntersville State Park

Woke up to the alarm clock of our wonderful puppy needing to potty. On his morning walk we spotted some campground friends….

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We took some shots of the lake in the morning.

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This park has many hiking/biking trails with all the details on their website. We started at the Lodge which is located at the top of this small mountain and the campsites are just below on the lake front. You can see it in on next picture.

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Hiking time! It took us a few minutes to find the start of the nature trail. On the map they gave us it should have been to the left of the Lodge but it was on the right. The trails intersect with each other so you can make combinations to suit your level of fitness and what you want to see.

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Notice the sign with a bike on it, well its definitely for mountain bikes because it’s pretty rugged.

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Here’s a shot of the trail makers. We really wanted to follow the waterfall trail and we were getting close enough to hear the water when we had to stop and turn around. These trails seem like they are not traversed often and in some spots the briars are a bit over grown. When Roux didn’t want to go through anymore, we turned around.

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A pretty bunch of stuff on the trail.
By the time we got back to the truck we had worked up a good sweat and decided to take it to the beach.

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It’s not Florida but it was nice and refreshing. The beach is course sand with clam and sea snail shells. It would be a cool place for kids to collect shells.

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Quick nap on the beach after a morning of high energy adventure.

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So this is were all the unclaimed baggage at all the airports around the country goes and you can buy it at a super cheap price. I bought some designer heels for $25! Look at all the gadgets they have…

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Who leaves a saddle on a plane?
Back at the campground for dinner, hotdogs on a camp fire. Unfortunately the Campground sold us freshly cut wood and it would not light for the life of us. We let it be to take some quick shots of the sunset.

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Back at the fire, we sat with all our fixings read to mange’ but it went out AGAIN.

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Jacob, my smart husband, set up the fan to gently blow on the embers creating enough fire to roast our dogs. Hallelujah!

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