They're (my students) making jambalaya and king cake tomorrow. Yes, on a Monday - the powers that be snaked Fat Tuesday away from me for more important business - state standardized test benchmarking... "practice and placement" for the real thing, come April. I'll be making it on Tuesday. Am I doing it to Fatten Up? Hell no. I like connecting to my roots through food. Come spring break, I'll be doing a bit more of that. Sensible portion sizes, of course.
Menu Plan Monday - options for the week
- Jambalaya and King Cake (recipies after the jump)
- Pulled pork (for several meals - nachos, bbq sandwiches)
- Some other pork meal (16 lb pork shoulder for 2 people, yamahama!)- Conchinita Pibil
- Then the standard standbys: Pizza and leftovers.
Mardi Gras Recipes after the cut!!!
I wish I could take credit for these recipes. I cannot remember or find the link for the jambalaya. The King Cake was a combination of 3 recipes I found.
Easy Jambalaya
1 lb Andouille sausage
1 lb medium shrimp
1 lb boneless skinless chicken
1 bell pepper, chopped
1 onion, chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
1 large tomato, diced
1 cup chicken broth
4 tbsp Cajun seasoning - Tony Chachere is what I use (go easy on this stuff if you're not into spicy).
4 cups cooked white rice
Sauté sausage and chicken in ½ c broth in large heavy pot until chicken is cooked through. Add pepper, onion and celery to pot and continue sautéing. Add rest of broth and Cajun seasoning and stir well. Add tomato and cooked rice and toss well. Add shrimp. Continue cooking over medium heat until shrimp is no longer transparent and jambalaya is well blended and red in color.
Quick King Cake
Two rolls of refrigerated crescent rolls
Cinnamon Pecan Filling recipe (follows)
Glaze recipe (follows)
Colored Sugar recipe (follows)
Tiny plastic baby if you're so inclined - other options are a bean, coin, shelled pecan half
Preheat oven to 350F. Spray pizza pan or baking sheet with canola oil.
Unroll crescent roll dough and separate into triangles. Position triangles next to each other with the points toward the center, overlapping the long sides about ¼-inch, forming a large round. (*This is when you'd put the plastic baby under the dough. I'm not a fan of baking plastic with food. Personally, I would shove it under the cooked cake.) Where the pieces overlap, press the seams together only in the center of each seam, leaving either ends of the seams unsealed so you can fold them up over the filling.
Spread the filling around in a ring covering the center sealed seam of each triangle.
Fold the short side of each triangle toward the center just to the edge of the filling to cover. Then pull the point ends of the triangles toward the outer rim of the pan to fully enclose the filling, tucking under the points. Lightly press the seams.
Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool. Brush with powdered sugar glaze; sprinkle with colored sugars creating stripes or blocks of solid colors.
King Cake Filling and Toppings
Classic Cinnamon Pecan Filling
2 c chopped pecans
16 oz unsalted butter (softened)
1 c sugar
2 tbsp cinnamon
Mix all ingredients together, spread on dough.
(May want to half this recipe for the above dough or even do 1/3 of the recipe)
Sugar Glaze
2 c powdered sugar, sifted
2 tbsp milk
In a medium bowl, combine powdered sugar and milk, stir until smooth. Add more milk if needed.
(This is the perfect amount of glaze for the above recipe)
Colored sugars
Green
- ½ cup sugar
- 8 drops green food coloring
Yellow
- ½ cup sugar
- 8 drops yellow food coloring
Purple
- ½ cup sugar
- 8 drops blue food coloring
- 16 drops red food coloring
For each color, combine sugar and food coloring in covered jars or zip-top plastic bags. Shake vigorously to even mix color with sugar.
(Another recipe you may want to half or third. This is a lot of sugar for the cake recipe above.)
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