Dinner For Dummies

Funny how the recipes I always gravitate towards in Jamie magazine are the ones that are either short and snappy or, em, for small children. Rather ironically (I hope that it's ironic in the actual proper dictionary definition sense, rather than in the Alanis Morrissette sense - that song was a hit during my formative years and did some lasting damage as I now get very confused by irony), for someone who goes on and on and on when writing about food on this blog, I am very much drawn to recipes that are simple, straightforward and summed up in a few lines. In the back of every issue of Jamie magazine he has a cute illustration-led recipe that is succinct and light on words. The current issue has a recipe for the Creole classic Jambalaya, a carby-meaty comfort dish that was perfect for restoring heat to my bones after a Sunday morning run up Trooperstown Hill in Wicklow. 

Though it was only a 10.6k run, I decided that my body needed rewarding with a decent dose of meat and carbs, completely ignoring the need for any sort of veggie action. Not even a token salad. Bring on the chorizo and the chicken - chicken dusted in salt, pepper and cayenne before hitting the pan for five minutes.

I won't even attempt to count the two celery sticks, four garlic cloves and one onion as any kind of respectable veggie content. Ten minutes for softening up.

And just when I thought that combo couldn't get any better, along comes one red chilli.

Check this out for a murky big tomato-infested vat of promise. The meatyness is immersed in one tin of chopped tomatoes and 700ml chicken stock, and the whole lot simmers away for 25 minutes, just long enough to cook up about 350g rice.

Finally, in goes the rice for about 20 minutes. I used brown rice, but even that can't really redeem the intensely unhealthy salty, fatty vibes of the chorizo. Er, so on the healthiness front I'm going with this one catering for positive psychological rather than physical health, giving, as it does, some major happiness to round off the weekend. And I even got one more dinner and two more lunches out of it. So when Jamie says that this serves four, I think that he and I may finally be in sync on the portion sizes front. Though those lunch portions may or may not have been supplemented by a few scones, ahem *cough cough*.

Me + sofa + 30 Rock + this bowl o squidgy love = perfect Sunday evening.