Brown Rice Jambalaya…with okra!

Serves 6

I like healthy food and Chris likes comfort food. But he’s smart enough to know that he ought to eat healthy food in between the sausage sandwiches, wings, nachos and ruebens. He only eats broccoli (and eggplant, and spinach, and brussel sprouts, and beets, etc.), I learned today, “because I know they’re good for me.” This was a huge shock. Here, all this time (nigh upon six years of marriage), I actually thought that he LIKED vegetables. Ladies, don’t make my same mistake. Don’t ask your husbands “What’s your favorite vegetable?” I was very disappointed to learn the truth (though to his credit he likes all the vegetables that, botanically, are actually fruits: peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, avocadoes, etc.). The question was altruistic—I wondered what he wanted me to plant in the garden this year—but his response gave me license to be entirely egoistic: I’ll plant whatever I want to eat because I love vegetables, whereas he eats whatever I put in front of him and only does because he knows it’s good for him. In the meantime, I have to make it up to him in other ways by cooking things like jambalaya (which isn’t devil-food or anything, but it could stand to be improved, nutritionally-speaking). But for my own sake I have to impose my salutary penchants onto his comfort food. Hence this brown rice jambalaya with okra, which could be made over even further if you wanted to use quinoa and turkey sausage or tofu. Let me know how that level of adulteration goes over at your house.

A note: I left all the spicy spice out of this recipe because kids were going to be eating it. We brought the Creole seasoning and the huge basket of hot sauces to the table so everyone could season it to his/her own liking.

1 large onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

4 stalks celery, chopped

2 Tbs butter or oil

2 medium chicken breasts

12 oz. white sausage (I used bockwurst, but andouille is the ideal), sliced

2 3/4 C broth

1-15 oz. can diced tomatoes with juice

2 C brown rice (I used brown jasmine—cooking time and water quantity might vary a little depending on your kind of brown rice, so keep an eye on it while it’s simmering)

1-12 oz. bag frozen cut okra, rinsed (cause okra can be kind of slimy)

2 bay leaves

1 tsp thyme

1/2 tsp ground or rubbed sage

1/2 tsp Dijon mustard

1/2 tsp ground cayenne pepper (I left this out this time, cause of the kids)

salt, pepper, Creole seasoning and hot sauce to taste

In a large pot sauté the onion, garlic and celery in the butter for 5 minutes. Add the chicken and sausage and cook over medium heat until the chicken looks cooked on the outside. Add the broth, tomatoes, okra, rice and spices. Bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to low and let simmer until juice is absorbed and rice is tender, about 35 minutes.