jambalaya etc

made jambalaya for the first time in a while last night. most of you know about this from tweets and FB and whatnot. what you don't know is that i set the stove on fire during this undertaking. i spilled a little pat of butter on a red-hot element and realized as soon as it happened i realized it was futile to try to save the butter. nothing happened immediately. but a minute or two later i saw flames coming up from underneath the element. in this situation i could have:

1. freaked out

2. looked for a fire extinguisher i know doesn't exist.

3. tossed a towel over the flames

i did none of these. instead, i took a photo with my phone, sent it to a couple of people and then blew the flame out.

i did a few things differently (not completely on purpose) for this batch of jambalaya; mainly i used some rip-off andouille sausage that is supposed to be gourmet and shit. do not buy aidell's andouille if you want andouille. you're better off using polish sausage instead. (sautee the sausage in butter and cayenne. still isn't real andouille, but is better than the crap i bought.) i didn't have rosemary in this batch either. i forgot to look in my spice cab before i went to the store. i can tell the difference, but i don't think anyone else can. all in all this jambalaya turned out pretty good. cassie liked it and she's my benchmark. it was a happy evening at the compound.

i don't think cassie is going to let me be lazy about cooking much longer.

grocery shopping

more often than not, i do not buy groceries. bad habit. at the time of my last paycheck, however, i decided i needed to be a bit more frugal with my $$ because i got too many things to pay for and not enough $$ to pay it with and i realized i spend all my $$ on foodz and recordz. so me and newlin went grocery shopping and i bought all kindsa great stuff:
velveeta
chips
frozed pizzas
rotel
loaf of bread
bell peppers
andioulle
rice
milk
b-fast sausage
cans of beans
cans of tomatoes
and more stuff
the idea was to be a little more domestic. i figured since i'm not in school this semester i can afford to waste time cooking all day. and listening to records. (i'm pretty proud of myself, i've only purchased one record since i've gotten paid: scat rag boosters st/lp)

since that shopping trip i've made:
brazillian fish stew
jambalaya
turnip greens/white beans/cornbread
a few sandwiches
handfulls of chips
ned drool

i kinda like doing this for a few reasons:
dishes are in heavier rotation
dishes get cleaned with more frequency
i'm saving a shit ton of dough

it doesn't mean i haven't gone out and bought food. erin is still my food partner in crime and so we still go grab stuff from time to time:
chungas torta
mahi mahi at mcgraths (splurge)

even still, i think i'm saving money.

the legend of maggot

so it snowed yesterday and i felt that jesus didn't want me to drive in the snow so i didn't go to church. instead i watched back to the future part 3. then i went to maggots and had a giant bowl of frosted mini big bites. very tasty. maggot had made a freschetta pizza and i kept alternating bites of frosted mini and combo pizza. it made for a few less than delectable burps. i don't recommend it. for some reason all i wanted to do yesterday was eat. i mean i like to eat every day, but something about sundays makes me eat tons of unnecessary food. like a big bowl of the very last of the jambalaya, and a few rolls that cassie made, and a giant bowl of sage sausage and tortellini with marinara. the tortellini really was the kicker. i really should have saved some for lunch. maggot was playing legend of zelda all day so i was kinda bored, and i guess when i'm left to my own devices i just eat. oh well.

the problem with chinese

its hit and miss. like i went to uvsc's chinese food place and sometimes i dig it and sometimes i don't. like every now and again he orange chicken is great, but most of the time its like all hard. i think if i go earlier in the day its better. yesterday i had orange chicken and sweet/sour pork. with the fried rice. i had mountain dew. i hate uvsc for not selling coke products. although cherry pepsi ain't too bad. so i went to work and did my work thing then went home and me and maggot jammed for a while and worked on some stuff. maggot was on drums. afterwards we went by maggots house and parked her car and went to cades studio to check it out. he had been working on the drums to try and get the sound on the big star #1 record. me and maggot played around on some of his stuff and he recorded it and we played it back and it sounded great. i don't know if we're going to record it at my house or his studio. i kinda think rob will freak out on someone elses drums. plus the room at my house has a bigger sound. i think i just made my mind up. after we messed around at cades we walked to the crest (cades studio is like a block or so from maggots place) and i got a coke and a cheese danish. on our walk back to maggots we found an abandoned little caesars 5 buck pizza and a bag of bread sticks. maggot tried to convince me that the bag of breadsticks were ok to take, but i noticed little animal bites in the pizza. there's no way i'm risking getting some funky ass disease from a bag of abandoned breadsticks. besides, i had leftover jambalaya to finish off. little caesars ain't got nothin on my jambalaya. once again, i was faced with the dilemma of having 2 bowls. i resisted because i knew i had a cheese danish waiting. i probably shouldn't have eaten that, but i did and i was fine with the consequences. we decided to go see a movie since i hadn't seen one in a while. we were going to go see the eye at the cheap theater but tere was a lame crowd waiing in line and i didn't want to wait with them, so we opted for a worse movie at the mall. 10,000 bc is one giant cliche. thats pretty much all i have to say about it.

jambalaya

is very good. i made some last night with maggots help. yesterday was a pretty boring day at school and i went to work and kinda left early. i went home made a grilled corned beef sandwich and played around with some songs i've been working on. then i took a nap, which wasn't very fruitful because maggot kept texting me and waking me up. i did get a few minutes of shuteye. for some reason after i took this nap i was super hyper. when maggot showed up to practice at around four i was bouncing off the walls. everyone else showed up and we played around for a bit. cade thalman came by to check out my house because he's looking for a new places to record his bands. we also talked about him recording split reactions and then we started talking about what it would sound like and i was like, i really like the way big star's first album sounds, and i said do you know who that is, and he was like yeah, thats one of the best sounding records ever. i love recording geeks. so we talked about music and pretention in provo a bit more then he had to leave and i went back to practice. we worked on some new stuff and messed around for a while. all in all it was a great practice. i love when we just goof off for a while. its really productive for me, plus it helps us play together better. i wish people weren't so busy that we could do that more often. after practice me and maggot went to her house and started the jambalaya. jambalaya is easily one of my favorite foods. heres what i usually put in my jambalaya:
2 chicken breasts
1/2 polish sausage
1/2 sage breakfast sausage
1 red bell pepper
1 green bell pepper
1 yellow bell pepper
1 large can of kidney beans
1 regular can of black beans (half rinsed)
1 onion
3 cloves of garlic
3 bay leaves
1/3 cup of red wine vinegar
1 small handful of rosemary (which i crush)
1 small handfull of mexican basil
a few dashes of chili powder
a few dashes of cayenne
a few dashes of greek seasoning
a few dashes of salt
a few dashes of garlic powder
i sautee all the vegetables, and brown the meats. when i brown the breakfast sausage i pour some red wine vinegar in and cook it with that in it.
i let it simmer for a few hours (i don't wanna hear it, i like it that way) then eat it over rice after it gets thick.
delicious. delicious. delicious.
i usually get sick when i make this because i can't stop at one bowl. me and maggot ate our jambalaya while watching strangers with candy. excellent programming, if i may say so. then maggot took me home and we played with daves cat, kingsley. shes a nice cat. i hope she doesn't scratch the shit out of my vintage swedish mod lowboy chairs.