Taste and Aftertaste

Thank you all so much for your patience!

In a sudden and bizarre turn of events, my body decided to FINALLY catch up to the EST timezone this weekend, forcing me to take naps for hours at a time so that I could function properly.

Luckily for me, I had the luxury of free time to do so!

However, twas at the expense of not completing this post in the aforementioned time span.

For which, I am most assuredly sorrowful.
:(

BUT! Without further ado, I shall commence the sharing of this scrumptious recipe!

:)

Like I said before in my previous post, I found...

The Recipe!

For those of you who have had the original Von's version of this soup, you'll notice that the meats are different. She uses Sweet Italian Sausage and Ham, while Von's uses Kielbasa and Chicken. 

I'm not exactly sure why she changed it, but here are my thoughts:

The ham is a great addition, but I could definitely do without the sausage.

Don't get me wrong, I LOOOOVE sausage! 

I just felt that it didn't go well with this particular recipe. It was surprisingly bland, the texture didn't fit well, and, if you have cooked with sausage before, you will know that chopping it up after it's thawed is NOT fun!

In the future, I will probably use the original meats, but feel free to experiment :)

Now that I have addressed that, let's get on with the recipe!

After preparing EVERYTHING I needed to make the dish ahead of time, I put the chopped sausage into a pot and browned it.

Once browned, I added this lovely container of chopped onions, celery, and green peppers to the mix.
The greens give a wonderful POP of colour to the soup :)

Once the onions had simmered down, it was time for the butter!

And then the flour! 

When the blog post said that it would be a big pasty mess,
she wasn't kidding!

Finally, it was time to add in the TEN CUPS of chicken stock...!

Then, I added in everything else...

(Note the "Swanson" brand of chicken stock... Needless to say, it greatly enriched the substance of the soup...*Miss you PCC*!)

The Rice and Ham...

The Tomato Paste and Paprika...

Crushed Bay Leaves (We didn't have whole leaves!) and Oregano...

Liquid Smoke and Tabasco Sauce...

I have never cooked with liquid smoke before, but I ABSOLUTELY LOVED it!

...And last, but not least, a pinch of Pepper :)

Once all the ingredients were mixed in, the recipe said to stir it for an hour or so. In theory, that's a great plan; however, not so much when you're about to leave the house in the next 5 minutes to go apple picking with your Mom and siblings!
(Next post!)

Sooooooo... 

I quickly (But carefully!) poured my delicious concoction into the crockpot... I set it to cook on High for an hour, and Keep Warm after that. 

(Poor lighting + Rushing out the door = Terrible picture quality!) Sorry!

When we got home, hours later, the deliciously warm and "spicy" aroma of Jambalaya had completely engulfed the main floor.

It was a wonderful welcome after a long day :)

Despite the fact that it was extremely thick, as opposed to its normal, brothy-soup-like consistency, it was PERFECT!

To be honest, I actually preferred the thickness! 

And, of course, with soup, you must always serve bread!

So yeah, that was my Thursday :)

I hope you enjoyed reading about it!

Now it is time for YOU to try it out!

Let me know what you think! :)

By the way...

If you're like me, and are looking for good meals to prepare ahead of time in order to freeze and/or simply refrigerate for later use, this would be a GREAT dish to add to your list. 

(I'm merely assuming that it would be a good freezer-food, if you figure out the "Yea" or "Nay", PLEASE, let me know!)

To end this post on an incredibly cliche note,

Bon Appetit!  

^_^