Day 17 - Jambalaya Disaster!

Really the only 'exciting' detox-related part of the day was late this afternoon and this evening when dinner turned into a disaster!

I could talk about the wonderful time we had with Isaac at the park, how he loved swinging, going down the slides, and how he tried eating the playground sand for the first time...

But you know, fun at the park could be an exciting part of any normal day!















Hopefully, the process of making dinner won't start becoming as 'exciting' as it was tonight...

I had in mind to try a new recipe tonight for dinner: Turkey Jambalaya!

It sounded delish and it didn't look too hard to make. Reading the recipe, I saw that it called for uncooked long grain rice. Since I've had a few meals flop in the past due to not cooking the rice beforehand, I thought I would go ahead and cook it up at the same time we were eating lunch. I thought, 'This will ensure that the rice will get tender through and dinner won't take as long as the recipe says if the rice is already cooked.' 

However, Nick overheard me talking to myself about cooking up the rice beforehand and he convinced me that it would be best to just follow the recipe...'OK....'

So I looked at the recipe and counted back to figure out when I needed to put dinner on so we could eat in time. After I got the dish all together on the stovetop, boiled it, and turned it down to simmer for 40-45 minutes, I decided to take another look at the recipe and read some reviews.

It wasn't long before I began to worry about our dinner and fearing that it wouldn't turn out since I read several reviews about the rice not getting tender. I even read that someone said they should have cooked the rice beforehand! Oh dear!

Let's just say, we had the same problem! Oh man! I kept tasting it every so often and the rice was STILL crunchy! I was so frustrated! Nick and I were both getting very grumpy because we were hungry. We munched on fruit. We fed Isaac. We played with Isaac. We bathed Isaac and put him to bed.

FINALLY, the rice was just tender enough to eat. The Turkey Jambalaya had delicious flavor! But it had taken OVER 2 HOURS to cook! That's it! Next time I'm cooking the rice up separately beforehand! And next time Nick said I should listen to my own instinct since I 'have more experience.' Thank you very much! Live and learn! At least it tasted good even if some of the rice still had a little crunch to it...

And our tummies are happy now! Hopefully the rest of the evening will go a little more smoothly...