(Purple) Vegetable, Rice and Bean Soup

I haven’t been very creative in the kitchen lately, hence the lack of recent recipe posts.  Between a couple of weekends out of town, hurting my back and spending a lot of time getting reacquainted with my couch and general holiday busy-ness, we’ve been resorting to quick thrown-together meals.

Not Quite Cajun Chicken and Sausage Jambalaya

Although winter is still a ways away (I am so not ready for snow yet) as soon as the weather starts to get cold this time of year I run through all my favourite cold weather recipes as if I’ve been eating nothing but lettuce for months!  Yes, an excuse to stuff myself on carbs!  Thank you Fall!

This is a bastardized version of true jambalaya, as it doesn’t have seafood, but it does have two kinds of delicious local meats so I think that makes up for it. 

Butternut Squash, Leek and Fresh Herb Risotto

It’s time for squash!  I love squash.  I have several exciting squash recipes I want to share, but it was easy to choose which one to do first.  I used to think risotto was too difficult and way above my comfort zone – probably due to watching too much Hell’s Kitchen and hearing Gordon Ramsay repeatedly scream “Look at the risotto!  It’s f&@king burnt! You donkey!” or something to that effect.  But then I tried it and it’s really not that hard.  It just takes patience and a lot of stirring.