Sausage-Rice Creole - Review

I had found a bunch of rolls of sausage on a great deal, and decided I needed to start finding ways to use some of it. So I found this recipe for dinner. It was really, really good. And not hard at all. One skillet cooking - that's my style. And it was on the Jimmy Dean website. I've learned from my mother that recipes on the sides of boxes or backs of bags or on company websites are fairly reliable. It's part of their sales pitch - why would they tell you to do something disgusting with their product?

from jimmydean.com

The modifications I made to this recipe: it calls for 1 tsp. of black pepper. I stared at that for a second and thought, "That is a LOT of pepper". So I cut it down to 1/2 tsp. I was right - even with it cut in half, it still had plenty of kick. I left the Cajun seasoning at 1 tsp. and thought it was fine. Both of my boys shoveled it down, but didn't have seconds due to spiciness. I also only had a 14oz. can of tomatoes, so I just diced some Roma tomatoes to make up the 14oz. difference (about 3.5 cups) and threw in a little extra chicken broth and water to make up for whatever bit of water may have been in the can. I love the internet - you can look up "substitutions" and work your way around a lot of problems. We also didn't have green onions on hand, but I'm sure they would have been delicious.

I LOVED chopping the onion and pepper for the recipe, and thinking about how my family would actually eat them because they were sneaky vegetables. And they did. And that is awesome. This also did not use any extra fats (like cream of whatever soups), other than what did not drain from the sausage, so that is a plus.

Family Rating: ****
My Rating: ****
Cost: $
Difficulty: Easy, only cooking up sausage & cutting up two vegetables.