Recipe: Bastard Jambalaya

I love to cook and mostly improvise, using cookbooks as a guide for good spice pairings or new ideas. Below is a tasty and easy recipe for a jambalaya I came up with. It is not exactly what you'd find in your everyday cookbook, a bit bastardized, hence the name. Plus, it's pretty spicy, at least how I make it. Cook this up in a big pot and freeze the leftovers.

BASTARD JAMBALAYA
Cooking spray
Two to three spicy Italian sausages, meat removed from casings (I use turkey)
One onion, peeled and diced
Two stalks celery, diced
Salt
Freshly ground pepper
Two green peppers (or red, yellow, orange - your choice), seeded, rinsed and chopped
Two 12-ounce cans diced tomatoes (use plain or seasoned, whichever you prefer)
Two 12-ounce cans beans (use whatever you prefer - black, kidney, pinto, etc)
Cayenne pepper (at least 1/2 teaspoon)
Red pepper flakes (at least 1/4 teaspoon)
Thyme (just a pinch if it's dried, or a sprig if it's fresh)
Paprika (regular or sweet, at least half a teaspoon)
Chorizo sausage, sliced (Spanish or Mexican will work fine, but I prefer the Spanish, which is more like a large beef jerky)
Cooked brown (or white) rice (I use the easy-cook bags, one for a smaller batch, two for a larger pot), or 1-1/2 to 2 cups of rice

OPTIONAL EXTRAS
Pinch of brown sugar
Hot sauce
Pinch of cider vinegar
Mushrooms
Corn
Shrimp
Leftover, cooked meat (chicken and pork work especially well)

Spray a large cooking pot with olive oil or canola spray. Turn up the heat to medium-high and squeeze the hot sausage (and chorizo if you're using the Mexican kind) out of its casings and into the pot. Start cooking it and, with a wooden spoon, crumbling it up as it cooks. A couple minutes in, throw in the diced onion and the chopped celery. Keep stirring as it all cooks. Add freshly ground pepper and some salt to the mix. After five or so minutes, add the peppers and keep stirring. And stir often. Otherwise it'll stick to the pot.

Once the onions are more transparent and the meat is pretty much cooked, add the cans of tomatoes and the cans of beans. Stir it all up, then add spices. Season to taste. If you're using the Spanish chorizo, add the slices at this point so it cooks and seasons the stew as it continues to cook. Once it gets a good bubbling boil going, turn down the heat to a simmer.

After 20-30 minutes of this (make sure you stir every 5 or 10 minutes), add the cooked rice to the mix and any other optional extras you'd like to add. If adding shrimp, make sure it cooks all the way through (I tend to use frozen bagged shrimp that is already cooked). Let it cook another 5 to 10 minutes, taste it to make sure you like the flavor, adjust if needed, and it's ready to go.

This jambalaya tastes even better the next day as the flavors will blend together better, and it also freezes well.