As some of you may or may not seen yesterday, I was in the mood for a little jambalaya for dinner last night. Maybe I'm still hungover from the Saints rousing Super Bowl win or maybe the wife and I were so sick this weekend, I just wanted something easy I could throw in the slow cooker. I think it was more the later than the former. But anyway.

A quick search online for "jambalaya + slow cooker" revealed a handful of recipes and after sorting through, I decided to combine these two recipes from About.com and The Food Network.

The end result was amazing though I admit I cut out the cayenne pepper from the recipe as I had tried to make this before and definitely put way too much cayenne in the mix.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1 pound andouille sausage, diced
• 1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes (I bought the kind with green chiles - it was perfect)
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
• 1 stalk celery, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• 1 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 2 teaspoons Cajun or Creole seasoning
• 1-2 teaspoon hot sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 pound frozen medium-sized peeled and cooked shrimp, thawed
• 2 cups of brown rice

Directions:

Honestly, it was very simple. I basically just combined everything on the list up until the shrimp and threw it into the slow cooker for 6-8 hours (whatever you have time for). With about 2 hours or so left, I dumped in the brown rice to let that cook. And then with 15 minutes left I added the shrimp.

The end result was awesome and would easily serve about 8 people so it's safe to say we will be eating jambalaya for the rest of the week. As I said before, if you do like your jambalaya to have a kick, add 2-3 teaspoons of cayenne pepper. That will certainly do the trick.

Bon appetite!