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I have to confess that after driving for most of the week, this weekend I really didn’t feel like going down the mountain into town to go grocery shopping, The problem with that is what do you do when your larder is dwindling down in reserves? Well, you have to look and cross your fingers that you have something or a combination of things that can come together to make dinner.
I lucked out, in the freezer I had a 2lb of easy-peel raw shrimp, in the refrigerator I had chorizo sausage, the pantry had rice, saffron threads, diced tomatoes, and I always have onions, garlic and chicken stock. This combination of ingredients gives me what I need to make a cheap version of paella. I made enough for at least two days, leftovers are the best and this only gets better the following day anyway.
It is pretty easy to make, prepping isn’t so bad either, I diced three onions and minced about six cloves of garlic, the baby boy loves onion and garlic a lot, the diced tomatoes came from the pantry, slicing the chorizo sausage takes all of two minutes and the shrimp shells slide off being easy peel. The first thing is to sauté the shrimp, put them aside and then sauté the chorizo slices and put them along with the shrimp. In the same pan, you sauté the onions until they are translucent, then the garlic, then add the tomatoes. This lovely mixture that you sauté until caramelized, is called a sofrito. I added four cups of rice and stirred everything together, I then added six cups of warmed chicken stock and let the rice absorb the stock. It takes around 15 to 20 minutes. When the rice is ready, I put the saffron threads in, a huge pinch, along with salt and pepper, after stirring it all together, I threw the shrimp and the chorizo back in and viola, dinner for us and leftovers for the baby boy during the beginning of the week.
laurieanichols 