By way of kelbardi

The Animal In You Quiz

Apparently I am either an Owl or a Penguin.

I'm supposed to pick one - from the descriptions, I could be one, the other, or both. You decide.

( W O L spells Owl )

( It's enough to strike fear in the heart of TH'ers everywhere! )

Recipe: Dirty Rice Pie

We had some bulk sausage that needed to be cooked up - thought about doing something with home fries, but we're having rosemary potato tomorrow with chicken, so that's a no go. After a few moments, Deb mentioned rice, and I grabbed the dirty rice mix. We've always done as the package says and used hamburger (before we departed from the text and turned it into dirty rice pie, but that will be covered soon enough,) so I thought, hey, let's use the sausage! After all, jambalaya usually has sausage, and this is close enough...

So, anyway, enough preamble:

Dirty Rice Pie

1 box Zatarain's Dirty Rice Mix
1 pound of ground sausage
1/2 pound extra sharp Wisconsin cheddar, shredded or cubed
1/4 pound monterey jack, shredded or cubed
black pepper, freshly ground
Sgt. Pepper's Chipotle Del Sol Southwest Seasoning
tortilla chips, crushed
salsa

Brown the sausage - I use a sandwich grill that has a drip tray to drain the fat as it cooks; a lot less greasy, and a lot healthier. Go for 'no pink,' especially with the sausage, although we're still cooking it twice.

Prepare the dirty rice mix per package directions, using the sausage in place of the ground beef. Time can be cut a bit short, as everything will be cooked again. All the water should be absorbed, but don't overdo it and dry it out.

Prep a baking dish - we use a Pyrex - with a layer of tortilla chips, crushed and broken up a bit. We used rounds, and made sure each was broken in fourths or more. Prep the cheese if it's not done already. Start the oven on 300F when there's enough time left on the dirty rice to get it up to temperature.

Scoop the dirty rice out and gently layer on top of the chips. Grind some pepper onto the top of the dirty rice, and then sprinkle with the Chipotle Del Sol. Top with the cheeses, and bake until the cheese melts evenly. Better to watch closely than go with a certain time, which will depend on the way the cheese is prepped.

Serve with salsa, or, optionally, prepare with a cooking salsa added as a layer between dirty rice and cheese. You may want to check out Frontera - that's what I've used; tonight we kept it on the side and used Chili's Fiesta Hot salsa.