Healthy, Stealthy Paella

(Ghostwritten – and “ghostphotographed” – by FirstHusband, finalized by the freakish perfectionist. This recipe is another of FirstHusband’s inventions.)

FavoriteSon isn’t a big fan of veggies. When he orders food it goes something like this . . .

“I’ll have a Baconator but no lettuce, tomato or any other vegetables.”
“I’ll have a super burrito supreme but no tomatoes, lettuce, onions . . . or any other vegetables.”
“I’ll have a toasted meatball sub with provolone cheese>” (Nice Sandwich Man: What veggies would you like with that?) Ha, Ha, Ha . . .

You get the picture. FavoriteSon has two weaknesses, sausage and seafood. Healthy, Stealthy Paella plays on both of those weaknesses to sneak some vegetables into his diet. Our approach is to make two batches of Paella, one for the grownups with overt vegetables and a second batch just for the kids with the covert vegetables.

Here’s how it works.

Ingredients
2 10-oz packages of Virgo yellow rice (or any rice – as long as the rice is not instant)
2 cans black beans (o.k. if you zoom in enough on the picture, you will see one can of black beans and one can of pinto beans. The recipe really did have two cans of black beans and now we have a can of pinto beans in a square container in the refrigerator)
1 can mushroom stems and pieces
1 can tomatoes
1 package sausage (if you are feeling adventurous, you can replace the sausage with “Dried Canary”)
1 24-oz bag of salad shrimp (you can use other shrimp but the salad shrimp come with tail off and don’t need to be cut down any)
7 medium squash (or Stealth vegetables if you prefer that name)
Cajun Spice to taste

Start by lining two 9″x12″ pans with aluminum foil. Add rice and the amount of water given in the directions for the rice. For the grown-up’s paella, we drain the water from the can of tomatoes and add additional water as needed.

Add 1 can of black beans, tomatoes, and mushrooms to each pan. We leave the tomatoes and mushrooms out of the kid’s pan.

Slice the squash and place into a food processor.

Finely mince the squash.

Add to the pans of paella. The kids get more squash than the adults to make up for the lack of overt vegetables.

Stir each pan.

Add half the shrimp to each pan. Slice the sausage into bite sized pieces and add half to each pan. Add hot sauce and cajun spice to taste. The kids only get enough spice to add a little flavor with no real kick.

Stir once more to mix all the ingredients thoroughly and fold foil over to seal in the moisture.

Place into oven preheated to 425°F.

Cook until all of the water is absorbed into the rice. We cooked the kid’s batch just over one hour.

The adult’s batch with the extra vegetables took one hour and 45 minutes.

FavoriteSon and scarfs it up and never suspects. It’s a good thing he doesn’t read this blog.

(Preparation time: 30 minutes, Cook time: 1 hr to 1 hr 45 minutes)

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This recipe works for us! Want to learn “what works” for lots of different people? Click on over to Works for Me Wednesday hosted by Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer!