Dude Food: Shrimp Jambalaya in 10 Minutes* and 10 Bucks**

Tasty meal for two guys or four girls. (Or one guy, his girlfriend, and her best friend. You get the idea.) All done with less than ten dollars worth of groceries and taking less than 10 minutes provided you have a microwave, can opener and a large mixing bowl!
*Time spent shopping not included. Sorry. Get the girlfriend to do it if you really hate shopping that much. =)
**Price of spices not included. Dudes should have basic spices on hand. Seriously.

Step 1: Shop for the Stuff

This recipie is pretty basic, as jambalaya is just a bunch of stuff heated up and cooked to perfection. The real secret to getting the whole thing made in less than 10 minutes is the rice, as seen.

1) $2 Birds Eye frozen rice to be exact. It is microwaved and the bag puffs up like a bag of popcorn, without all the popping. This stuff is sweet. I used southwest style because it has corn and carrots and such.

2) $.89 Black beans are just plain ol' black beans. You can get a regular sized can (umm 12oz?) and that works well, or you can get a bigger can (24 oz?) and make some black bean soup to go with it, but I digress... =)

3) $5.99 Shrimp is just shrimp, frozen cooked. Tail on or off is fine. I bought the tail on kind by accident, which meant I had to take an extra minute or two to squeeze all the tails off. But, since I'm a pro, I still finished with time to spare.

I got all the stuff at Wal-Mart. I know, I suck.

Step 2: Cook the Rice.

Just follow the instructions. It tells you everything you need to know about microwaving rice. Why? Because they make it, that's why.

This needs to be started first because it takes the longest, and you can be doing stuff in the meantime.

Step 3: Get the Shrimp A'thawin.

Take about half and put them in the same bowl you eat your cereal out of. Add warm water. Try to get them all to be somewhat submerged, but floating is OK.

Step 4: Rice Should Be Close to Done.

Check out the picture, it really does puff up!

Step 5: Dump the Rice

Just put it in there.

Step 6: Add the Beans

Drain some of the liquid off the beans. About that much. Yeah, that's enough.

Step 7: Looks Weird?

Yep, you're doing it right.

Step 8: Enter Shrimp!

I already pinched the tails off, and I didn't show it. I know, I suck. Pile them on.

Step 9: Mix It a Little.

Yep just a little.

Step 10: Spice Time!

Spice it up!

Step 11: Done-ski!

Now you can get back to the game, if you made this meal during the halftime show like I did!

Lemme know what you think.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that the shrimp would be cold (though I thought you'd remember). I reheated mine in the bowl I ate it in for about a minute to really bring everything to the same temperature.

So, reheat and then it's Done-ski!

=)