Facile Friday - All in!

This Daring Cooks challenge made quite a splash in my house.  Paella was the dish and it is truly an "everybody in the pool!" kind of adventure.
I have never made paella but have always enjoyed it.  What did I know about making paella?  I only knew that usually you have to order it a day ahead of time when you get it at a restaurant.  That's not too intimidating huh?

Once I had the challenge, I went looking for a recipe that suited me and my tastes; chicken, seafood and not too spicey.  The truth is that i didn't find a single recipe that fit what I was looking for so I combined a few recipes.  Each one had a piece of what I wanted and maybe a trick or two to make it easier.

First, I was not ready to spend the money on saffron but I remembered that I had used Sazon Goya con azafran (Mexican saffron and other spices) in another challenge and it had the color from the saffron with a bit of added spice to it.  Did I mention that it was really inexpensive?

I also wanted seafood, mussels and squid were my preference but they were harder to find than I thought.  I ended up being able to special order them so that I could pick them up the day before I was cooking.  Perfect!

Hello little guy!  You look quite scrumptious!

Now all I had to do was make paella.  I severly underestimated how long it would take to complete this dish BUT it was very much work the effort.

Let me tell you a little story...

My youngest brother has made fun of my cooking ability for many years.  About 15 or more years ago, I was just trying to wing it in the kitchen because there was no actual food in the house.  I will admit that the concoction that I created was not at all attractive but it tasted good enough to stave off my hunger.  As for my brother.....he just used it to illustrate how bad my cooking was....FOR 10 YEARS! He is my younger brother after all.   

Here he is, that little brother of mine.  He was so cool.

Flash forward to my paella day and my little brother and his family came to brave the unknown at my house.  He actually put it on facebook!  I guess it was just in case he didn't return, at least facebook would know what happened to him.


Here is the final product of a good part of a day worth of labor.  Mom, dad, little brother, little brother's wife and I all enjoyed the golden goodness of my first, and certainly not my last, paella.  The best part was that my little brother survived AND enjoyed it.  Maybe now he will forget about that day 15 years ago.  

Ha!  Remembering that day is his job as my brother and he is a dedicated worker.

My Paella Recipe

Thanks to Inma of La Galletika for a really great challenge and as always, be sure to visit the Daring Kitchen to see the wonder that is Paella done 1000 ways!

Our Daring Cooks’ September 2012 hostess was Inma of la Galletika. Inma brought us a taste of Spain and challenged us to make our very own delicious Paella!

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