Last night I cooked my first paella. To the purist it was not really paella but it was a good first attempt.

I used Food Wishes' Sausage and Shrimp Paella recipe. It turned out really well. I did one minor change and one major change.

The minor change was I used fresh Andouille sausage and left it in link form rather than slicing it.

The major change was I did not have any saffron. I used a substitution suggested by The Spruce Website. For every 1/4 teaspoon of saffron I used 1/8 teaspoon of tumeric plus 1/2 teaspoon of paprika. While I can not speak to how authentic the taste was, the taste was very good.

While not an authentic paella my wife loved it and is that not the true measure of a recipe?