Really Good Gumbo

I've been promising/threatening for years to post my gumbo recipe. By my standards, it's a long, complicated recipe. This is not a quick meal. But if you've got a Saturday to spend stirring roux, there's worse things you do with your time.

I usually make gumbo in the summer, when I'm off from school and the okra is fresh at the markets. But if you are craving a memory of summer, this is the soup to get you through the winter months. My version is heavy on veggies and lighter than most recipes. It's not quite broth based, because there is a roux, but just enough to give body and flavor. Because we need to watch carbs at our house, we skip the traditional rice that usually accompanies it. But if you don't have that problem, it goes great poured over white or brown rice.

The part that will tax your patience is the roux. Roux is a paste of cooked flour and fat. Cooked lightly, it's great for sauces. Cooked until brown, it's a base for gravy. Cooked until dark, it's base for gumbo. I'm a bit timid with my roux, since the dividing line between "perfect" and "horribly, horribly burned" is a thin one that jumps quickly. So I cook mine to a nice golden brown.


1 pound spicy sausage links (my preference is hot Italian turkey from Publix, but you can use whatever you prefer)
1/4 cup cooking oil
1/4 flour
1 cup onion, diced small
1 cup bell pepper, seeded and diced small
1 cup celery, diced small
1 pound okra, cleaned and sliced
1 14 ounce can of dice tomatoes
7 cups chicken broth
1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined
1-2 teaspoons file powder
1 teaspoon smoked paprika

Lightly coat the bottom of your pot with oil. Fry the sausages until brown, then remove. With a rubber scrapper, dig up all those little brown bits. Leave them in the pot, because they will make everything tasty. Over medium heat, add 1/4 cup of oil and 1/4 cup of flour. Stir together to remove lumps and continue stirring. Keep stirring. And stirring. How long you stir depends on your patience and willingness to take things to the edge. I keep mine going until it's a rich caramel color. When you've had enough, add the onion, peppers and celery and keep stirring. When those veggies are soft, add the okra, tomatoes and chicken broth. Simmer until the veggies are cooked through. Make sure to add salt.

While your soup is simmering, take a skillet. In about a a tablespoon of oil, sauté your shrimp. Give them a good shake of salt and the smoked paprika. I like to cook the shrimp separately so it doesn't overcook.

After the okra s cooked through, add the file powder and sliced sausage. Simmer another minute or two. Check for salt.

Serve gumbo poured over rice, or not and topped with the shrimp.

Like my poorly lit iPhone pictures? I'm on Flickr now! And you can like me on Facebook!

What Can I Do With Fifty Six Pounds of Rice?

A couple weeks ago, Publix had their annual sale on rice. It's an incredible deal, a three pound bag for a dollar. They will let you buy four bags at a time. So, being the crazy food horder that I am, me or my husband hit Publix several times that weekend. We ended up with roughly fifty pounds, which when added to the rice that was left from last year's sale, gave us nearly sixty pounds of long grain white rice. I have a plethora of rice.

The first problem with purchasing this much rice is storage. Where do you put it all? And how do you keep the bugs from getting into it? I do two things: First, I emptied two of the bags into a gallon sized plastic milk jug that I'd cleaned out. Those plastic bags rice comes in are messy and fragile. When it's in a milk jug, I can pour it easily and the countainer is a bit sturdier for keeping insects out. Second, I packed the rest into my freezer. The cold will keep the bugs out and it also helps fill up my freezer so it'll run more efficiently. Double win.

The second problem is: What to DO with it? I haven't even mentioned yet the twelve pounds of parboiled rice my husband bought before he realized there was a difference. It's an ungodly amount of rice. Sure, I could just make rice and gravy for every meal from now until Christmas. Or I could steam it up alongside stir fries. Chicken and rice soup will probably happen as the weather cools.  But there's more you can do with rice than just let it soak up gravy.  It's a very versatile grain that can be the centerpiece of many meals.

One of the first things I did was make vegetarian Korean bibimbap, using this recipe from the New York Times as a guide. I left out the salmon, and I used blanched carrots, green beans and broccoli for the vegetable. Not traditional Korean cooking, I know. But tasty and different. Continuing with the Asian theme, I've also made Thai style fried rice a couple times. Just stir fry already cooked rice with egg, diced vegetables, soy sauce and some Thai basil from my garden. Add a little srirancha sauce for the heat and you've got a fast, tasty meal.  I've also got a ton of great curry recipes I've ganked from Smitten Kitchen and other places.

I've been working on a recipe for Arroz Con Pollo, which I'm almost ready to post. This combines chicken thighs, rice, beans and veggies with savory spices for an easy one dish meal. I've started looking at recipes for jambalaya and etouffee as well. I've got a great Chicken Tortilla Soup recipe that has a little rice in it as well.  And I haven't even looked into the possibility of finding a rice pudding recipe my husband will actually eat.

Am I worried about the carbs? Not really. I exercise, though not as much as I should. And you've probably noticed a theme to my cooking suggestions here: vegetarian. I find that leaving out meat for a couple of meals helps keep the calorie content down. I'm not worried about the lack of vitamins in white rice, because I eat a wide variety of fruits and veggies in my daily diet.  As long as I'm not eating JUST rice, which would be gross, I'm not worried about my nutrition. Sure, there are plenty of more nutritionally dense grains out there, but I doubt I can but them for a dollar for three pounds. 

So over the next year, expect more rice recipes from me as I try to whittle down my stockpile before it overwhelms us.