Gumbo

Yes, I already have a previous entry about gumbo, but after slaving over this roux for 4.5 hours, I just had to make another entry on this! So yes I lied when I said I would never make my own roux again, but I got motivated after seeing red and yellow bell peppers for $0.49 each, and after Kevin decided to go to Chicago for Ribs rather than Lucille's for his birthday dinner (or else I would have just ordered the gumbo from Lucille's for $10 a plate).

Sigh so I started the roux at 10pm, which was a bad idea, and had to keep it going until I gave up at about 2:30am, disappointed that I didn't get it as dark as last time. I was falling asleep so tried to multi-task and disposition the other ingredients at the same time so that I can be done with it and start the slow cooker before going to bed. This multi-tasking proved challenging since the roux requires a lot of attention in order not to burn.

Anyway I got chicken tenders (I think gumbo tastes better with white meat) and also got some smoked apple chardonnay sausage from TJ's. For veggies I only used green/red/yellow bell peppers and onions, so I didn't have the holy trinity this time. Was too lazy to look up the recipe again so just winged it on the spices (bay leaves, cayenne pepper, paprika, thyme). I woke up to the wonderful smell of gumbo this morning and ate too much of it for lunch =P.

You know, for this batch, I used 6 bell peppers (2 of each color) totalling $3, about $3 worth of chicken tenders ($2/lb), one package of sausage ($4), one onion ($0.25), and oil and flour and spices (maybe $1?). So this batch only costed about $12 and could easily last four times. Lucille's must make a lot of profit on their gumbo, but I wonder if anybody else orders it besides me. Oh well, if one is pressed for time, it would still be worth it to pay $10 for rsetaurant gumbo and get a biscuit with apple butter on the side, rather than spending 4.5 hours making roux and another 8 hours or so slow cooking it, and extra time on top of that to clean up etc. I have enough roux to make probably 2 or 3 more batches of the same size though...