Yesterday I finally got to cook some food so I spent all day in the kitchen. My favorite kind of Sunday.

I made a dish from the Cooking Up A Storm cookbook. The dish was Chicken and Sausage gumbo.

I’m going to try to take you step by step through my process with photos below.

Ingredients:

1   4-5 lb chicken cut into serving pieces
Salt
Cayenne pepper
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups chopped yellow onions
1 cup chopped green bell peppers
1/2 cup chopped celery
About 2 1/2 quarts chicken broth
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 lb andouille sausage sliced 1/4 inch thick
1/4 cup chopped green onions (white and green parts)
2 tbs chopped fresh parsley
Hot cooked rice for serving

First I combined the oil and flower to make the roux. I stirred it very often for about 45 minutes till brown.

Here it is after about 20 mins. It’s a little darker

This is after about 45 minutes. It’s pretty dark. I probably should have made it a little darker but I was getting impatient so I moved on to the next step.

Next I added the chopped onion, bell pepper and celery.

I cooked this for about 10 minutes till the vegetables were really soft.

I added the chicken broth, stirred to blend well, then I added the bay leaf, thyme and chicken and brought it to a boil. Once it was boiling, I lowered it to a simmer and cooked it for 3 hours.

After 3 hours I added the sausage, green onions and the parsley. I tasted it to check the seasonings. I then added some cayenne pepper and some salt. Boy was it good!

I also made a seafood gumbo that I’ll give the recipe for at another time.

So my Sunday dinner consisted of 2 kinds of gumbo and some delicious corn bread pancakes.
The corn bread pancakes were good but I still need to perfect this a little bit.

Since I’ve gotten the new responsibilities at work, I’ve had almost no time to cook dinner so I’ve been bringing home takeout. A few days ago, I went to a place called Queen’s Louisiana Po Boy Cafe. It has 4 stars on Yelp so I was really looking forward to trying it, since Cajun food is on of my favorites. I picked up 2 twelve inch Catfish Po Boys, 2 large gumbos, an order of hush puppies and an order of sweet potato fries.  Total cost including tip- $60. Not cheap.

Hush puppies were ok. I’ve made better at home. The catfish po boys were delicious but they were pretty stingy on the fish. Hardly any there!

The sweet potato fries were lame. They were covered in cinnamon and none of us liked the flavor. I make sweet potato fries at home and they are much better.

The Gumbo was delicious. It is made with a dark roux, which according to all of the cookbooks I’ve read, is the secret to a good gumbo. You make the roux dark by cooking it carefully for a long time. My only complaint was that the liquid was not thick enough. There was one order that we didnt’ finish so I ate it the next morning. It was much much better the next day. The liquid thickened up in the fridge and it tasted fantastic.

I would go back again but I don’t recommend getting it to go. I think it would be much better there when it comes right off the stove. One other plus about the place was that they served Abita Beer from Louisiana.