A little Cajun never hurt anyone

Last weekend, Eric mentioned his friend talking about a Gumbo Casserole.  That got me thinking about Gumbo in general and with the rain yesterday, it seemed fitting.  It's been a while since I've had Cajun food besides crawfish and felt it was time.  Plus, it's been a while since I've gotten to use my dutch oven and I really like it so I was pretty excited about this one! I hope y'all are ready for lots of pictures, steps, and ingredients.  The following went into my gumbo last night:

chicken breast

andouille sausage

shrimp

okra

onion

garlic

orange bell pepper

worcestershire sauce

tony chachere

salt

celery

pepper

cayenne pepper

all purpose flour

butter

green onions

stewed tomatoes

beef broth

parsley

canola oil

To start, I chopped everything...all the veggies and meat.  Then I added oil to my dutch oven and let it heat.  Once it was hot, I browned the chicken.  I didn't have to cook it all the way through b/c I knew it was going to cook for at least another 2 hours later so this is just to brown the surface.  Once the chicken was browned, I browned the sausage.  The same method applied.  The sausage was also removed and I just put it in the same bowl as the chicken

Once the sausage was removed, I added the flour and some butter.  Continuously stirring for about 10 minutes, I created a roux and browned it.  In order to let it cool, I removed it from the dutch oven and put it in a small bowl, stirring it every couple of minutes to release heat. 

When the roux was cool, I added it back to the dutch oven and added more butter and the veggie bowl consisting of: garlic, onions, celery, and peppers. I stirred this frequently to make sure the roux didn't burn to the bottom. 

I let this cook down for about 10 minutes and then added worcestershire, salt, pepper, tony chachere, and parsley.  I cooked this for about 10 minutes again and stirred frequently. 

The beef broth was added next.  I gave it a quick stir and then added the chicken and sausage back to the pot.  Once this came to a boil, I reduced the heat to low to a simmer.  At this point, the lid was placed on the pot and I let it simmer for about 45 minutes.  

Once the time had passed, I added the tomatoes and okra, gave it a quick stir, and then replaced the lid and let it simmer for about an hour.  After this hour passed, I added the shrimp and green onions and let it simmer without the lid for about 20 minutes.  It was a bit liquidy for me so I kept the lid off in order to thicken it up some. 

We ate some of the Jalapeño Jack bread we had purchased at the farmer's market with it.  I threw some butter on it and put it in the oven to toast.  So this meal took about 3 hours to make from prep to finish.

I definitely don't suggest making it when you don't have a lot of time.  I wonder how this would turn out in the crock pot actually since it is basically a "stew" It turned out really well.  The bread was a nice touch since I didn't want to make rice and we already had it on hand.  It probably could have used a little more spice but it was still delicious without it.  I could have added hot sauce but it was already good so I didn't feel the need.  This also made for great leftovers!  I sent Eric to work with some and I ate some this morning and it's even really good cold.