I felt like making some gumbo Ya Ya tonight. You start with the "sacred trinity" of cajun cooking (green pepper, celery and onion sauteed with butter and a little garlic. I had some bacon drippings left in a skillet so I used that instead of butter. Gumbo Ya Ya uses three kinds of meat, I used chicken, andouille sausage and shrimp. Then I just tossed in whatever I could come up with in the garden; zuchini, corn, carrots and green beans. Spiced it up with some jalapeno, fresh Mexican oregano and savory from my herb corner and Thai pepper flakes from a couple of years ago and cooked it down in a roux and chicken stock. Stirred in some file to thicken it after I turned off the fire
MMMM! Good I garontee.
Hoodat, that sounds marvelous!! Pardon my stupidity, but what is file? I made 11 jars of blackberry jam, some blackberry sorbet and about a gallon of blackberry juice. I separated the seeds, and boiled them. Strained the juice out, added a little sugar and honey- it is the best juice I have ever had! Tonight, another batch of pickles!
Regular gumbo is thickened with okra. In file gumbo you leave out the okra and use powdered sassafrass leaves to thicken it. File (pronounced fee-lay) is ground sassafrass leaves. The early settlers learned to use it from the Indians. You never use okra and file at the same time.
Oh Jambalay and a crawfish pie and a file gumbo.
For tonight I'm gonna see my macherimio.
Well, hoodat, I managed to cut some up this morning and fry them with my hen's eggs from yesterday. Pretty darn sweet, off the vine OR cooked, if you ask me!!
Roasted veggies (red new potatoes, turnips, carrots, red onion and broccoli--from garden; and celery--from store) with butter and creole seaoning. And grilled chicken breasts we raised/processed ourselves. Cukes with dip on the side.