Tried My Hand At Cheaters Gumbo

[Mr King]

Living in the middle of Illinois, gumbo is kind of hard to come by. I have never made it, so I decided to try to make it tonight. I cheated though. I bought a bottled roux, and a can of gumbo base. My concern in buying a bottled roux was more for trying to capture the base flavor of gumbo not so much trying to save myself the step of making a roux. I doubled the gumbo recipe on the back of the roux jar, and threw in my own touches. Such as replacing one quart of water with one quart of chicken broth. To my dismay the gumbo was not thickening up, so I ended up making more roux anyway. Making a gumbo style roux was a first too, but it turned out to be a lot easier then I thought. Youtube instructional videos were a great help for that. After adding my roux, it thickened up, and attained a rather pleasant color. My buddy that is rooming with me, came home, and said the house smelled great. We were both really happy with the finished product.