I know that most people view the slow cooker as more of a winter cooking tool - and can any Ramona Quimby fan forget the beef stew incident that lead to raw pancakes for dinner? But I love using it in the summer, too, because then the oven isn't heating up the house and making the A/C work overtime. I was inspired to try this recipe because I had a pound of frozen shrimp that needed using, only to discover too late that my shrimp shells had developed white spots on them that may or may not have been some kind of bacterial disease thing. (This is after peeling almost all of them, but fortunately before I spent 30 minutes deveining them.) Anyway, some slow cooker recipes make me happy because you kind of throw a bunch of ingedients in, walk away, and then come back 8 hours later to a yummy dinner. This one? Not so much. The initial prep alone took an hour and a half, and that's not including the time it took to make the accompanying brown rice. Despite all of this - the time consumption, the unexpected lack of shrimp, etc. - I can't tell you how delicious it turned out. We ate it for three days straight and still managed to fill a large freezer back with leftovers so that we can have more gumbo-y goodness later.

Still haven't gotten that cooked blueberry dessert recipe, but I will share it as soon as I do. For now, gumbo away!

Slow Cooker Chicken, Sausage & Shrimp Gumbo

INGREDIENTS

1 lb. Kielbasa or Smoked Sausage, sliced into ¼-inch rounds
3 tablespoons butter, divided
1 large onion, chopped (don’t dice – bigger chunks are better)
1/2 red or green pepper, chopped (ditto)
2 stalks celery, chopped (ditto)
4 cloves garlic, minced (Trader Joe’s frozen cubes work great)
1 10 oz. package frozen sliced okra, thawed (I used a 16 oz. package and it was fine)
1/3 cup canola oil, plus 1 tablespoon, divided
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
3 cups hot chicken broth
1 cup hot water
1 ½ cups chopped cooked chicken (OK to use rotisserie chicken, even though harvesting that meat is messy and gross)
1 can diced tomatoes, undrained
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon filé powder (optional)
12 oz. peeled and deveined raw shrimp (see note below)

PREPARATION

Heat 1 tablespoon oil (olive or canola) in a wide, heavy-bottomed pan over medium-high heat. Brown the smoked sausage; remove with slotted spoon to slow cooker. Next, add 1 tablespoon butter to sausage drippings and sweat onion, red pepper, and celery over medium heat until tender and onions are translucent; add garlic and sweat for another minute before placing the contents into the slow cooker.

In the same pan, melt 2 tablespoons of butter and sauté thawed okra over low to medium heat until it starts to lose its sticky gooiness (you’ll know what I mean when you see it – it takes about 10-15 minutes). Add to slow cooker.

In a medium-sized saucepan, heat 1/3 cup canola oil over medium heat and then add flour, whisking constantly for five minutes. Reduce heat to medium-low and continue cooking and whisking until roux has darkened to the color of pecans (roughly 15 minutes). DO NOT LET MIXTURE REACH A SIMMER, and DO NOT STOP WHISKING – the mixture will begin to separate immediately.

When roux has reached the desired color, add 3 cups hot chicken broth and 1 cup hot water, whisking as you pour. Keep whisking until mixture is smooth and then pour into slow cooker.

Finally, add chopped chicken, tomatoes, salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper to the slow cooker. Stir all ingredients until well incorporated. Cook on low heat for 6-8 hours. Add shrimp during the last 20 minutes and cook until pink.

Serve over hot, buttery rice (I use brown, for the whole grain factor).

LARA'S NOTE: My shrimp were questionable, as I mentioned above, so I omitted them. To thicken the gumbo, I added one tablespoon of filé powder – a traditional gumbo ingredient usually used when you aren't relying on okra as a thickening agent – at the point when I should've added the shrimp, had my shrimp not gone all icky. It's available at Jannsen’s in Delaware, or online if you don't have a store that sells the stuf. I have to say, this gave the gumbo great flavor and did thicken the mixture quite a bit. Gumbo shouldn't be gluey-thick, though - it has to be wet enough to mix well with the rice.