Throw It In A Pot Thursday

    This Gumbo recipe was a first (and VERY tasty) attempt. As is common in our kitchen, we start small and, well.... it just kind of snowballs. This is not uncommon when feeding 6-8 people every night. Every week night, we have a theme. Thursday's is Throw-It-In-A-Pot Thursdays. This is the day of the week we typically do a soup, chili, or casserole of some kind, you know anything you can just throw in a pot. An easy, no brainer meal is a real must have in our house. When you are cooking for a large amount of people, there are always going to be foods that are going to be avoided, for what ever reason and avoidance= complications.
   Tonight's gumbo started as "Oh hey, we haven't had chicken in a while, let's do something with that!" on top of that, we had some ingredients from our Bountiful Basket (and some that we picked up cause they sounded cool) and Voile! this amaazing gumbo that is big enough to feed a crowd, pot luck group, or a large family. Enjoy!
   This is Leona's recipe, as she is the throw it in the pot cook of the house, the measurements are to the best of our knowledge. Please feel free to comment or post questions!

Prickly Pete's Gumbo

60 Quarts non fat, low sodium Chicken Broth
1 whole onion, chopped
ribs celery and center leaves, chopped
*6 tomatoes (we used Roma), oven roasted, chopped
*4 Jalapeno Peppers, oven roasted and chopped
*3 Anaheim Peppers, oven roasted and chopped
1.5 lbs smoked sausage or andoille sausage, cut into small pieces
2 Cactus leaves, spined, blanched and cut into bite size pieces
16 oz frozen (or 3 cups fresh) chopped Okra
2 cups tomato juice, or to taste
1tsp Cajun spice
3 boneless, skinless large chicken breasts
1 lb raw shrimp (fresh is best, but  frozen thawed shrimp is fine, just make sure it is deveined and peeled)

• Empty all containers of chicken stock into a very large pot. Throw in chopped celery, celery leaves, chopped onion, Jalapeno peppers, Anaheim peppers, and chicken breasts. bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.
• Once the chicken breasts are done, pull those out and place to the side to allow to cool, continue simmering broth. Do not add extra water if you find the broth levels decreasing!
• Cut your sausage to the desired size, we cut ours into tiny cubes. The sausage is the least healthy ingredient, but the most appreciated so we decided the smaller, the more appreciation, right? Also, start steaming your rice.
• add cactus leaves, Cajun spice, Okra, and shrimp. Cook until shrimp starts to become transparent, then add sausage, chicken, oven roasted tomatoes, and tomato juice. Once the shrimp and rice are done, you can serve this puppy up and enjoy! Green onion is a delicious garnish and some fresh squeezed lemon add some nice freshness. Try it, you might just love it.

A few notes here: 1) The spice in this dish is pretty mild; to kick it up a notch, add more Cajun spice and use all jalapeno peppers. 2) to enhance the tomato try adding 1 Tbsp (or more) tomato paste or even some sun dried tomatoes! 3) we make the rice separate and add to individual bowls instead of throwing it into the soup so that the left overs are just as good (if not better) as the firsts. Rice breaks down, absorbs liquid and gets a funny texture when left in liquid.4) Made too much?Perfect! Freeze it! 5) This can be made without the cactus leaves, but I would encourage you to use them. They are chocked full of nutrition and hide well amongst the oven roasted peppers. My kids LOVED the idea that we could eat something that looks so mean!