Bean and Rice Gumbo

Today there was a mean snow storm and for some reason this sounded good, I improvised using a few recipes on line.

Bean and Rice Gumbo Healthy Style:

• about 1 T olive oil
• some flour

heat oil on medium-high heat add flour till a paste (roux) is made and starts to lightly brown add:

• 1/2 onion
• bell pepper
• 1 stalk of celery
• 2 cloves of garlic
• about 1/2 of a Hilshire Farms sausage sliced (chicken would have been healthier but I was not stopping my car after work till I got home and this is all we had)
  

saute for a few mins. in roux then add

• 32 oz chicken broth (low sodium/low fat)
• 2 cans of diced tomatoes with green chilies
  
• 2 cans of beans, I used 1 can of pinto 1 can of black (I drained the black beans and filled it with water)
• some hot sauce
• some chili powder
• some crushed red pepper
  

bring to a boil cover reduce heat and simmer for about 3o mins
meanwhile boil a cup of rice and add when done simmering

This is pretty spicy, which I love but I'm sure if you omit the last 3 spices it would be much tamer.
As you can see I ate my soup with a plastic spoon classy I know. I was starving and our dishes were mostly dirty. Being pregnant I want to throw away everything we own just to help keep things simple and clean. After looking for a spoon and realizing that we used all of them to scoop food for my brother-in-laws puppy we were watching this weekend and than searching for the ladle and remembering oh ya the puppy somehow got a hold of that too one day and it was also waiting to be cleaned I started to fantasize that maybe I would quit cleaning, cooking, and grocery shopping all together and just eat out every meal. Luckily just then TJ hopped in and started washing dishes and we were able to clean up after the craziness of the puppy. I found several washcloths and socks all over our house that he managed to capture at one point or another and run around the house with. I promise to work on my run on sentences, maybe in my next post.