What I Learned Today: How To Make Gumbo, Ring Removal

Today was day number one of state shut down. Due to the snow we had, the government thought it best in each county to shut things down for the safety of its citizens. Long story short, it was a SNOW DAY!! Well, not really in this household because we home school. But I wasn't completely cold-hearted. I gave the kids a "half day" of academic work so they could play with their neighborhood friends for the rest of the day. And play they did. In the words of my daughter "THIS WAS THE BEST DAY EVERRR!!!". LOL.

Cold weather naturally makes me want to make soups. I didn't want the typical bean soups or veggie soups though. I wanted shrimp gumbo. So, I found three recipes, mashed them together and made one pot of awesome gumbo. YUM! Even had to brave the snow - not really, I'm from Wisconsin - to go up the street to the store to get my shrimp.  I'll share with you my recipe if you promise to keep it a secret! ;-)

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons flour
3 tablespoons oil
1 lbs (or as much/less as you want) fresh or frozen cut okra
1 large onion, chopped
1 large green bell pepper, chopped
1 large red bell pepper, chopped
 (A bag of the onion/pepper fajita mix worked just fine for me)
3 stalks chopped celery
1 can (14.5 ounce size) diced tomatoes, undrained
3 cloves fresh garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon ground red cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons paprika
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
2 teaspoons hot sauce
*Added – Old Bay Seasoning, Sage, and Salt – to taste*
1 package (31/40ct) shrimp, rinsed - shell and de-vein them.
3 chicken thighs skinned and off the bone
6-8 cups water
1 cup uncooked regular long-grain white rice and 2 cups water



Directions:
Brown chicken seasoned with salt and pepper.

In small sauce pan (Or your gumbo pot), combine flour and oil; mix well. Cook, stirring constantly, over medium-high heat for 5 minutes. This is your Roux. Reduce heat to medium; cook, stirring constantly, about 10 minutes or until mixture turns reddish brown. Place flour-oil mixture in your gumbo pot if you used a sauce pan.

Stir in all remaining ingredients - starting with the garlic, peppers, onions and celery until tender, then okra and tomatoes. Add 6 cups water and seasoning. Boil until the okra is the texture you want.

What I Learned Today: I can make gumbo!!! This was my first batch and it was a hit! The way we ate had to be a sin...smh Lord have mercy. It was really good.

Youtube can be very useful. We've learned many of emotionally "life saving" things from there - like, how to remove dark wood stain from your white carpet using WD-40. But today, I don't know why, my husband found a video about ring removal. You know how sometimes your hands swell in the morning, or maybe you injured your upper limb and our fingers swell? Well, if you are wearing a ring on it at the time, your ring can cut off your circulation and destroy your finger. Most times people use something slippery to remove the ring, or if they can't do that, they cut it off. That can be traumatizing. So youtube showed us a better way...

What I Learned Today: Use something like an elastic band (think the kind of band you would find on an oxygen mask) wrap it tightly from the tip of your ring finger to the base next to the ring. Push the band under the ring and slowly unravel from the base. It will compress the swollen tissues and act as a kind of screw the twist the ring off the finger over the compressed tissue. And there you have it! Your ring in tact and your finger not destroyed :-)  Aww, shucks *blushing*....you're welcome!

GN!!