Cajun Dirty Rice From Heather

Ingredients:
1 lb. ground pork
1 lb. ground beef
1 large bell pepper
1 medium onion
5-6 cloves garlic, peeled
1-2 fresh, cayenne peppers
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
2 4-6oz cans mushroom steak sauce
3-4 cups cooked rice

The Dressing Mix:Pan fry the ground meat well until all of the meat is well done. Put bell pepper, onion and garlic into food processor and "nearly" liquefy it, then add this to the meat. The pepper/onion/garlic should sizzle as you stir it well into the the meat. When the sizzling fades, add the mushroom steak sauce and a little water and allow the entire dressing mix to simmer for at least a half hour.

Dirty Rice: Cooked rice can be added to this mixture and thoroughly stirred. The more rice you add, the drier and "whiter" the resulting dressing will be. Adding the right amount of rice will result in a dress that is moist with the rice appearing very brown ("dirty").

Chicken Gumbo - Blair

This is DH's Louisiana Grandma's recipe - it is yummy and pretty simple! :)
ROUX:
3/4 Cup Oil
1 Cup Flour

GUMBO:
10-12 Green Onions (chopped) Add some of the green tops, but not all
2 1/2 Cups chopped celery
1 Cup chopped celery leaves
1/2 Cup chopped Parsley
1T. Kitchen Bouquet
9 Chicken Bouillon Cubes
2 Qts. + 1 Cup Water
Morton's Nature's Seasons
1/2 to 1 tsp. Zatarain's Gumbo File
Chicken: 6 thighs, 5 breasts, 2 drumsticks --- or 7 breasts, 4 thighs, 3 drumsticks. Leave skin on the chicken when you cook it because the flavor is in the fat.
1 lb. Smoked Sausage - Hillshire Farm or Echrich is best.

INSTRUCTIONS:
You need a heavy aluminum pot or an iron pot to make the roux. You need an 8 quart pot to cook the gumbo in. HEAT THE OIL AND THE FLOUR IN THE HEAVY POT. Stir constantly until flour is brown. (Have all ingredients chopped before making the roux)
When the flour is brown, remove from heat. Place pot on unlit burner and add green onions. Stir. The heat of the roux will cook the onions. Cover pot for a few minutes. Add celery and let the heat of the roux cook the celery.
Add the water. Place pot on heated burner again. Add the chicken, parsley, celery leaves, and chicken bouillon. Stir well. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat, cover the pot and allow the gumbo to cook on medium heat until the chicken is tender. This will take approx 1 1/2 hours. Stir ocassionally.
When chicken is cooked, remove and place on cookie sheet to cool. Skim the fat off of the gumbo at this time. When chicken is cool enough to handle, remove the meat from the bones. Add the meat to the gumbo.
Season to taste with Nature's Seasons. Add Gumbo File. Do not add too much. Add a little at a time to see how much you want to add. You can always add more to the individual servings.
Cut smoked sausage in slices. Place on paper towel and cover with paper towels. Heat in mircowave oven just enough to heat through. This will remove excess fat. Do not overcook. Or you can place sausage in small amount of water in a small pan and heat through to remove excess fat from sausage. Add sausage to gumbo.
That's it. From start to finish it takes about 3 hours to complete. You can freeze any gumbo that's left over. To serve simply thaw and heat.
We serve over rice.

I copied this word for word from DH's Grandma Bonnie's recipe she sent my MIL back in 1986. :)