There are so many arbitrary rules in life. I tend to avoid the ones that apply to food and cooking whenever it suits me. Not to be telling tales out of school, but that’s pretty much every time I make a meal.
Some ascribe to hard and fast rules on Gumbo, for example. To me, that goes against its very nature and reason for being. My guideline for making gumbo is 1 – what do I have on hand to cut up, and B – will it fit in the pot? It’s the cat version of cooking. If it fits, it sits. Or the Harry and Lloyd rules for a family hitchhiking:
What I like about gumbo is how versatile it is, not only in ingredients but cooking methods as well. You can throw it in a slow cooker early in the morning and forget about it, or put it together in the time it takes to saute some veggies and boil some broth. It can also be a sneaky way to get picky people to eat things other than meat and potatoes.
I try to have a 50/30/20 split on my daily macros for protein, complex carbs, and healthy fats. A gumbo can very easily be constructed with those building blocks for some one stop shopping for your dietary goals.
Of course, gumbo can also be extremely unhealthy if it falls into the wrong hands, say a restaurant or ready to eat out of a can. The sodium count alone in those offerings can be enough to kill a swamp full of gators. My version may not be salty enough for you if you are new to eating healthy, or get a lot of non-homemade meals.
Here’s a good way to test if your tastebuds are adjusted for way too much salt. Eat anything from a fast food joint or sit down restaurant, and if on your first bite, your initial thought isn’t several curse words followed by the phrase “too salty”, then you need to cut back. Do it slowly and gradually, and soon you will find that just the tiniest bit of salt is all that’s required to bring out the natural flavor of the food you are eating, instead of it tasting like a saltlick block out in the cow pasture.
It seems like all the attention is on heart attacks in this country, but I’ll take a heart attack over a stroke any day, and eating that much sodium day in and day out will have your internal plumbing rattling like the water pipes in a condemned house until one of them pops.
One cup gumbo from a very popular place in Little Rock will run you 1,530 mg of sodium. There’s no way one cup is the amount they are serving you, and that is just a stupid amount of sodium. You might as well go drink the ocean at that point.
This recipe is loose and fast. For those of you that ain’t all that good at schoolin…lose = can’t find it, loose = not tight or contained. My gumbo taste and style changes depending on my kitchen inventory at the time, but the building blocks are always the same.
Cauliflower rice, low sodium chicken stock, fresh veggies, and some low carb biscuits from last week’s article will always do you right, and save your blood vessels undue stress in the process.
Gumbo:
Ingredients:
1 yellow onion, 1 red bell pepper, 1 green bell pepper, 1 bunch celery, 1 package mushrooms, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp grass fed butter
2 tbsp avocado oil
1 package frozen cauliflower rice
4 pasture raised chicken breasts
1 package chicken sausage
low sodium chicken stock
1/2 tsp sea salt, pepper, oregano, thyme, smoked paprika, parsley
Cayenne pepper to taste
Instructions:
Trim your chicken and cut into pieces. Season with a pinch of salt and pepper, then cook through until no longer pink and starting to brown. Toss in the diced garlic and cook for another minute, stirring often. Cover with foil and set aside:
In a large stock pot, melt the butter and throw in all the veggies and the seasonings.. Cook until the veggies are soft and starting to give up some moisture.
In the same skillet that you cooked the chicken, add the avocado oil and cook the cauliflower rice until it starts to brown and it tender. While that is cooking, slice your chicken sausage and brown it in the air fryer. Once the rice is done, add the cooked chicken back to the skillet:
Combine the rice, chicken, and sausage in the pot with the veggies. Add the stock a half cup at a time until it hits the consistency you prefer, bring to a boil and then remove from heat. Served here with roasted broccoli and baby purple potatoes with low carb biscuits:
See the list of all Jason Murphy’s recipes at www.mysaline.com/jason-murphy.