Crockpot Shrimp Gumbo

I was inspired the other day to try my hand at gumbo. It is something that I have acquired a taste for in the years that I have lived in Texas and like most things I enjoy eating, I like to have a favorite recipe to make it at home. I found a crockpot recipe on Pinterest  but made several changes to the protein then as it started to cook, I realized that there were a few more changes I wanted to make. As it turned out, it pretty much ended up being a recipe I made up as I went along and it turned out AWESOME! Tony and I spent the evening at his shop with the crock pot full of gumbo and shared with our friends. Everyone seemed to agree that it was pretty darn good. So here is what I did...

Ingredients

The following ingredients should be put in the crock pot at the very beginning all together and cooked on the high for four hours:

1 lbs of sausage cut into rounds 

2 Bell peppers diced

1 Onion Diced 

2 Celery Stalks Diced

6 Garlic Cloves

4 Bay Leaves

6 ounces tomato paste

15 ounces canned diced tomatoes

1.5 Tbsp I cajun seasoning (Like Tony's or SlapYourMama)

1 tsp pepper

1.5 tsp thyme

1.5 tsp oregano

1 cup water

1.5 cup chicken stock (I used homemade stock)

After that cooks for an hour, start to make the roux

Melt:

1 cup butter in a pan

slowly add 

1 cup of flour ( I used a gluten free blend because that is what I keep in the house and it worked beautifully but I know standard flour will work as well if not better)

Whisk the flour slowly in the butter as it begins to lightly bubble and whisk consistently as it bubbles until it achieves the desired color. Mine took about ten minutes to get to be a dark golden brown. 

Add roux to crock pot and stir. 

In the last 30 minutes or so add the following protein:

2 lbs of thawed, peeled, cooked shrimp

12 ounces of crabmeat. 

I ate my gumbo over a bed of cauliflower rice which was SO GOOD. I also made brown rice and black rice (which I tasted and was super yummy. you can get it at Trader Joes. But of course use whatever rice you prefer or none at all! 

Really yummy soup! WE all had several bowls. I hope you enjoy!