Well first, it is snowing AGAIN this morning in TN. I got on the treadmill which we have in our outside "shed" area and it is a 3 sided garage thing. My treadmill faces the front so I can see outside. I watched it rain and then turn into snow and then into a blizzard.....Ok, maybe not a blizzard but it's been snowing for the past few hours. Then my hubby went outside and got a HUGE amount of snow and we made snow cream. I've never made snow cream before but it sounded fun so I dumped about 10 cups of fresh snow into my mixer, added some milk, sugar, and vanilla extract and created the first ever Shamblin Snow Cream. I then got creative and added some cinnamon and Rum extract that I grabbed from the cabinet. Pretty yummy! Brad had a couple of bites and then got the Blue Bell out. :) But I then added cocoa and he LOVED it! Bingo!
This morning was not only good because of the snow but also because my team won the Super Bowl....Go Packers. I LOVE football and the only logical reason why I chose the Packers is because I thought they were the underdogs and I liked the color green. But we invited all our friends in Jackson (all 3 of them...hahaha) and got ready for some good ole football fun. I have wanted to make gumbo for a LONG time now since Brad loves it. I didn't grow up with Cajun food or anything like gumbo so I wasn't sure what to expect. But I read up on it and even watched some videos on how to make roux. It didn't look so hard, right? I also read that the two mosts important parts of Gumbo were the roux and the sausage. So I marched to Kroger to find some Cajun sausage. I found some that said "Cajun" but neglected to figure our what Boudain sausage meant. I came home and started chopping the veggies and then made the roux. The dreaded and fearful roux. I had to talk myself through it and added the oil and flour and watched it turn into a beautiful dark roux without burning it! YEAH! Then I stuck the sausage in the oven. I took the sausage out of the oven and started cutting the sausage but it began to fall apart. I didnt' think anything about it and added it to the gumbo and covered the pot with the lid to simmer. I came to check back on it after an hour and with one stir I realized that the sausage fell apart! WHAT? I called Brad over and he said, "Oh, I wondered why you were using that kind of sausage because it's not meant to be cut in gumbo." Well, why didn't he tell me earlier? So I walked away from my less than perfect gumbo.
Game time came and our friends came over complete with their Steelers shirts! Go team! I was outnumbered as 3 of them were going to the Steelers while 2 of us were going for the Packers! We had a fantastic time though and I'm officially loving having people over! I even busted out some of my fancy smanzy wedding platters to serve the veggies and hummus.
Our menu:
Shrimp and fall-apart-sausage gumbo
Garlic Lime hummus
Spicy cranberry little smokies
Mixed berry cobbler and ice cream
5 great friends.....Go Packers!
Recipe to follow.....
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