My wife's family is from Weezyanna and my belle-mere makes her roux in the microwave.

Me, I stink at the roux. It's hard not to burn the flour, which makes it taste so bad. (Yes, buying some ready made is a good idea.) But I got to have some gumbo every so often.

That's a good recipe, cyberspeed. From what I know of Cajun cooking (I am not Cajun), gumbo is just leftovers stew, I believe.

For the gumbo where you don't have to mess wit de roux and you make high speed, I always done dis:

Make two cups each of the small chopped "trinity" -- onion, bell pepper, and celery. Put 3/4 cup oil or margarine in big pot and add the trinity and stir.

Here the good smell starts! Turn the heat on high. Add 1/2 to 3/4 teaspoon amounts (to taste) of red pepper, paprika, salt, white pepper, black pepper, thyme, oregano, file, minced garlic, and some Tabasco. Cook about 3-5 minutes, stirring and scraping constantly, not burning. Oh man, it smells good...

Go to medium heat, add 1 1/2 cups or less of tomato sauce (out of can). Cook scraping the bottom of the pot about 3-5 more minutes.

Add stock, about 5 cups or so. Chicken stock from a box is good. I am never into the work of making seafood stock, but that works too. Reduce to simmer.

What's in the pot is just soup at this point. At this point is where you are supposed to add all the leftover meats. I always add pieces of already cooked, boned, no-skin chicken and simmer for an hour.

I usually add crab (if good is available)and raw shrimp during the last fifteen minutes or so and let it cook until it's done but not overcook.

Goes over rice, with the jar of file (pronounced "feel-lay" not file) you can shake some on.

Oh, man. Good stuff. Walk down memory lane. I guess you could call this recipe the blue collar version. While yours is the white collar, four-star one.

I will check out Tooks.com...