1 chicken
1 pkg. Italian sausage
4 lb. shrimp
1 (28 oz.) can crushed tomatoes
2 cans frozen okra
6 tbsp. all purpose flour
6 tbsp. oil
5 chopped lg. onions
7 stalks chopped celery
2 bell peppers, chopped
1/2 c. parsley, chopped
1 pkg. onion soup
Salt to taste
Cayenne pepper or Tabasco sauce to taste
2 tsp. thyme
1 tsp. basil
3 bay leaves
1/2 tsp. rosemary
5 chopped cloves garlic

Cut up a whole chicken. Wash and boil in salted water with the following seasonings.

Make sure you take as much skin and fat off chicken, saves your heart! Add (chopped) 3 onions, 3 bay leaves, thyme, rosemary, 1/4 cup chopped parsley, 4 stalks chopped celery, 1 cut up bell pepper, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper, 2 pods garlic. Boil until chicken is tender. Take chicken out of stock and let cool and debone, throw back in stock.

When making your roux, you need to stir 6 tablespoons flour into 6 tablespoons of oil. Let the oil become hot before adding flour. Then it is a must to stir constantly until it gets dark brown, not burnt but dark brown. This is the cajun way. Immediately take off fire, stir until cool.

Peel shrimp, devein, wash well, and cut up in at least two pieces each shrimp. Place shrimp and cut up Italian sausage in brown flour or roux. After shrimp became pink. Add the rest of the onions and celery, green onions, green pepper and garlic. When all sauteed (the onions are lucid), add okra, large can of crushed tomatoes. The flour is used as a thickening, so when it boils it will thicken. Add chicken and stock and 1 package of onion soup. If you find the Gumbo is too watery, just keep cooking and it will thicken up. If too thick, just add water.

In Louisiana, a pot of soup or Gumbo may be not only the food for a party, but may well be the reason for the party, so if your neighbor wants to bring a few crabs, ham or oysters, throw it in the gumbo and it will make it even better.

You serve your gumbo over white rice, yum, it's good!