Gumbo!

I spent most of yesterday making a gumbo.
A peculiar trait about me is the drive to make things much more difficult than they need to be - so I smoked the chicken and sausage over pecan & hickory for flavor. A totally unnecessary step but I like doing it.

With the chicken nicely darkened, I boiled it for stock and then sliced up the sausage to brown in a separate skillet. Following that, it was time for a roux with peanut oil and flour. Into the roux with garlic, onion, celery and green pepper and my last aji dulce pepper - a single tiny pod that fully made its presence felt in the entire batch much to my amazement. The aji dulce is like a habanero free of heat with all the flavor intact.
With the vegetables and the roux properly mixed it was finally time to add it all to the pot to let it simmer for a couple of hours, saving the okra for last. I spent the time making french bread with the help of a bread machine.

With the okra finally added and the bread out of the oven and fresh rice still rising steam, I sat down for a bowl and watched the Metal era of The Seven Ages of Rock.
Fully knocked on my ass; I fell asleep about 8:30 last night. Gumboed!