John Finds Okra

So right around this time last year, myself and two of my adventurous and hilarious lady friends took an impromptu weekend trip to New Orleans. We proceeded to try the local cuisine, sample a few hurricanes and in general soak up the Bourbon street atmosphere. Currently I am finding myself chained to my desk with no vacation in sight and therefore am attempting to recreate a bit of the Nawlins yumminess we experienced while there. Minus the day drinking.

I decided to make a healthy Seafood Gumbo. I actually used this recipe from Hungry-Girl.com. This website is aimed at weight watchers but does healthy modifications of recipes, product reviews, etc. In general many of my feelings towards food (more veggies, etc.) are in line with the WW message, except that I don't really focus on fat and calories. I would much rather have natural ingredients than something that is low fat with lots of additives. Food for thought. Either way, taking it with a grain of salt I have received tons of creative ideas from this site. They send me emails (you should get on their list too... click here) daily which is how I came across this bad boy and knew I wanted to try it.

Hungry Girl's Yumbo Gumbo:

• Okra
• Peppers: green/red/yellow
• Can stewed tomatoes
• tomato juice
• Onions
• Crab meat
• Shrimp
• Creole Seasoning
• Hot sauce
• brown rice
  

I had most of the ingredients on hand but made John pick up the Okra at the last minute. He now knows what okra is.

Also the recipe called for spicy tomato juice which i omitted and subbed some hot sauce for. WHOAH. Did I forget I don't like spicy foods? Duh.