So I absolutely love J. Gumbo's. Derek and I eat there all the time. One of my favorite things is the bumble bee stew. I decided to try to make it at home and I was so pleased with how it turned out. I love cooking and I love trying to make new dishes. When I am cooking Im usually not so great with measuring. My mom and grandmother said that my great-grandmother (who was a fabulous cook) never measured anything really. She always had just the right touch and knew what her recipes needed. I had a good attempt today with that and would like to hope I could be at least half the cook she was. So here is my attempt to explain what my recipe for today's dish included.
Ingredients:
1 can of black beans
1 can of corn
1 can of diced tomatoes
1/2 of a small onion sliced into thin pieces
1/2 stick of butter (used at different times)
About 4-5 teaspoons of sugar (The sauce is supposed to be kind of sweet and I just kept adding sugar to taste)
Salt and peper to taste
10-12 drops of tabasco sauce (or to taste it you like it really spicy)
1/2 cup of milk
2 Tablespoons of flower
dash of paprika
First I sauteed the onions in a little butter and salt to soften them up in a skillet. Then I added the can of tomatoes, corn, and beans (drained and rinsed) to my skillet and let them cook.
In a seperate pan I made a butter sauce. I used about 2 tablespoons of butter melted and added 2 tablespoons of flour. Mix those together and let the flour cook a bit. Then I wisked in about 1/2 of milk slowly. I wanted a the sauce to be slightly thickened. Then I added the salt, pepper, paprika, hot sauce, and sugar to this sauce.
Once finished I added the sauce to the vegetable mixture and let it continue to simmer. Taste to see if you need more sugar, salt, hot sauce to your liking.
Prepare white/brown rice. Serve stew over the rice and enjoy!
