Post-eaten update

I successfully fed my husband, Eric, Dave Yates, Dave B., Sage, Alex, Danny, Heather, Heather's friend Christina (?), Logan, myself and Redd.
I added a whole chicken, 2 zucchini, 2 yellow squash, habanero spicy sauce and Louisiana cayenne sauce to the recipe. It tasted amazing!

I don't need to review too much. Anyone who's had gumbo knows what I'm talking about.
I used the stock from boiling the chicken all day (see: from 10 am til 4 pm). I then did what it said about boiling the shells with the stock water. I added the squashes after I put the stock and okra in. Otherwise, I did everything about the same. I never made roux before, but it was definitely just a creole alternative to corn starch and water, except corn starch and water doesn't brown soup. It'd be up to you if you wanted to brown oil and flour just to give a more caramel color to the gumbo. I could have skipped that and saved myself 20-30 minutes, but oh well.

A few people added more hot sauce, but no one needed more seasonings than that. I put more thyme in than it called for, but my measurements were all off. I also added chili powder instead of cayenne (cause I lost my cayenne apparently) and a Creole seasoning I found at BiLo, and I think that helped. The flavor was meant to have a more concentrated shrimp-stock flavor, but the chicken competed with that in a very good way. It was balanced, in my opinion, and I didn't hear anything even remotely similar to a complaint.

Everyone left full, at least if they left at all. Eric and Logan are still here.

I'm so excited this turned out to be so tasty! :D

I have photos, but they're on a camera that's busy charging. Go figure. I'll post up pictures eventually!