The last morning or two I&8217;ve noticed a little different feel to the air.

Now I know that it is possible that we are no where near cooler weather being here to stay but I can&8217;t help but wish.

The coming of fall and tailgating are my favorite times of the year and they make me think of big one-pot meals such as chili, gumbo, stew and red beans with rice.

Thanks to you our readers I got some really great chili recipes and now I have a new request.

Let&8217;s talk gumbo.

Gumbo is one of those things that I make that never turns out the same way twice, mostly because I just start cooking and adding to the pot as I go.

My family likes thick gumbo made with a dark roux, lots of sausage, chicken and shrimp.

Sometimes after Christmas I make one with turkey to take care of the leftovers we have.

My mother-in-law has a really good recipe for a chicken and sausage gumbo, so I&8217;ll have to ask her to share it with us.

Several, several years ago I was given a recipe for gumbo z&8217;herbes that I have since misplaced.

This gumbo only had a little meat in it for seasoning and contained a large amount of leafy greens such as mustard, turnip and collard greens. I know there was story with this recipe and I believe it was served during Lent but I could be mistaken.

So if you have this recipe and story behind it please let me know.

And since all gumbo recipes start with a roux we will cover how to make this also. And if you have any tips for that please send them in also, especially if any of you have tried any oven methods for browning your flour.

Gumbo is only one of two dishes that I eat okra in, the other is vegetable soup.

Please don&8217;t ask me why I cannot stand it in any other dish.

My children love fried okra and thank goodness their grandmother cooks it for them because I don&8217;t touch the stuff.

I use it in my gumbo because it is a traditional ingredient and supposedly it helps thicken the gumbo. But if you have a better idea I certainly want to hear it.

Rice is traditionally spooned into the bowl and then the gumbo served over.

For me there is a fine line between complimenting the gumbo with rice and serving a bowl of rice with some gumbo on top of it.

When I am at home I just leave the rice out all together and use hot French bread to eat mine with.

You can mail your recipes to me care of the paper or e-mail it to me at

christina.hall@natchezdemocrat.com

and we will publish as many of them as we can.

Christina Hall

can be reached by e-mail at

christina.hall@natchezdemocrat.com

.