Creamy Cajun Gumbo

This past Thanksgiving my family rented a house in Lake Gaston, NC for the week. Dave and I drove down for the weekend and had dinner with everyone at the Waterview Restaurant. We got the creamy cajun gumbo and it was outstanding! We've been talking about it ever since, so of course I had to at least try to recreate it for my blog. I think it turned out pretty good and Dave gave it rave reviews as well. I looked at their menu online and found out it's made in a Sambuca cream sauce. I didn't have Sambuca on hand, so I used anise extract instead. I made the sauce a bit too thick, but that can be prevented by not dumping a giant handful of flour into the sauce. I panicked when it looked too milky and thin. Add small amounts of flour and stir and wait before you add more. I would definitely make this recipe again, and next time I think I'd like to add some shrimp to the mix. The restaurant version had shrimp but i forgot to get that at the grocery store. ooops.

I usually don't measure anything or write anything down as I'm cooking so I will try my best to remember everything!

Ingredients

• 1 pound Hot Italian pork sausage, sliced into 1-inch pieces
• 2 medium chicken breasts chopped 
• 1 medium green pepper cut into short strips
• 1 medium onion chopped
•  2 cloves of garlic minced
• 2 tablespoons of anise extract
•  1 cup heavy cream
• 4 tablespoons of butter
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese 
• 1 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 box of Penne pasta

Directions

1. Boil the chicken breasts and cut into small pieces
2. Cook the Penne pasta in boiling water for approximately 7 minutes, drain, and set aside 
3. Cook the sausage in a skillet until well browned, stirring often. Stir in the pepper, onion and garlic and cook until the vegetables are tender. Add cooked chicken and stir in Anise extract. Simmer until cream sauce is ready.  
4. Heat the butter and heavy cream over medium heat in a separate pan, add garlic powder and cheese and stir until melted. Add 2 tablespoons of flour as needed to thicken the sauce. Stir until flour is fully dissolved.  
5. Pour Sausage, chicken, and veggie mixture into the cream sauce and mix well. Serve over Penne pasta.