I've been making so much bourguignon recently that I've started to get sick of it. One good thing about it though is that you can prep it in advance for the week and make mash/gnocchi/pasta as required without it tasting like leftovers. I was looking for something similar to make and came across gumbo. Food from that part of the US always looks good in photos but I've never had the opportunity to try some that was made by someone who knew what they were doing. The closest thing to it that I've tried was one of my attempts at jambalaya, but I put in too much paprika and ruined the flavour of the whole thing. When looking at the recipe for gumbo, I saw that it uses similar spices 
and also needs roux. I don't store excess oil from my cooking and the thought of mixing flour and frying oil to make the foundation of a dish was 
. I figured that cuisine from Louisiana is already pretty French so substituting parts of the recipe for more French versions might work out.
Here I started prepping some celery, green peppers, and onion/garlic. I wasn't spoiled for choice in terms of smoked sausage so I just got chorizos.
I also added some chopped up beef chuck steaks 
First step is to crisp up the meats
Pop them back in their bowels and start frying up the onion/celery/peppers
Once the onion is looking nice and brown, add in some tubs of tomato paste, crushed tomato, a bottle of Pinot noir, and beef stock
Add the meat and throw it into the oven at 350 for a while.
After 30 mins mine looked like this - OK, but feeling a bit empty. I added some more celery and onion, and also added 7 teaspoons of flour to thicken it up. After that, back in the oven until it has had at least 2 hours cooking time.
This was it at the end. My whole house smelt like a pizza shop and it tasted great. I made some rice to go with it seeing as that's how most do gumbo
In the end, it wasn't that bad! Much better than the jambalaya I had previously made which was done by following a recipe. My only mistake here was in adding some supermarket Cajun seasoning. Just a teaspoon of it changed the smell of the whole thing and I'm curious to try it with any paprika. I also need to find a noncancerous place to look at southern US recipes
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I had to go "Huh?" when you talked about not being able to make a roux. It's just butter and flour cooked together, then you can add in liquid to make a sauce/gravy.
I looked up gumbo roux in case it was some exotic ingredient, but brother, it's simply cooking oil instead of butter and flour, cooked for a long time until it gets dark brown. You can also use butter or duck fat or lard, it seems. So if your problem is "I have to stand there at the stove and cook this thing", no wonder you're having trouble with recipes.
I sympathise, in that I too like to be able to just shove everything into the oven to cook for an hour or two while I go off and do something else, but if you're going to cook recipes like gumbo, you are going to have to put on your big girl or big boys pants and cook the flour and oil together, even if it does make your little tummy-tum hurt to think about that.
Also what do you mean you don't save your cooking fat from roasts etc.? That's how you get flavour!
Okay, you made me laugh at this part: oh I don't want to go to the bother of making roux/you took the stew out of the oven and 'oh it looks thin, better add in seven teaspoons of flour to thicken it up'. B-word, that is why you should have made roux at the start to thicken it up!
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