Who says I can't get fancy every now and then? Occasionally, my wife does get tired of the more extreme Cajun, and of me cooking with beer for some reason. But anyway, for Valentine's Day, I decided to try this one out for her -- Pecan-Pesto Chicken with Angel Hair pasta, out of the John Folse Encyclopedia, a book we've referenced before.

You'll have to bear with me on the pictures slightly, but we'll do this in two parts. First, the Pesto mixture.

Ingredients

1/3 cup pecans
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 tbsp minced garlic
2/3 cup loosely packed basil leaves
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
salt/pepper to taste

Pesto is of course, a green flavorful paste used as a base for sauces, made with fresh herbs and, typically pine nuts, although Folse recommends pecans here.

Instructions

1. Combine pecans, Parmesan, garlic and basil leaves in a food processor. Pulse for a minute or two until the mixture is well chopped and combined.

2. Turn the processor and add the olive oil in a slow, steady stream until you get the paste consistency you see here.

Once finished, you can store this up to two weeks in a glass jar, and this portion size will be more than enough for this particular dish so you'll have some more to use in other things if you so choose. Now, on to the chicken and pasta.

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Having Monday off for the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday, I decided to cook one of the Louisiana's Monday staples, Red Beas & Rice. Why Monday? Because back in the day, Monday was the typical laundry day, and people would often stick a pot of red beans next to the water they boiled for said laundry, because it's not exactly something that needs a lot of attention. Essentially, you just throw everything in a pot of boiling water and let it simmer for a couple of hours. So, for those of you new to cooking, this is great starter recipe. But it's not a quick one -- good beans can take up to three hours. I basically took all afternoon and did this slow, because I had the time, but if you're not looking to cook this slow and lazily, you can basically bring the water to a boil, throw everything in and cook away.

Everybody in South Louisiana has their own version. Some like to use smoked ham or tasso, but I prefer using pickled pork because it breaks down fairly well during the cooking process and helps thicken the gravy's consistency.

If you're one of our more unfortunate readers that lives in an area where you can't find good, thick Andouille (if it's not chunky like you see in the above shot, it is not Andouille -- I'm amazed sometimes at the sausages people will try to pass off as it), any smoked sausage, like Kielbasa, can serve as a substitute.

One note to start with, is that it's always a good idea to put your beans in a pot, cover them in water and allow them to soak overnight. There's some debate as to whether or not this really adds much to the cooking process, but I'm definitely a believer that it can help shorten it a little, especially if you don't have a whole afternoon off to work with.

Ingredients

1 lb dried kidney beans
1 lb pickled pork meat, diced
8 oz Andouille, diced
1 onion, diced
1 bell pepper, diced
3 ribs celery, diced
3 bay leaves
1 tsp garlic powder
½ tsp paprika
½ tsp thyme
1 tsp Italian seasoning
½ tsp black pepper
¼ cup minced garlic
1 tbsp liquid smoke
1/4 cup worcestshire sauce
8-10 cups Water or chicken broth/stock

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I spent most of Tuesday in, well...what you might call a bit of a funk, but writing the Aftermath post was at least therapeutic enough to get me up and moving, and it occurred to me that some comfort food would be nice. So it was off to the grocery, where the inspiration hit me -- pot roast.

There's a recipe in the Abita beer cookbook (something I've referenced in the past) for it, but I kind of winged it and put my own spin on the recipe. For one, I used Turbodog instead of Abita Amber, mostly because that's what was in six-packs at the grocery store. It's hard to know if it makes a difference without trying it both ways, but this is pot roast, and everybody has their own version, right?

Ingredients

1 3-3.5 pound beef roast
2 small onions, diced
1 bell pepper, diced
1 cup diced celery, diced
½ cup oil
½ cup flour
4-5 cloves garlic
1 can condensed beef broth
1 bottle Abita Turbodog
¼ cup worcestshire sauce
¼ tsp thyme leaves
¼ tsp paprika
¼ tsp red pepper
¼ tsp white pepper
½ tsp garlic powder

Note: Again, at a recommendation from Kleph, I poured the beer into a measuring cup and allowed it to sit a while and get flat. It's been said that when cooking with beer, this helps enhance the flavor.

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As we get deeper into December and winter temperatures, we all know there's one thing the weather always calls for: brown liquor. But, since I'm told you're supposed to also eat at these holiday parties, I thought I'd post my recipe for another cold-weather treat: chili.

Everybody has their own recipe for chili, and it's always been the kind of dish you can really experiment with. I did a lot in my post-college days, because it was easy to make a huge pot that could last several meals. I've borrowed bits and pieces from a number of different recipes, and I use a two-alarm chili kit as a base because they give you a good starting point in terms of the spices. Obviously, I add a lot more. Where my recipe differentiates is the addition of the andouille, which provides some salt to the dish, along with a little extra spice and smoke flavor, as well as some fresh cilantro and apple pie spice, which combine to give the dish some real depth of flavor. The two combine to give you a sweet/savory combination that blends well with the chili powder. Another trick I've learned is leaving the seeds in your peppers, along with using the hot ro*tel. It makes adding cayenne or black pepper completely unnecessary. Here, I only leave the seeds in the Serrano peppers, but if you're really brave (or especially confident in your septic system) you can try leaving in the jalapeno seeds as well.

I take my time cooking this, but you can shorten some of the cooking times/temperatures as you need. Obviously, if you're in a time crunch, you can shorten your cooking time and just throw everything in the pot, but in general I find the pace I use helps maximize the flavor. Also, note that you may wish to adjust a lot of these seasoning proportions to your own tastes.

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First off, let's get something out of the way. To all you people who eat stuffing on Thanksgiving, you are all living a lie and should repent. I bet you're also the kind of man that shakes a pom-pom at a football game too. It's sexual deviancy is what it is.

Anyways, anybody from south of I-10 knows that you eat DRESSING, and that it should have oysters (or sausage) in it. In the Gomila household it is a tradition, and for most of my life my grandmother, who was New Orleans in every sense of the word, cooked it the old-fashioned way: with stale French bread, sliced up and soaked in the Oyster water. I started using this recipe the first Thanksgiving after she passed, out of Paul Prudhomme Louisiana Kitchen cookbook, and ever since then it's become my yearly contribution to the feast. In truth I was quite surprised to find out how foreign of a concept this dish is to yankees from up north of Baton Rouge. Yes, I'm a bit late getting it posted here, but y'all can still use it for Christmas dinner.

I've always thought that the biggest key was the way Prudhomme calls for the onions/celery/bell pepper to be deeply browned, about as browned as you can get them without burning. Really adds a lot of flavor, but it also raises the cooking difficulty level. Really, you just have to be extra attentive.

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Okay, so I've completely been slacking on these posts, and I really don't have any excuse, but I figured this week would be as good as any to get back on the wagon. Do please continue to send recipe suggestions to atvsrecipes@gmail.com, and I promise to keep working to make this a regular feature.

This week, I've prepared some lovely Alligator Sauce Piquante. Now, I'm sure some of you (and our Florida visitors) might consider this choice of main ingredient some sort of "message" or "intimidation tactic," but I assure you that this was only an attempt to demonstrate another classic Cajun delicacy featuring a very unique product that isn't widely available. Intimidation tactics. HA! Smack talk. Double-HA! Like we would ever resort to such juvenile actions around here. Our Gator friends should absolutely feel welcome in Baton Rouge this weekend. Come! Eat! Drink! Be merry! As you travel around our beautiful campus on game day, you'll likely have an opportunity to try this dish. If you happen to hear your hosts talking about substituting the alligator meat with something called "cochon de long," don't worry, they're just talking about what will be left of Jeff Driskel after the game. Though, if they break out some measuring tape, you should probably run...

Once again, this recipe is from John Folse's Hooks, Lies & Alibis seafood cookbook, although I took a few liberties with it, particularly with the addition of the Ro*Tel and the tomato sauce and the subtraction of mushrooms. I also used slightly less stock, due to the extra liquid from the tomato sauce.

Gator meat, in terms of color and consistency, is very similar to fish, but is much tougher. Typically, if you were just going to fry or blacken it, you would probably want to marinate it first in something that would help break the meat down a little, like vinegar or buttermilk. But in this case, letting it simmer or an hour or two in a pot of gravy will do the trick.

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I know this is a little overdue -- been tough to carve out the time to cook for these things lately, but we're going to find a set schedule for this soon. Keep those suggestions coming to atvsrecipes@gmail.com .

When we started doing this, somebody requested a jambalaya recipe very early on. And while this isn't exactly jambalaya, arroz con pollo is the Spanish precursor (translation: chicken with rice). The big difference here is the presence of the beer in the liquid portion. The recipe comes from the Abita Brewing Company's book "Cooking Louisiana True," which features beer in every recipe (yes, even deserts) and some great information on the company and its beers, such as pairings, history, etc...This was my first actual experience with a recipe out of the book, but I'd say it was fairly successful. I would add that the cooking time on this is a little shorter than the typical jambalaya recipe as well.

Ingredients:

1 Fryer chicken, about 3 pounds, cut into serving pieces -- I used breast filet pieces, but that's just because of what I had on hand. Cut into small chunks.
6 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1/4 cup sliced garlic
1 bunch green onions, sliced
8 ounces of smoked tasso -- the cookbook also suggests using 6 links of fresh chorizo, which I would guess might be easier to come by for some that live outside Louisiana.
1 bay leaf -- I always use extra bay leaf.
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 12-ounce bottle Abita Golden
3 / 4 cup diced canned tomatos
1 cup chicken stock or water
1 ½ tbsp salt
2 cups long-grain rice, uncooked

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This week's cookin' installment will feature yet another Cajun classic, Redfish Courtbouillon (heathens, it's pronounced koo-be-yon -- say it right and maybe nobody will notice you're from north of I-10). Courtbouillon means "short boil," and basically is a thick, roux-based poaching liquid for seafood. Redfish are the tradition for this, as the meat's firm enough to not break up while cooking. Tillapia, Snapper or Sac-a-lait can be substituted if Redfish aren't immediately available for you. This can be served over rice, or pasta if you'd like to change things up a bit.

The recipe comes from John Folse's Hooks, Lies & Alibis seafood cookbook. As for the addition of shrimp, well that just makes everything better. Well, almost everything. I wouldn't recommend throwing some shrimp on like a cupcake or a waffle or something like that. Anyways, I digress...

Ingredients

3-4 large Redfish fillets, cut into small pieces
1 pound Shrimp (I wouldn't recommend larger than 21-25 count, but I went smaller, to get more shrimp)
3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 cups diced onions
1 cup diced celery
1/2 cup diced red bell peppers
1/4 cup minced garlic
1 28-oz can diced tomatoes, with juice
1 8-oz can tomato sauce
1 ½ quarts fish stock
3/4 cup dry red wine
2 ½ tbsps lemon juice
3 bay leaves
1 tbsp chopped thyme
1 tbsp chopped basil
1/4 tsp dried marjoram
1/8 tsp allspice
salt/pepper/garlic powder to taste

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