While most of my recipes posted here have been finished products (more or less), this one is still in flux. I'm going to keep tweaking things here and there. So be sure to check back frequently! Anyway, here's my stab at a red beans and rice recipe. It's mainly for Stephanie's friend Krysten who asked me for one. If anyone asks, this is my personal adaptation of the gumbopages.com recipe, John Folse's recipe, and my own accoutrements.

Earlier this month, the Saints played the 49ers at Candlestick Park (and won). Naturally, every NOLA native in the area crawled out of the woodwork and showed up in force to tailgate. My addition to the tailgate party was some jambalaya. I thought it was pretty decent, and others really loved it, so here’s the recipe. It’s pretty simple and anyone should be able to whip it up. In fairness, a large part of this is a rendition on Jason Dean’s recipe, with my touches added. Then again, it’s jambalaya — there’s pretty much only one way of making it. Anyway, here goes with instructions and pics.

By now you should know the drill here. Someone in San Francisco asks me to make them a Cajun or Creole dish, I cook it for them, name it after them, and then write it up here. So, here’s the next installment: Stephanie’s Shrimp Étouffée. First up, the pronunciation — it’s AY-two-FAY….not eh-two-fay. AY (like the letter) – two (like the number) – FAY (rhymes with hay). Now, Stephanie asked me to cook for her one night (actually, she demanded “COOK ME DINNER MAN!”) so I dusted off an old recipe. I prefer to cook this with crawfish, but you can’t really get crawfish in San Francisco. Definitely not like you can in New Orleans (1lb bags of tail meat). So this dish uses shrimp as alternative; it’s OK but not quite the same. Also, I add more butter at the end as a substitute to the crawfish fat that comes in the bags of tail meat. If you use crawfish, nix the final butter addition.