It’s taken me a long time, but I’ve finally perfected gumbo. I’ve gone through countless over-complicated recipes over the years and have systematically thrown out the steps and ingredients that were superfluous. This recipe is what remained. It’s the best gumbo I’ve ever had.

I usually do a shrimp and sausage gumbo, but you could add crab, fish, chicken thighs, smoked turkey, or anything else you like. But you have to use one pound of hot andouille sausage or it won’t come out the same. That’s where the spices come from in this version.

Here’s pretty much everything you need:

Chad Chandler’s Perfect Gumbo

• 1 lb jumbo shrimp, halved (shells reserved)
• 1 lb hot andouille sausage, sliced
• 1 lb smoked sausage, sliced
• 2 large (or 3 medium) onions, diced
• 4 large bell peppers, chopped
• 5 stalks celery, chopped
• 1 lb fresh okra, sliced, divided
• 8 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 14.5 oz cans stewed tomatoes, crushed
• 7 cups water
• 1 14.5 oz can chicken stock (1 3/4 cups)
• 14 tablespoons butter (just get two sticks), divided
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/3 cup worcestershire sauce
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon coarsely ground pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon dried thyme

It’s easy to looked at this lengthy ingredient list and get intimidated, but it’s not really as complicated as it seems. There’s a lot of chopping and stirring at first, but once the gumbo is on the stove, you can walk away. Plus, you end up with six quarts of gourmet food for around $25.

You’re going to need a dutch oven or a large pan for the roux, a large pan for the sausage, and a small pot for the shrimp stock. So make room on the stove. I usually pour everything into a stock pot after it’s all mixed together and clean the other pots and pans.

To begin, slice the andouille sausage into 1/4 inch rounds and cut the smoked sausage into 1/4 inch half-moons. I do that so the wife knows which sausage is spicy and which is not. I throw the sausage into a large pan over medium heat while I’m chopping all of the onions, peppers, celery (known as the Holy Trinity in Cajun cooking) and garlic. You want to render the fat and let it crisp around the edges.

Once the veggies are all chopped (but not the okra), I pour the water and the chicken stock into a small pot and put it on the back burner. I bring out the shrimp and leave them on the counter by the stove.

Next, it’s time to make the roux. A roux isn’t difficult, but it is labor-intensive. And since gumbo gets its taste, color and texture from the roux, you can’t cheat. You melt a stick and half (12 tablespoons) of butter over medium heat until it foams. Then you gradually mix in 3/4 cups of flour. This process takes about twenty minutes, so be prepared to whisk almost constantly the entire time.

If the roux burns, it’s ruined; you have to start all over. So stir it constantly until it darkens to the color of peanut butter. Then it should get a little more watery and you can go about 20 seconds between stirring sessions. This is when I take the opportunity to peel the shrimp. I peel one, toss the peel into the pot of water, put the shrimp in a bowl, and then whisk the roux. Then another shrimp in hand, peel into the water, shrimp into a bowl, and whisk the roux. Over and over again until they’re all peeled and the shrimp are back in the fridge.

It can be a little daunting managing all of these pans at the same time, but you’ll get the hang of it eventually. Or better yet, get a helper. The wife was busy making new pillows for our den furniture, so I was on my own as usual.

Turn the heat up to medium-high on the shrimp stock. You want it to simmer (so turn it to low once it’s boiling) until the roux is finished cooking. If it starts to foam on top, slide it off the heat and blow on it or it’ll spill over and your house will smell like burnt marine exoskeleton for a few days.

Meanwhile, you should still be stirring the roux and shaking the sausage pan to make sure it’s not burning. If the suasage does start to stick to the bottom, just pour a little water into the pan to deglaze it.

When the roux gets to be the color of a Hershey’s chocolate bar, you’re done.

Place a colander over your roux pot and slowly pour in the stock. Once it’s all incorporated, whisk vigorously to combine. This is the base of your gumbo. Most of the work is done.

Turn the heat to medium-low and turn your focus to the sausage. By now, the sausage should have rendered a lot of orange-colored fat. You want to remove the sausage with a slotted spoon and toss it into the gumbo pot. Pour out all of the fat except for about three tablespoons. Add a couple of tablespoons of butter and pour in as much of the Trinity as you can get into the pan. Sprinkle a big pinch of salt over the vegetables. This will purge the water into the pan. If you can’t fit all of the Trinity into the pan, then just toss the rest into the gumbo pot.

You’re really just using the Trinity to deglaze the sausage pan and absorb all of the sausage flavor. While the vegetables render and eventually cook off their water, open the cans of tomatoes. Shake out the excess liquid over the sink, but it’s not a big deal if some remains. Pour the stewed tomatoes into a bowl and squeeze the chunks through your fingers until it’s all crushed uniformly. Then pour it into the gumbo pot.

When the trinity is starting to sizzle and brown, toss in the minced garlic, stir well, and let it all cook for a few more minutes. Then toss it all into the gumbo pot. You might have to use a bigger pot, and you might not.

Cut half of the okra into 1/2 inch rounds and toss it into the gumbo pot with the worcestershire, thyme, salt, and pepper. You’ll add the rest later. Bring the gumbo to a boil and then reduce the heat to low. If you taste the gumbo now, it’ll seem watery and off-tasting because of the worcestershire. That’s normal. Just trust me. Don’t add any more seasonings. Cover and simmer for at least four hours and up to six and it’ll turn out great.

After a few hours, slice and add the remaining okra. When there’s an hour left until you’re planning to serve the gumbo, take the lid off the pot and turn up the heat a little. You want to evaporate about a half-inch of the liquid. Just stir it occasionally so it doesn’t stick to the bottom and look at the waterline in the pot. When you’re fifteen minutes away from serving, cut the shrimp in half with some kitchen shears and add them to the gumbo. They’ll cook almost instantly.

Season to taste with a little salt, pepper, and hot sauce. Serve with white rice, hot sauce, and filé powder if you like it. I love filé in dark stews. It’s just dried and pounded sassafras leaves. But you should know that it gets gummy if it boils, so you never add it to the pot. Just sprinkle 1/4 teaspoon over your bowl.

This gumbo demands a good amount of prep work, but the payout is huge. The taste should be amazing, the texture should be thick and smooth, and you should have meat in every bite.

Last weekend, the wife and I used the holiday to squeeze in two hikes; Jones Gap Falls at Jones Gap State Park and Pinnacle Mountain Falls at Table Rock State Park.

Pinnacle Falls is off the Palmetto Trail behind the conference building near the Table Rock State Park campgrounds (get directions here).

You park at the trailhead and it’s a pretty easy hike until the abandoned dirt road near the ridge. From there, it gets a little more challenging as you make your way down the hill and parallel to a dilapidated church camp that looks like the abandoned set of a teen horror film. A little while later, you cross a little creek on what looks like an old stone cross-vane. After fording the creek, and I use that term loosely, the turn-off for the falls is maybe about a hundred yards ahead on the right. It’s demarcated by a tree with yellow paint on the trunk. A fallen tree blocks the unofficial trail to the falls, but it’s a well-worn path, as you can see from the picture below.

The trail up to the falls is tough. Really tough. The first two hundred yards or so are easy, but then you hit a boulder field that goes all the way up the mountain. It’s like climbing the stairs of a thirty-story building. As soon as your legs turn to jelly and you think it’s time give up and turn around, you’ll be about to see the falls. Climb a little higher and you can rest for a while in the waterfall’s cool mist.

Click on the first image to enlarge. It may take a moment to load, then use your right arrow key to advance:

Spectators of such southern treasures might remark, “oh, look what they did,” but what they really mean is, “look what they did considering…” I’ve seen this with crafts like The Quilts of Gee’s Bend, with paintings like those of Andrew Wyeth, and with Appalachian mountain music in general. This mindset is annoying at best and bigoted at worst.

This issue of Bon Appétit is not like that at all. It maintains a sincere appreciation for southerners’ contributions to culinary Americana and to the region’s leading role in the preservation of heritage techniques and community-centric commerce.

But some southern cooking secrets are only passed onto the initiated, which is in and of itself a southern tradition of exclusivity that northerners probably perceive as southern arrogance. They’re probably right. One trick of the trade didn’t seem to get passed on to the test cooks at Bon Appétit, and it’s apparent in the picture below.

When you’re making deviled eggs, you need to turn the egg carton on its side for at least four hours before hard-boiling them. That makes the yolks rest in the center of the eggs. If you don’t do this, you end up with an egg yolk that is off-balance to the thicker end. You can see many instances here where they did it wrong.

It’s not a big deal, and I’m sure these eggs tasted great, but it’s one of those things southern cooks notice that reveals the imposters.

I have a bunch of recipes that I’ve been meaning to blog for a while, and this is one of the better ones. I can’t remember where I originally got this idea; I think it was from some blogger’s variation that was a few degrees removed from an Ina Garten concoction. I’ve been roasting cauliflower for years, and I grill a lot of vegetables, but I think the best way to cook broccoli (and keep the meal healthy) is under the broiler.

Here’s everything you need:

Roasted Broccoli

• 4 crowns of broccoli, chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic, sliced
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• ½ lemon, zested and juiced
• 2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese
• salt and pepper

This is a simple recipe. Start by preheating the oven to 425° (broil) and placing the rack in the second-highest position. Cut the florets into manageable-sized chunks. The broccoli caramelizes where it sticks to the roasting pan, so you want relatively small chunks that have a lot of surface area. I save the woodier parts of the stems for stock, but sometimes I slice the more tender parts near the top into thin rounds and roast them along with the florets.

Slice a few cloves of garlic. The thinner they are, the more likely they are to dry out and burn, so leave them a little thick. While you have the cutting board out, use a grater or a microprobe to zest half of a lemon.

Drizzle a few tablespoons of olive oil over the florets and season with salt and pepper. Maybe 1/2 teaspoon each of kosher salt and freshly ground pepper? Next, place the sliced garlic on top of the florets.

Place the pan under the broiler for about 20-25 minutes until the stalks soften and the florets darken at the edge. Rotate the pan 180° halfway through the cooking process. When the broccoli is finished cooking, sprinkle the lemon zest over the broccoli and squeeze half of the juice from half of the lemon over everything. Does that make sense? You want 1/4 of the lemon’s juice in all. Finally, taste the broccoli. Feel free to season with more salt and pepper and add a little more olive oil if you think it needs it. Serve the broccoli with a little grated Parmesan cheese on top.

The wife loves this dish. It’s really more of a cooking method than a recipe, and I rarely make it the exact same way twice. You just need raw vegetables, oil, seasonings, and direct heat. Whenever we have a homemade vinaigrette languishing in the fridge, I’ll drizzle it over broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, peppers, mushrooms, etc and cook them this way. You can even cook whole carrots like this with a little butter, honey and lemon and it comes out great.

I should point out that this will not work with frozen, chopped vegetables. I don’t know how the science works, but once the vegetables have been frozen, they never roast or saute properly. They just seem to steam and wilt in their own water. I’m not knocking the convenience and nutritional value in the frozen stuff, I’m just pointing out that it doesn’t mesh well with this kind of preparation. Save that stuff for casseroles.

If you’re wondering what else is on the plate in the picture above, it’s one of my rosemary grilled pork chops.

Most people think that DIY is always cheaper. It’s been my experience that the reverse is usually true. Almost all of the furniture I make costs double what I’d pay at a big box store. The same holds true for most of the clothes the wife makes at home. The only way DIY saves money is in bulk production. When you make a dozen or more of the same gift, the per-item cost is usually lower than anything you’d pay at a store.

We made a dozen of these chalkboards (click here to learn more):

And we made a dozen of these spice rub jars (click here to learn more):

I also made this guitar stand for my brother-in-law:

Oh, and the wife made this sock animal dinosaur for our youngest nephew. She got the pattern from a book called Stray Sock Sewing, Too: More Super-Cute Sock Softies To Make & Love.

And she made a bunch of these Christmas tree ornaments for family and friends. The pottery kiln can churn out cheap and easy gifts.

I should also mention that we buried a cat (Jasmine) over Thanksgiving and the wife didn’t want to look at my old cat food station for two anymore. So I made this smaller cat food station for Crew, the wife’s 12 year old cat who got grandfathered into our marriage:

This spice rub is a based on a recipe developed by America’s Test Kitchen/Cooks Illustrated to mimic the taste of the ribs at Charlie Vergos’ Rendezvous in Memphis, TN.

The label on top of the jars is a custom QR code. When you scan the code with your smartphone, it links to this post of mine explaining the easiest way I know to cook ribs. The webpage is optimized for mobile devices, so you can take the recipe and instructions out to the grill with you.

For the best deal on spices, look in the Hispanic section of your grocery store. Just mix everything together in the biggest bowl you have. This rub recipe will fill 12 pint jars. Each jar is enough to coat four slabs of ribs. Of course, you can put the rub on anything you like. I sometimes mix a little canola oil with some rub and use it to marinate grilled chicken.

Here’s what you need:

• 3 cups paprika (24 oz)
• 3 cups brown sugar (24 oz)
• 1 1/2 cups table salt (12 oz)
• 1 1/4 cups chili powder (10 oz)
• 1 cup garlic powder (8 oz)
• 1 cup onion powder (8 oz)
• 1 cup black pepper (8 oz)
• 1/2 cup cayenne (4 oz)
• 1/4 cup dried thyme (2 oz)
• 12 (pint-sized) mason jars

I paid $37 for the spices and $11 for the jars.

Cost breakdown: $48/12 = $4 per jar

Not bad, right? If you’d like to make this yourself to give as gifts, you can copy the scan code above and print it onto labels for your own jars.

The wife also made a couple of aprons to go with the spice rub for two guys on her side of the family.

As a way to cut down on the amount of money spent at Christmastime (and to limit the amount of useless crap we each accumulated), my family decided to start making gifts a few years ago. It was touch and go for a while, but thanks to creative online showcases like Pinterest, the quality of gifts has dramatically increased lately. This year, we made these chalkboards for some of the ladies on both sides of our families.

About a month ago, the wife saw this page in a magazine:

She pointed to the chalkboard and suggested that we make something similar for our homemade Christmas gifts. I’m not sure if she really liked this idea or just wanted to outsource most of the gift-making to me this year, but they came out great. The best part is that they were pretty cheap to make. The project only requires some basic carpentry skills and a little patience.

Here’s what you need:

• 2 1/4″ x 2′ x 4′ sheets of oak plywood ($32)
• 1 quart of tinted Zinsser primer ($13)
• 1 quart of chalkboard paint ($13.50)
• 150′ of rustic-looking rope (from Ace Hardware, $7)
• 1 ball of twine ($2.50)
• 12 pieces of chalk ($2)

Each sheet of plywood gets cut into six rectangles that measure 12 x 18 inches each. I used a table saw, but a hand-held circular saw would work just as well. I pre-primed the wood to speed the process along.

Next, I used my miter saw to cut some angles for decoration, and then ran a router around the top edge. You can omit this step, but it adds a nice touch. I routed a 45-degree angle on half of them and cut a simple quarter-round on the rest. Here’s a closer look.

Next, you drill two holes in each chalkboard. Make sure you drill through the board and into a piece of scrap wood or the back will splinter. I used a 5/8″ forstner bit because I wanted the holes to be big (and clean), but you could use a smaller-diameter twist bit if that’s all you have.

Finally, you prime the boards and then paint them with the chalkboard paint. I remembered to brand the back of each chalkboard.

Knot some rope through the holes and tie a piece of chalk to some twine and you’re done.

I was worried that the chalk would be hard to erase from the valleys in the grain of the wood, but it comes right off.

Cost breakdown: $60/12 = $5 per chalkboard.

You actually have enough paint to more than double the scope of the project. Even if you bought two of everything besides the paint, the per-unit price would drop to around $4. That means you would have two dozen go-to gifts in your closet that are good for any occasion. Plus, you don’t need to buy a card because you can write a greeting right on the gift. How easy is that?

For instance, one time I picked up eight steel folding chairs for $4 a piece. Those are always good to have in the garage. Another time, I bought some brand new Timberland hiking boots for $3. I’ve bought everything from picture frames to audio speakers to specialty barware. The best things to buy are steel products like a boxspring frame for my homemade guest bedroom set and non-electro-mechanical garden tools like a grass seed spreader. You can tell right away if the products are in good shape, they last forever, and you end up saving a ton of money.

A few years ago, I bought a used bike. I had been looking for one that would be useful to ride to work, meaning it needed fenders to block water spray and a rack to hold my laptop bag. After a lot of fruitless searching, I found the perfect one at a consignment store for $60. It’s an old 10-Speed Raleigh Sprite Mixte (circa 1978).

I just learned Raleigh rolled out a new line of single-gear (non-”fixie”) urban bicycles aimed at the yuppy/hipster demographic. It’s called the Raleigh One Way, and it retails for $750.

The One Way: ($750)

My Bike: ($60)

Thrift stores are the best. Of course, you have to be willing to make five fruitless trips before you find something you really like. But when you do buy something, it’s usually a steal. The fact that your money goes into the coffers of a charity is just icing on the cake.

For more information about cycling in Greenville, click here.

Late fall through early spring is my the favorite time to hike in the mountains. The foliage has changed and fallen, there aren’t many people out on the trails, and you can see for miles from the mountain peaks. We got out early on Saturday and drove to Triple Falls at Dupont State Park just over the North Carolina line.

We’ve seen the 120 foot high cascade from the bottom before. This time, we thought we’d hike up to the covered bridge at the top and work our way down to the river below. Triple Falls is a popular area for parties and company outings. There’s a pavilion at the top that people rent, so the trails are actually gravel roads. We should have brought our bikes. Afterward, we stopped at a roadside barbecue stand on US 276 near Traveler’s Rest, SC. It’s always crowded, so we figured it had to be good. It was.

Click on the first image to enlarge, then use your right arrow key to advance:

When I was right out of college and teaching myself to cook, I tried to reverse-engineer Ruby Tuesday’s Sonora Chicken Pasta. I hate to date myself, but this was back in the days of Web 1.0 before seemingly everything was posted online. I didn’t want to literally recreate the dish, as I found the sauce too rich. I just wanted to perfect that creamy taste and texture that coated the noodles and tickled the back of your throat with a slight hint of spiciness. I never wrote down the recipe I eventually worked out, and it’s been at least five years since I last made it. The wife has been requesting it for months, so I thought I’d finally perfect the dish and record the recipe for posterity.

If you search for the Sonoroa Chicken Pasta recipe now, it’s easy to find. After reading a few versions, it’s apparent why I thought the sauce was too rich. It calls for so much Velveeta Cheese that it’s halfway to being Rotel Dip. My version of the dish is creamier, easier to make, and, frankly, I think it tastes better.

Here’s pretty much everything you need:

Spicy Chicken Pasta

• 1 pound penne pasta
• 2 chicken breasts, sliced
• 1 small onion, diced
• 1 red pepper, diced
• 1 green bell pepper, diced
• 1 jalapeno pepper, diced
• 1-2 roma tomatoes, diced
• 6 tablespoons butter, divided
• 2 cups heavy cream or half and half
• 4 oz (half a brick) of Philadelphia Cream Cheese
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1½ teaspoons hot sauce
• 2½ teaspoons Old Bay Seasoning
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• Parmesan cheese for garnish

There’s nothing complicated here. Just dice all of the vegetables and set aside. Next, season the chicken with salt and pepper and saute over medium-high heat in two tablespoons of butter. You can slice the chicken, dice it, or cook the breasts whole and slice them later; whichever you prefer. After the chicken is cooked, remove it to a plate and cover with foil.

If there’s a lot of fond on the bottom of the saute pan, add a little water to deglaze it. Next, melt another two tablespoons of butter and toss in the diced vegetables (but not the tomato). Sprinkle a big pinch of salt over everything so the vegetables will release their water. Saute until softened, about ten minutes. While the vegetables are cooking, put your pasta pot over high heat. When the vegetables are softened, remove them to a plate and set aside. Toss the dry pasta into the pot of boiling, salted water. It should take around ten minutes to cook, which is about how long it will take to make the sauce.

Reduce the heat on the saute pan to medium and add the remaining two tablespoons of butter. Once it’s melted, add the flour and stir with a whisk to make a basic roux. Once it’s pulled together, add the cream off the heat and whisk like crazy until the lumps are gone. Next, add the cream cheese, hot sauce, Old Bay, salt and pepper, and stir until everything is incorporated. The sauce will thicken up when it reaches a simmer.

Once it’s bubbling, add the sauteed vegetables (and the tomato) to the sauce and simmer on medium-low to cook off the starchy taste of the flour. When the noodles are about done, taste the sauce and season with extra salt, pepper and Old Bay if you think it needs it. You want sauces like this to be a little over-seasoned. When you eat it, each bite will consist of 90% bland noodles, so the sauce will need to have a little extra oomph.

The spicy cream sauce should be finished at the same time as the noodles. You want the noodles to be a little more al dente than usual since they’ll continue to cook in the hot cream sauce for a few minutes. Just strain the noodles, pour them back into the pasta pot, add the sauce, and stir to coat evenly. You want the sauce to ooze into all of the holes in the pasta (if you’re smart, you made sure to buy penne noodles that have ridges on the outside so the sauce has something to cling to). You can add the chicken now, or plate it on top of the creamy and mildly spicy pasta. Just make sure you pour any chicken juices from the plate into the sauce at some point.

Garnish with freshly grated Parmesan cheese and enjoy. Look how well the sauce coats the penne.

This recipe sounds complicated, but it’s really not. It’s thirty minutes with a pot and a pan and you end up with tons of delicious leftovers. You can also use this recipe as a base and create all kinds of variations with asiago cheese and roasted garlic, broccoli and cauliflower, shrimp and bacon, etc. It’s not really all that different from my Rich & Creamy Cheese Grits recipe, which makes the best damn grits you’ve ever had.