Social Media Roundup Seafood Favorites 2

Social Media Roundup - Seafood Favorites 2, What You Missed! Gulf Coast Style Pan Fried Crab Cakes, Hushpuppy Breaded Fried Shrimp, Godchaux Mixed Seafood Salad with Creole Vinaigrette Dressing, Seafood and Eggplant Dressing and Spicy Orange Pecan Shrimp Stir Fry

Seafood Favorites 2

We've been sharing more of our classic favorites on social media lately and of course, considering I live right along the Gulf Coast that is very often seafood and certainly a lot of shrimp recipes!

I do love shrimp and it's a very versatile protein.

Of course Fridays have always been a seafood day here where I live, as much as Mondays have always been a red beans and rice day, but we have amazing seafood here along the Gulf Coast so any day can be a seafood day!

A whole cut up chicken, soaked in a seasoned buttermilk and mustard marinade, then dredged in a seasoned flour, deep fried and finished in the oven. Pictured here with roasted potatoes and black-eyed peas.

Buttermilk Mustard Fried Chicken

Like many Southerners, I love fried chicken, especially when it's prepared well. Although pretty rewarding in the end, it is a little messy frying it at home though and frankly takes practice,  meaning you need to keep making it often to perfect the processes!

You know. Like Grandma did.

For those reasons, lots of folks satisfy those occasional fried chicken cravings with take out these days and while really great fried chicken can be found at sit down restaurants, you can also find it at locally owned gas station counters, at regional grocery store delis like Winn Dixie and Rouses in my neighborhood, at local sit down or take out buffets like Hartz, Cajun's and Broome's and fried chicken places like Popeye's and KFC.

The one problem? Have you seen the prices?

American-style tacos made with slow braised, seasoned ground beef or turkey.

Tex-Mex American-Style Taco Meat

I love American style Mexican food, and I'm certainly not opposed at all to using seasoning packets to season them.

They are 100% convenient and I usually keep a few on hand, but sometimes I also like to change up the ingredient amounts for different kinds of dishes.

I've tried a few different ones, including generics, and the brand that I like the most personally is Taco Bell Original (#affiliate) because it seems to have the best combination of flavors for me, but hey... I also enjoy their tacos on occasion when I'm hungry and I just want a quick snack!

Ziti pasta, layered with a mix of shredded off the block Monterey Jack and extra sharp Cheddar cheeses, salted butter, finished with egg with whole milk and topped with additional cheese and baked.

Baked Ziti with Cheese

A lot of folks enjoy a baked ziti, made with tiny beef and sausage meatballs in a tomato-based sauce with cheeses with ziti noodles. It's a bit of a labor of love because it's a little time consuming, so that I even made a quicker, easier stovetop, skillet version that provides a very similar taste. 

Most folks also enjoy a good homemade macaroni and cheese typically made with elbow macaroni and I've got several versions available on the website.

I took some of the basic aspects of my own mac and cheese recipes and used ziti noodles instead of classic elbows for a little bit of a change!

Social Media Roundup Seafood Favorites 1

Social Media Roundup - Seafood Favorites, What You Missed! Skillet Shrimp and Pasta with Asparagus, Classic Fried Shrimp on a Po'boy, Crabbie Melts, Tex-Mex Grilled Shrimp Tacos and Boudin Stuffed Shrimp.

Seafood Favorites 1

My husband, aka to y'all as The Cajun, loves his seafood.

Anytime I fix supper that is seafood based he talks about how blessed we are here along the Gulf Coast to have such great access to fresh seafood, and he's right!

The best deal of course is when you get out there on a boat and catch it fresh yourself. You can even pull in some good eating right off of a local pier, but buying it at the local fish monger is good too, though you do pay a bit of a premium because somebody else did the work!

But... what if you're landlocked?

An Italian chopped salad of lettuce, assorted Italian meats, black forest smoked ham, salami and provolone cheese, finished with olive salad and a homemade creamy Italian dressing, served on a hoagie or sub bun.

Italian Chopped Salad Sandwich

Y'all may remember this sandwich circulating on social media awhile back. I think it started as a TikTok Italian grinder sandwich with all of the meats layered up on a roll like you'd get at any good sandwich shop. From there, it appears that somebody thought to chop it all up together like a salad and then pile it on a bun.

Brilliant!

As always, multiple variations arose from whatever the original was as everybody put their own spin on it. Most of them actually do chop up the tomato with the rest of the ingredients but I really didn't want the juices of the tomatoes mixed it, so I opted for adding the tomatoes sliced to dress the final sandwich, if someone wanted them and then finished with a creamy dressing.

My Ultimate Cream Cheese Mashed Potatoes, made with the ease of a slow cooker, using peeled russet potatoes cooked in chicken broth, then beat with butter, heavy cream or whole milk and cream cheese. Pictured here with trinity seasoned green peas, chicken fried chicken and milk gravy.

Slow Cooker Ultimate Cream Cheese Mashed Potatoes

I love mashed potatoes anytime, not just holidays!

While we may tone it down a bit when we make them on the regular, admittedly, holidays are when we usually break out the fancy potatoes. You know the ones. Cream cheese. Whole milk with heavy cream. Plenty of butter!

Those of y'all who have been around any length of time already know I'm not huge on the slow cooker, mostly because I am not a very good advance planner and generally speaking, slow cookers require that! I have some slow cooker recipes here and there because I know it's one more tool to make mealtime happen.

Cocktail smoked sausages, wrapped in puff pastry and topped with fresh Parmesan with bagel seasoning and black pepper and served with a homemade mustard sauce.

Puff Pastry Pigs in a Blanket with Mustard Sauce

I love pigs in a blanket for an appetizer and apparently I'm not alone! Guaranteed they will be one of the first platters to be cleared at your gathering.

Usually made with a biscuit dough, they are a delicious two bite appetizer for any time, but let me tell you what... make them with puff pastry and they are out of the park!

They are also usually made with hot dogs, and me, I love hot dogs, yes, even though I know how they're made and I know what's in them. I. Don't. Care!

Lent Favorites Roundup 2 - What You've Missed on Social Media! Tap on the photos below to visit each recipe.

Social Media Roundup - Lent Favorites 2

We're having a bit of a strange weather cycle around the country aren't we?

We seem to be cycling between winter and spring even here along the Gulf Coast from one day to the next and I've personally gone from having the heat on in the morning to having the air conditioner on by afternoon way too many days!

But... it is mighty nice to see things blooming up around here finally! My azalea is in full bloom and I had to grab a picture of it before the rain washed all the blooms off.

I call this my "Katrina Azalea" because it started from a clipping that came off of a huge azalea shrub from my previous home and one of the few surviving plants from the saltwater intrusion of that storm into my yard.

We've been sharing some Lent-friendly meal ideas on social media this season, though honestly, these are all recipes for anyone, anytime!

A quick skillet version of barbecue chicken made with boneless, skinless chicken breasts and shown here with my Green Bean Supreme Casserole and Fiesta Confetti Corn.

Skillet Barbecue Chicken

The inspiration for this began with the BBQ Glazed Chicken in Pioneer Woman's most recent cookbook Dinner's Ready (#ad).

As soon as I saw the picture, my mouth watered so I thought that I would try it with some boneless, skinless chicken breasts I had and my own rub.

I loved the way this turned out y'all!