May 2023 Wrap-Up: What You May Have Missed!

May 2023 Wrap-Up: Small Batch Fresh Tomato Relish, Creamy Cajun Shrimp and Sausage with Noodles, Buttermilk Banana Snack Cake, Ranch Oyster Crackers and Mulitas - Chicken Tortilla Sandwiches - did you miss anything?

May 2023 Wrap-Up

Whew y'all! May sure did fly by.

Did you catch all of the new recipes that posted up on Deep South Dish during the month?

Here's a quick round-up, in case you missed anything!

Small Batch Fresh Tomato Relish

This easy to make fresh tomato relish adds a great punch of bright flavor to so many dishes, you'll want to have some in your refrigerator all summer long!

Fresh Tomato Relish

With summer tomatoes heading in soon, I thought it would be a great time to introduce this fresh tomato relish. Of course, it's good even with hot house tomatoes throughout the year, but you just really can't beat the superior flavor that comes from backyard or otherwise locally grown fresh tomatoes.

What exactly is a fresh tomato relish?

It's a little like a pico, minus the lime and cilantro, but made with a dressing that is much like the well-loved tomato salads we consume here in the south all summer long - a little sour, a little sweet.

A quick skillet meal of shrimp and smoked sausage with wide egg noodles in a creamy sauce.

Creamy Cajun Shrimp and Sausage with Noodles

We are so blessed with fresh seafood and Gulf shrimp is available year round, very often fresh off the boat which is my preferred method of purchase. 

I'm always fooling around with different shrimp and pasta combinations to try different things and this is one of those instances. As a recipe writer and owner of a food-related website, there's a lot of experimenting and often it takes multiple tries to get a recipe just right.

At least that's my philosophy as a food blogger, because one thing I can guarantee and that is when a recipe appears on my website, it has been well-tested to meet my approval.

A light and tender snack cake made with buttermilk and bananas.

Buttermilk Banana Snack Cake

I am not a baker. Y'all pretty much know that if you've been hanging around this blog any length of time.

I'm much more of a savory home cook and baking has just never been my thing so I don't bake much and really, you kind of have to bake regularly in order to build experience in it!

So funny though, but I broke all of the known rules of cake making with this snack cake, which is probably why I'm not much of a baker!

Oyster crackers get transformed into a terrific snack or salad topper when infused with salad oil, ranch seasoning, a few common seasonings and then lightly baked.

Ranch Oyster Crackers

I think that pretty much everybody is now familiar with the seasoned snack crackers marinated in a blend of oil, dry ranch seasoning and a few flavor enhancements.

They often start with saltines these days like my Firecracker Saltines, but did you know that they actually originated with oyster crackers? Yes! Oyster crackers are not just for oyster stew or soups. They make a nice, crunchy, comforting snack too.

Folks have moved on even further to include a wider variety of crackers and forms of seasonings, bumping it up with red pepper flakes and a little cayenne, lemon pepper, Creole or Cajun seasoning, even Worcestershire. 

Known as Mulitas in Mexican culture, highly seasoned chicken is sandwiched between homemade corn tortillas with shredded cheese and finished with guacamole or avocado, sour cream, pico de gallo or salsa, or whatever your favorite toppings are.

Chicken Tortilla Sandwiches (Mulitas)

I don't remember where I first heard about mulitas, and, in fact, when I first did, I mistakenly assumed it was just another name for a quesadilla!

The reason for that is that I usually make my quesadillas the same way as these mulitas.

Although both can have very similar fillings, some of the differences I've seen between quesadillas and mulitas include:

The flavors you love in a saucy and cheesy baked ziti, made one pot easy using uncooked pasta in an Instant Pot! Round out the meal with sweet tea, a mixed garden salad and some hot garlic bread.

Instant Pot Ziti

To say that I love pasta would be an understatement.

Thankfully so does my hubby, aka The Cajun, so we eat some sort of pasta dish regularly and one of my favorite ways to make pasta is in the Instant Pot!

Now, to clarify, just in case you're happening on my website for the first time, first, welcome! Second, come join us over on our Facebook page because I feature a lot of my past recipes there every day, and third, when I speak of the "Instant Pot," it is often in the context of using it as an electronic pressure cooker, though technically speaking it is a multi-function pot, and it is only one brand of said families of multi-pots. There are many others out there, all of which work with the recipes here designated as "Instant Pot," when used with the pressure cook function.

A creamy tomato-based stew with shrimp, crawfish and crab and served over hot, steamed rice.

Seafood Pan Roast

Several years back, I was looking through a Martha Foose cookbook, Screen Doors and Sweet Tea, that contained a recipe for what was called a seafood pan roast. Since The Cajun and I don't eat out much, this was an unfamiliar dish for me.

At the time, I couldn't find much about it around the internet either and even today there still isn't much out there. I went ahead and made it, but with no photos to let me know if I was anywhere on track let's just say mine didn't turn out quite right. With the cost of seafood, I abandoned it to experiment a bit more thoroughly another time.

Fresh green beans, slow stewed Southern-style all day, with fatback, salt pork or bacon and potatoes, prepared in the slow cooker.

Slow Cooker Fresh Green Beans

I love green beans!

Well, truth is I love vegetables in general really, but green beans are my number one most prepared side dish, because they're an easy, tasty side dish and thank goodness my veggie adverse husband eats them too.

They are my in a hurry go-to side when I need to add something green to a plate of protein and carbs and they're much quicker than whipping up a garden salad, although in reality, my hubby thinks a plate of torn up iceberg lettuce qualifies as a salad!

A classic spaghetti salad, dressed with Italian dressing and dried herbs and tossed with stuffed green olives, pitted medium black olives, marinated artichoke hearts, fresh broccoli florets, grape tomatoes and cucumber.

Cold Spaghetti Salad with Shrimp

Maybe the original "pasta" salad, spaghetti salad has been around for a long time.

Starting pretty basic in its beginnings, the base recipe was just good ole Italian dressing or a simple blend of olive oil and vinegar, poured over a bed of cooked spaghetti noodles, tossed with fresh tomatoes and chilled.

Of course, as always, people have added their own touches to even that salad over the years.