Memphis-Style Southern Dry Rub Grilled Pork Spareribs

Pork ribs prepared Memphis style, with an overnight dry rub marinade, grilled over indirect heat for 1 hour, then brushed with a simple vinegar and mustard mop sauce and finished another hour.

Southern Style Dry Rub Pork Ribs

In many, if not most households, the husband is the master of the grill.

Not in this house. The Cajun cooks nothing, and I mean nothing. His Daddy cooked often, but apparently my guy didn't pick that up!

So, I'm the resident cook and griller, though I am certainly as amateur as it comes.

Fabulous southern sweet tea infused with strawberry!

Southern Strawberry Sweet Iced Tea

This Southern Strawberry Sweet Iced Tea is a quick and delicious variation of my southern sweet iced tea that is a nice refreshing change from the usual. You can certainly use your own usual tea recipe, or even make adjustments to mine in the strength of the tea, the sweetness, the tartness of the lemon and the level of strawberries to suit your own taste.  Make it your own, but I hope that you enjoy it as much as I do.

Homemade Strawberry Buttermilk Sherbet

A delicious and easy sherbet made with buttermilk and fresh or frozen strawberries. You will love this one.

Strawberry Buttermilk Sherbet

I first found this recipe in Southern Living magazine several years back, but have since revised it by adding more strawberries and less vanilla. It is a wonderful light and low fat dessert for spring or summer and perfect for right now when strawberries are so perfectly sweet and delicious. It could not be any easier, either.

A strawberry fan is such a pretty garnish and they are really much easier to make than you think!

How to Make a Strawberry Fan Garnish

Strawberries are in season now - these below were some from Dover, Florida that The Cajun recently brought home for me. Aren't they gorgeous? And they are so sweet and delicious this year.

The Grilled All-American Burger

The good ole classic All-American Burger to me means a good ground chuck beef burger, pickles, tomato, grilled onion, mayo, mustard and ketchup on a toasted bun & topped with bacon and cheese, if you like. 

Grilled All-American Burger

Saturday was a gardening day so supper had to be simple. Grilled burgers and southern style potato salad.  Grilled corn on the cob would be good too, but we just had that the night before {and yeah, I know, that's a lot of starches} so I settled on the burger and tater salad and it was plenty.

Oh, well, there might have been a bit of leftover banana pudding involved there too. 

A wonderful potato casserole featuring russet potatoes, cheese, sour cream, and Rotel diced tomatoes, plus optional garnishes of tomato, avocado, green onion, bacon and additional sour cream.

Velveeta Truck Stop Potato Casserole

Truck Stop Potatoes apparently originated at an Idaho truck stop as a breakfast side dish and was picked up at some point by a caterer who may have come up with the idea of the garnishes.

Mine is a little bit different from the traditional recipe which uses red potatoes (though you may substitute those here too of course), a combination of cheddar and monterey jack cheeses, plain diced tomatoes and garnishes with extra tomatoes, avocados, green onion and extra sour cream.

Old Fashioned Seven Layer Salad

 

Classic 7 Layer Salad topped with a mayonnaise dressing is a common salad for barbecues and cookouts, parties, potlucks, church suppers and holidays, but why not make one just because?

7 Layer Salad

Seven Layer Salad is a good old-fashioned salad that has been around for years. It's perfect for cookouts, potlucks, church socials, reunions, funerals, and of course, the holidays!!

A salad made with 7 layers, typically with lettuce, sometimes tomatoes, chopped and sliced boiled eggs, peas, celery, bacon and cheese, or really whatever your favorite tossed salad ingredients are. Then the salad is topped off with a thick layer of a mayonnaise-based dressing, often Ranch dressing, and tossed just before serving.

Seven Layer Salad was a very popular salad back in the 70s and 80s, and though it kind of went the wayside for awhile, it seems to be making a resurgence. Since I am determined to bring back some of those old classics, I, for one, am thrilled.

 

  Watergate salad is a well-loved fruit salad, made up of pistachio pudding with marshmallows, pineapple and Cool Whip and often other add-ins.

Original Watergate Salad

This original Watergate Salad is another one of those classic recipes that dates back to the 70s and that just about every southern cook has in their party file, though like everything else, with some variations. It's still a very common dish at baby showers, bridal showers, and even weddings down south, and I honestly cannot remember a single event that Mama catered where this wasn't expected on the table.

 

It's been called the Ultimate Coffee Cake, Butterscotch Bubbleloaf, Monkey Bread and Pullapart Bread, but whatever you call it, it's pretty darned delicious!

Butterscotch Pull Apart Bread

I'm sure everybody has a recipe like this, made with frozen bread rolls and butterscotch pudding. Even Paula Deen makes it and calls it the Ultimate Coffee Cake, and I made it too, so here it is! Mine is an adaptation of the Rhodes Famous Butterscotch Bubbleloaf, but it's virtually the same recipe that Paula uses too. Nothing could be easier either since you pretty much just dump very convenient Rhodes frozen dinner rolls into a bundt pan and sprinkle the top with butterscotch pudding the night before you want to have this for breakfast.

Fresh jumbo shrimp stuffed with a mix made with buttery Ritz crackers, Old Bay, Cajun seasoning, fresh parsley and fresh crab.

Crab Stuffed Shrimp

I had thawed out two packages of shrimp thinking that I would either make gumbo or fry them, but when I realized these were some of the larger shrimp, I knew they were worthy of something just a bit better.

I thought very seriously about grilling them, but then remembered that I had not yet done a stuffed shrimp for the website. Besides. Once you get the image of a crab stuffed shrimp in your head, well, you're bound to have to go there!

How to Butterfly Shrimp

How to Butterfly Shrimp

To clean a shrimp, you will most often, remove the head and peel away the shell, though for purposes of grilling a shrimp, the shell can also be left intact as a cover to protect the shrimp from drying out too easily. You can still devein the shrimp and leave the shell intact.

Ways to Cook Sweet Potatoes ... Baked and More!

Some of my favorite ways to cook sweet potatoes ... baked, twice-baked, microwave, french fried, roasted, grilled, skillet hash, mashed and pureed.

Ways to Cook Sweet Potatoes

I realize that folks all over the U.S. eat sweet potatoes, and I also realize that they are grown in a lot of states {and even overseas}, but sweet potatoes sure speak southern to me.

Did you know that over 235 million pounds of them are produced annually right here in our fine state of Mississippi? Vardaman, Mississippi, located in the northern part of our state, is only one of the top five Mississippi sweet potato producers.

Every year in the first week of November they host a National Sweet Potato Festival, and Vardaman, in fact, lays claim to the title of "The Sweet Potato Capitol of the World." In truth, North Carolina is the biggest producer in the U.S., followed by close competitors Louisiana, California and Mississippi. Even still, China is the largest producer of sweet potatoes - about 80% of the world's supply.

An easy Tex-Mex skillet supper made with ground beef, green chilies, canned pintos, flour tortillas, and seasoned with Sazon, chili powder and cumin. It's like a burrito in a skillet!

Beef and Bean Burrito Skillet Dinner

I love Beef and Bean Burritos and this recipe transfers that flavor into the ease of a skillet meal. Made from scratch, it's fresh and just delicious.

If you are in a rush, you can speed stove to table time by substituting a package of taco seasoning (eliminating all items beginning with salt through to, and including, the oregano) and a can of black beans or seasoned, refried beans for the pintos and Sazon.

Should I top my beef and bean burrito skillet dinner?

Absolutely, yes! I suggest topping your own individual serving with your favorite burrito garnishes:

New Orleans Old Sober - Yakamein Beef Noodle Soup

Yak a Mein, New Orleans Old Sober Soup is most often made from beef, always includes boiled eggs, and is offered with condiments of soy sauce, hot sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and ketchup.

Yakamein Beef Noodle Soup

Known by a couple of different names and spellings, Yakamein (Ya Ka Mein) Soup, often just called "Yock," picked up the name "Old Sober" in New Orleans, for its alleged healing powers in warding off the after-effects and resulting hangover from late night French Quarter partying.

A popular soup in several areas of the United States, Yakamein, was sold mostly in neighborhood mom and pop bodegas of New Orleans in days past but became a lost recipe there for a bit. Maybe the flooding of Hurricane Katrina contributed to that in New Orleans.

Thin Mint Cookies made with Ritz crackers

Ritz Cracker Thin Mint Cookies

Okay. I'm just gonna go ahead and warn ya up front. If you are a fan of the Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies, I'm guessing you'll like these too, and well, I will not be held responsible for your inability to stop eating these once you start. It will be difficult.

Weekend Cocktails - Vodka Collins

It's cocktail time! Isn't it funny that spring hasn't even officially made an entrance, and yet here I am already thinking of summer cocktails!?  My apologies for the lack of photo styling folks, but eh, we were working in the yard today and I was tired, so maybe next time I'll do a nice, pretty, styled picture.

I don't imbibe in alcohol much these days, heck, I don't even have the proper bar tools except for what is leftover from my younger years, though I keep saying I'm gonna remedy that. But, for now, my shaker is a quart Mason jar, the same thing that we very often drink sweet, iced tea in, or build a bbq sundae in from our leftover picnic fixin's. My strainer? I use a regular ole kitchen strainer.  Simple living.  That's how we roll Down South. 

Basic Homemade Sweet and Sour Mix

A basic, general purpose bar mixer that can be easily adapted for desired sweetness or tartness by adjusting the amounts of simple syrup and citrus juices. Can also be made with only lemon juice if desired, though the mixer with lime included is perfect for margaritas and mojitos.

Crawfish Monica Copycat

Spicy crawfish in a rich and creamy butter and cream sauce, doused generously with Cajun seasoning, and tossed with rotini pasta.

Crawfish Monica

This is my copycat recipe for Crawfish Monica, a spicy, rich and creamy crawfish and pasta dish, extremely popular and once found only at a booth at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival - a long running music event held in New Orleans.

With multiple stages of soul-stirring music, from jazz, to gospel, to Cajun and zydeco, rock, funk, blues, Caribbean and so much more, and more southern, Cajun, Creole and international foods than you can shake a baton at y'all.  If you've never been, you really should put it on your bucket list for sure. Check it out here.

 

St. Patrick's Day recipe ideas from Deep South Dish.

St. Patrick's Day Recipe Ideas

Top o' the mornin' to ya! St. Patrick's Day is right around the corner, and we have a saying down here that at least on St. Patrick's Day, everybody's got a little Irish in them.

For pete's sake though, wear your green, and wear it out in the open and obvious... because green undergarments just don't count... or else I guarantee that you will most definitely get yourself pinched, if you aren't showing your green!

Seven can taco soup is such a quick and easy soup to throw together, with a well stocked pantry you can whip it up in no time and customize it to your own liking.

7-Can Taco Soup

While 7-Can Taco Soup may not be a classic southern recipe, it is certainly a very popular recipe in the south, no doubt because it feeds a crowd, is a party favorite, and is simply delicious. It's also another one of those recipes that's been around forever.

Sweet bell peppers stuffed with a mixture of ground beef, Italian sausage, rice & a Creole tomato sauce, topped with cheddar cheese, slices of Velveeta or your favorite.

Creole Stuffed Bell Peppers

I absolutely adore stuffed bell peppers. The Cajun? Not so much.

Remember his aversion to veggies?

Well, the poor bell pepper falls right into that category of any other whole veggie that is stuffed - even though most often the very veggie he is rejecting whole, is mixed in the stuffing anyway! So, as with any stuffed vegetable, he will just eat the stuffing from a stuffed bell pepper, and throw away the pepper.

Silly man. I mean, he eats green bell pepper a lot. How many recipes do y'all see here that contain The Trinity - onion, celery, and ... hello ... green bell pepper? Lots. Sigh.

Dirty Fried Eggs

Dirty fried eggs is the name I gave them - eggs fried in bacon drippings that gives them that speckled look from all the bacon yum-yums gathered on the bottom of the skillet.

Okay, yeah, it's just fried eggs, but indulge me for a bit would ya? I love eggs. I love all kinds of eggs. Deviled eggs, scrambled eggs, omelets, poached eggs, just plain old boiled eggs, egg salad with shrimp, with ham, and with tuna, eggs on huevos, in quiche, in a hash, as migas, in a breakfast casserole, a quesadilla, on a BLT, and yeah, even on a po'boy! Yep. I do love eggs.

But, this post here - this is just about fried eggs and specifically Dirty Fried Eggs. Aw, heck. Might as well make this post a minor 101 about fried eggs, and then show y'all how we do a proper dirty fried egg down here in The Deep South! After all there are folks who pass through here that are just learnin' to cook, right?

A Deep South Courtbouillon is a roux-based fish stew, made with creole tomato sauce, stewed down and reduced, and used to poach fish - often redfish, red snapper or catfish.

Cajun Coubion - Courtbouillon

A court bouillon is a French poaching stock made from water and typical stock veggies - onion, carrots, celery - in which generally fish is cooked. But that's the French.

Down here in The Deep South, Courtbouillon {pronounced COO-bee-YON or COO-bee-ON} is a sort of roux-based, creole tomato sauce, stewed down and reduced, and most commonly used to poach redfish, though red snapper or catfish are fairly traditional also. 

If you enjoy fish, this is a great dish for Lent, that is somewhat similar to Bouillabaisse, though I side with Marcelle Bienvenu, Times Picayune contributor, and author of the fantastic Cajun/Creole cookbook and a top favorite in my personal collection, Who's Your Mama,Are You Catholic, and Can You Make a Roux?

 

Easy, Quick Microwave General Purpose Roux

10 Minute Quick Microwave General Purpose Roux

You can make a roux in the microwave. Oh yes you can! It's faster than the oven, and it's easier than the stove top. And, I'm gonna show you how!!

Upside Down Deep Dish Pizza Casserole

This dish gives you the flavor of pizza, but in an easy casserole form. Mozzarella cheese, meat sauce, and a batter that produces a crust-like layer, makes this casserole much like an upside down deep dish pizza. Add your favorite toppings!

Deep Dish Pizza Casserole

This recipe is really a casserole, but it sure fills the bill when you're in the mood for pizza, but lacking the time. Of course, homemade pizza from scratch, is always the way to go - and there's nothing that can really match it. But, let's face it. That's pretty much a weekend project for many of us.