Old School Ham Bone Beans

Somewhere between a soup and stew, all thick and creamy and soothing, this full bodied and flavorful pot of white beans is all due to the ham bone.

Ham Bone Beans

I don't know about the rest of y'all but I sure have had a difficult time getting back into the swing this week. I've been busy enough writing new recipes and even cooking, but it's the post writing part that has me pulling off my best procrastination act this week. For instance, I fully intended to have this recipe up on Monday... and here it is already Wednesday. I had it mostly done, I just kept putting off finishing the final cut and the coding that goes with all this website business.

Turkey (or Chicken) Tetrazzini

Transform slices of cooked turkey or chicken with this mushroom cream sauce, served over spaghetti noodles. Great casserole to use up leftovers.

Turkey Tetrazzini

This is just a basic tetrazzini, but it's sure a tasty way to re-purpose some of that leftover turkey from the holidays, or later on down the line, chicken and ham even. A simple, rich cream sauce, fresh mushrooms, chicken stock and a nice splash of white wine and you'll forget you're eating leftovers. If you're looking for a few more ways to use up some of those holiday leftovers, be sure to pop by this page for a little inspiration.

Anything and Everything Salad - a mixture of lettuces and various toppings, here topped with broccoli, bacon, mandarin oranges, dried cranberries, dressed with a sweet and sour dressing and topped with a buttery almond, pecan and ramen noodle crunch.

Everything Salad

I love this salad. It's sort of a hybrid of Ramen Noodle Salad and Broccoli Salad with a few extras thrown in.

Classic cranberry relish, made from uncooked, fresh cranberries, oranges, apples and pineapple.

Cranberry Relish

When I was growing up, there was one cranberry sauce at our house over the holidays. The familiar, cylinder-shaped, super sweet, jellied cranberry sauce, decorated with ridges molded right from the can it slurped out of. It's one thing in common from our holiday tables past, that so many of us Southerners still connect to nostalgically, no matter where we grew up.

Mama always served it in slices, on an oblong, etched glass dish that was used exclusively for the cranberry sauce every holiday. Almost inevitably, we'd all settle down to the table together, say grace and be digging in, when I would look around the table and notice it missing. "Hey... where's the cranberry sauce?" For me, it just wasn't a holiday meal without that cranberry sauce. It was, and still is, as much a part of our holiday as family.

Strips of onion, pickled in vinegar, sugar, hot sauce and pickling spices, an excellent addition to sandwiches, burgers, beans and greens.

Pickled Onions

I had several requests for the recipe I use for the pickled onions pictured with my turnip greens, so I promised to squeeze it in here over the weekend, between all the holiday posts for turkey and dressing and all those side dish goodies we're all looking forward to here in a few days.

The British have their pickled pearl onions, often served as an appetizer at local pubs, but the South, well, we have our own version of pickled onions. You'll most often find ours served family-style at catfish houses, right alongside the all-you-can-eat fried catfish, turnip greens, coleslaw, fried okra, and cornbread.

Southern Style Turnip Greens with Salt Pork

Southern style turnip greens, stewed with salt pork, beef base, a bit of sugar and cider vinegar. Serve with cornbread and pickled onions and pass the hot pepper sauces at the table.

Southern Style Turnip Greens

Now that fresh, already cleaned and chopped greens are so readily available, I find that despite the fact that The Cajun doesn't like greens, I can still get fresh greens in my diet a little more often. Taking away the cleaning process really helps to speed things up, though you do pay a bit of a premium for the convenience, of course.

A batter style yeast roll that requires no kneading and no rise time - great for everyday use.

Muffin Tin Spoon Rolls

Homemade yeast rolls are my favorite, but let's face it. They do take an investment of time. In order for the yeast to fully develop and provide that fluffy, light roll instead of a biscuit, you need that nice, long double rise... and that takes time. It's definitely worth it, but for that reason, most of us reserve a good homemade yeast roll only for special occasions and holidays, or we buy them frozen.

Hobo Stew, made with ground beef, a mixture of vegetables, canned tomatoes and V-8.

Ground Beef Hobo Stew

Pantry friendly and adaptable, I just love this stew. In some variation and often depending on the type of meat you use, you may know this dish by the names of Campfire Stew, Girl Scout Camp Stew, Hobo Stew, Ground Beef Stew, Beggar Stew, Mulligan Stew, or V8 Stew - just to name a few. I just settled on calling it a Ground Beef Hobo Stew.

Historically, a basic Dutch oven style stew that dates back to the early 1900s, it was slow cooked over the coals of an open campfire, often in a can (remember that from Girl Scouts?), or made up in a large casserole style foil packet. It was a communal dish, often enhanced by the next contributor who showed up through the woods, with whatever he had. If you were a Girl Scout, you may well remember this camp-out routine, where we were each asked to each bring along a can of some kind of vegetable from home, which then got added to our own campfire stew. Oh the memories of those days! We'll just keep it easy and take it stovetop or crockpot here.

Southern fried potatoes, also known as Southern style hash brown potatoes, or, simply soft fried potatoes, are cubed peeled russets, that are first steamed and then pan-fried in bacon drippings to crisp and turned, resulting in a tender inside, but with crispy outer edges.

Southern Fried Potatoes

Literally every area of the country has some form of pan-fried potatoes. For those of us in the south, potatoes cooked with this method are sometimes known as a Southern style hash brown, mostly by commercial producers, because we've always just called them soft-fried potatoes.

These are somewhat similar to my cast iron Skillet Potatoes - a simple Deep South take on Potatoes O'Brien, due to the inclusion of bell pepper (and sometimes mushrooms if I have them), the major difference being the type of potato used and the method of preparation.