A spicy, slow-simmered red sauce made with tomatoes, garlic, olive oil and red pepper flakes and tossed with penne pasta. Here I've added a few additional seasonings, some chopped sweet onion and finished it with fresh Parmesan cheese and parsley.

Spicy Arrabiata Sauce with Pasta

The word arrabiata (ah-rah-BYAH-tah) literally translates into the word "angry" and it's the heat from the addition of red pepper flakes here that earned the sauce the name, setting it apart from other more traditional Italian sauces.

If you enjoy a little heat in your sauce, start with the lesser amount of red pepper flakes. If you are already a lover of super spicy, increase that according to your personal taste.

While you can use fresh tomatoes, this sauce is often made using shelf-stable canned tomatoes, whether home canned or commercially bought, so it's an easy pasta sauce that can be prepared from the pantry anytime.

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.

Seasoned ground beef patties, dredged lightly in flour, then pan fried, onions caramelized in the drippings in which a tomato-based gravy is created, and the patties returned to finish.

Hamburger Steaks in Tomato Gravy

Hamburger Steaks and Gravy is a go to for me and a favorite meal for my meat and potatoes hubby. 

It's super easy to make, tastes great and is a filling, belly warmin', delicious meal. 

As much as we love tomato gravy here in the South, trading the classic brown gravy for a tomato-based version is a natural transition.

A quick skillet meal of sweet or hot Italian sausage with seasoning vegetables, pasta noodles and a southwestern-seasoned tomato and sour cream sauce.

Italian Sausage and Pasta Skillet

Oh my goodness y'all... is this summer heat ever gonna end?? And it's not even August yet.

I know that I whine about it every summer but it's not getting any easier as the birthdays come on, that's for sure! The boys came by with their Dad for a swim and while PawPaw hung out in the pool with them, I had to go in and out of the house, alternating between visiting and cooling off. It was awful.

It's really been hard to get motivated to cook too.

A quick and easy skillet meal made with ground beef, fresh tomatoes, rice and summer squash and finished with shredded cheese.

Ground Beef and Squash Skillet

Y'all probably already know that I am into skillet meals. They're quicker than their more involved counterparts - like my skillet jambalaya, gumbolaya, skillet lasagna or ziti, and great for busy weeknights.

Like a lot of you, I also love summer squash, but mostly it gets pushed into being either a snack or a side, rather than a featured dish. This version makes it more main dish with the addition of ground beef and rice, though it's really a very versatile dish. Well drained canned or thawed frozen mixed vegetables or corn may also be added to expand it even further.

A skillet meal of seasoned, sautéed chicken breasts, in a tomato basil pasta sauce with bow tie pasta and finished with Italian cheese.

Chicken in Tomato Basil Sauce with Bow Tie Pasta

When I don't know what I want to eat, much less cook, pasta always comes to the rescue! With some pantry basics and some good seasoning, you can whip up a delicious meal in short time. This is one of those meals.

Shrimp and White Bean Stew - Great Northern, cannellini, navy or your favorite small white bean, cooked in a ham bone broth, with the trinity, Rotel tomatoes, andouille sausage and small shrimp.

Shrimp and White Bean Stew

I literally have been trying to get this recipe written and uploaded to the blog for almost two weeks! What can I say... seeing as I'm at the age of being mostly retired now, we techically at least because, trust me, a recipe website is as much work as what I did in my corporate legal career!

Anyway, I don't spend too much of my time being in a hurry to do much of anything anymore.

You may have also noticed that the Deep South summer-like fall heat finally gave way to some much cooler, near winter-like fall temperatures. Though it's sure been nice having some cooler temps the past couple of weeks, along with that comes a certain degree of laziness on my part. Though I do still cook, not a lot of writing happens.

Deep South Spaghetti with Andouille Sausage

A spaghetti meat sauce made with the trinity and thin slices of spicy, andouille sausage, for a taste of the Deep South.

Dad's Deep South Spaghetti with Andouille

When I make a pot of meat sauce for spaghetti, I usually toss the cooked noodles with a few spoons of the sauce, then top each serving with more sauce. Dad mixes the cooked pasta and sauce together and also adds thin slices of Andouille sausage to his meat sauce. I admit, I sure love when he sends a plate of his spaghetti over to me and since The Cajun also loves his Dad's spaghetti, I patterned this version after his.

 

Skillet fried potatoes, cooked with Italian, breakfast or turkey sausage, veggies, plenty of garlic and fresh or canned tomatoes.

Sausage and Garlic Potatoes

Okay, right up front, I reckon this isn't the prettiest picture, and I'm sure, due to the nature of the internet, somebody is gonna feel free to let me know that.

Truth is, you and I know that a lot of the best tasting foods aren't necessarily the most photogenic.

As a person with a blog of recipes, some are a little difficult to "style," and photography is not exactly my talent anyway. I'm a pretty decent cook, but not that great with food styling.

Have you seen my mandarin orange fruit salad, aka to many of you as ambrosia salad? There is no way to make that dish look good, but man is it delicious!

Fresh shrimp in a tomato basil cream sauce, made from fresh tomatoes and garden herbs, and tossed with bowtie pasta.

Shrimp and Bowties in Fresh Tomato Basil Cream Sauce

Whew, things have been crazy here for a few months as of this writing - a cookbook launch (#ad) (something I never thought I'd do) {affil link}, 3 trips to Philadelphia for QVC (and I've still not seen any of the historical sights or had an authentic cheesesteak), and let me tell you... I don't know if it's because I'm pretty much a homebody and happy to be, or that I'm older, or both, but travel sure puts a strain on me these days, both for days before and days after.

Then there was a very important family graduation, two potluck dinners with my Uncle Jim before he heads back up to Maryland (thanks for hosting Nikki!), a special honors recognition ceremony for my eldest grandson and a dance recital for my granddaughter.

Now that they are out of school and with summer activities lined up, they're here at the house with us more of the day, and we're also trying to help out where we can with getting them to and fro. The Cajun and I both love having the grandkids - we have a good time and we've both grown very close to them over the last year and I tell ya... they sure have their Paw Paw wrapped around their little pinkie promise fingers.

Classic macaroni and tomatoes pairs up with spicy andouille for a little Cajun kick.

Macaroni and Tomatoes with Andouille

Macaroni and tomatoes is a depression era dish that so many folks still have fond memories of.

In its purest form, it's simply lightly stewed fresh garden tomatoes or home canned tomatoes, and pasta, usually elbow macaroni, stirred in, maybe a little butter, and salt and pepper.

That's about it.

Lightly caramelized onions are sauteed with Italian sausage, a little chicken broth, tomatoes, cream and seasonings and tossed with rigatoni pasta for a quick skillet meal.

Italian Sausage Rigatoni with Spicy Tomato Cream Sauce

This is another one of those quick pantry meals because it uses ingredients I almost always just have on hand. The sauce is a great accent to the Italian sausage and truly nothing could be easier. I used rigatoni, which works perfect with the sausage and cream sauce, but the recipe works well with many other pasta shapes as well. Try it with bow ties or rotini - here's how to make it!