Chicken drumsticks dredged in seasoned flour and a buttermilk and egg batter and prepared in an air fryer.

Air Fryer Fried Chicken Drumsticks

While I don't eat it every day, and I rarely cook it at home anymore because it can be a bit messy, I do LOVE fried chicken.

Absolutely love it.

The chicken is tender. The coating on the deep-fried skin is so deliciously crunchy and loaded with flavor, it may well be my most favorite part. With easy access to places like Popeye's, and our local fried chicken buffet Hartz, fried chicken is The Cajun's and my top comfort food. We probably eat it more often than we should! 

Bone-in chicken thighs and legs, rub marinated, then grilled over indirect heat or smoke cooked, brushed with Alabama white sauce and served with additional sauce on the side.

Smoked Chicken with Alabama White Sauce

I have to admit, I don't cook outside as much these days. The heat is just too hard on me as I've gotten older, and it gets hot as a match in the summertime here! I mean, I was filling bird feeders yesterday and just in that short time I thought I was gonna die!

Though I haven't let go of my stack smoker, Weber, Lodge Sportsman, or my gas grill, of all of the cookout tools I have, I still love my Traeger pellet cooker {affil link} the most.

A hearty, one-pot Italian-style meal, made with bone-in chicken thighs, Cajun andouille, potatoes, tomatoes and white beans.

One Pot Italian-Style Chicken Stew

This is a good and hearty, one-pot, Italian style stew, though "stew" is really a loose interpretation here. It's hearty, but not thick and rich as we think of stews to be, but rather a bit lighter, making it fully appropriate any time of the year.

I based my recipe on a bit of a combination of MarkCharles Misilli's One Pot Italian Chicken from the cookbook Easy Everyday Favorites and Jacques Pépin's Chicken Bouillabaisse in his cookbook Fast Food My Way {affil links}, since I find them to be strikingly similar.

Chicken, marinated in beer, oil, vinegar and seasonings, then grilled and brushed with French dressing. Shown here with roasted green beans and sour cream, cucumber and onion salad. Fabulous.

Beer-B-Q Marinated Grilled Chicken   

I can't believe we've been in our new/old house over a year now. Wow, time is a flyin' y'all! This house is an older home... 20 years older even than the one that we left. It's had a few makeovers over the years though, and besides being close to the grandkids, there were so many features to the house that I loved, that even though we had looked at a lot of newer houses, I knew this was the one, as soon as I saw it.

Grilled Huli Huli Chicken, a popular Hawaiian-style barbecued chicken, basted with a honey and brown sugar sweetened, soy and pineapple barbecue sauce.

Grilled Huli Huli Chicken

I don't know about y'all, but the last couple of months I have been busier than a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs! Between buying a new house, moving, renovating the old house for sale and now that summer's rolled around, spending a lot more time with the grandkid's on summer vacation too... I truly don't know if I'm coming or going anymore. I sure could use a vacation of my own - Florida beaches here I come!

If you've ever been on a Florida vacation and done the luau show and dinner somewhere, you have likely had some form of this Hawaiian-style barbecued chicken. I've never been to Disney where we didn't go to one either at the Polynesian Hotel or up the road at the Wantilan Luau at Universal Orlando.

Luau shots from one of our Orlando vacations!

Yes, I know they are touristy and to some degree a bit cheesy, but I just love those shows and I really feel like I'm on vacation when I go to one.

A whole chicken, cut up, seared and roasted in a cast iron skillet with tarragon, thyme and fresh rosemary and lemon slices.

Cast Iron Skillet Roasted Cut Up Chicken

Chicken is so economical, and we eat a lot of it in this house.

I often buy the big family packs of chicken pieces and split them up, or whole chickens when they go on sale for 99 cents a pound and under, cut them up and freeze them. Leg quarters, drumsticks, wings, whatever is on sale, I know I'll find a use for it. Sometimes we'll make a meal out of wings!

Chicken legs and thighs, basted with olive oil and lemon, and seasoned simply with a bit of Cajun seasoning, garlic powder, salt and pepper and fresh rosemary and first cooked under the broiler before a quick finishing bake in a hot oven. Pictured here with lady cream peas and buttermilk sour cream cornbread.

Broiled Lemon Herb Chicken

I can't even remember the last time that I cooked chicken under the broiler - I just never think about it. It's really a great time saver, seven minutes on one side, another seven on the other, and then a finish in the oven for about 10 minutes at 450 degrees F for these thighs, and dinner is on the table in no time.

Ain't No Thing Chicken

A combination of chili sauce and hot sauce with cider vinegar, garlic, ginger and Cajun seasoning, makes for a nice spicy kick in these chicken drumsticks. Try it on wings too!

Ain't No Thing Chicken Drumsticks

These drumsticks were inspired by the Ain't No Thing Chicken Wing recipe from fellow native Mississippian, Miss Martha Foose.  She's been called Mississippi's Martha, and she's the author of the cookbook Screen Doors and Sweet Tea: Recipes and Tales from a Southern Cook {affil limk}and her newest one, A Southerly Course.

If you're the kind of person who likes to collect and read cookbooks, you'll love both of these because they are just beautiful cookbooks. Foose currently teaches gourmet cooking class at Viking Cooking School, the home of dream Viking ovens and stoves to pine over. Yes! My dream oven, and Mississippi made.

Fried chicken legs marinated in a soy and hot sauce blend, dusted with flour and fried.

Marinated Fried Drumsticks

I suppose by now those of y'all who pop by here every so often have probably figured out what my two favorite parts of the bird are. Wings and drumsticks. Love them both, yep I sure do!  Don't get me wrong - I love the rest of the chicken too - those are just my favorites, and drumsticks are a breeze to fry.

This recipe is just a basic fried chicken recipe - yeah, yeah, I know ... it looks like my regular ole Southern Fried Chicken, but I swear it's not! New recipe. New picture. Promise.

Instead of a brine, it is marinated by dipping the drumstick into a mixture of canola and soy sauce, with a bit of hot sauce, seasoned salt and garlic salt for flavor, then dredging it in flour and left to sit in the fridge for awhile. This one was actually inspired by a recipe in Mama Dip's Family Cookbook {affil link}. It adds a nice, delicate flavor and okay, the truth is, it's just another excuse for chowin' down on some fried chicken!

Cajun Chicken Fricassee - Smothered Chicken and Gravy

Chicken is first lightly fried, then a gravy is prepared with the seasoned flour and pan drippings, the chicken is dunked right in the gravy and slow stewed or baked.

Cajun Chicken Fricassee

This is not your typical fried chicken with gravy, oh no.

While the chicken does indeed get a quick fry, the purpose of frying the chicken is primarily to season the oil and add body to the gravy, so don't expect a crunchy fried chicken end product here.

Gravy is then made from the seasoned drippings and the chicken is dunked right into the gravy and the whole thing is finished stovetop or slow in the oven. Holy fat grams, it is some kind of delicious y'all.

Grilled chicken is first brined in a salt water solution, then given a light rub, and finally glazed with a root beer reduction.

Root Beer Glazed Drumsticks

I have been wanting to get a root beer glaze up for awhile and finally got around to it - just in time for the 4th! You can use whatever chicken parts you prefer, drumsticks just happen to be my most favorite part of the chicken - so juicy, tender, and full of flavor, especially with a brine.

Grilled Backyard Barbecued Chicken

One of my favorite grilled foods is backyard barbecued chicken. Mine starts with a brine, gets a nice rub before hitting the grill and is basted with sauce at the end. Delicious!

Backyard Barbecued Chicken

Grilled barbecued chicken - meaning chicken cooked on the grill and doused in barbecue sauce - is one of my favorite foods. I just simply love it. It's been a little bit hard to get it in here lately though, since April showers seem to have surfaced full force here in May, and I don't have a covered patio.

Southern fried chicken can certainly be challenging - it just takes practice to be honest! If you're new to frying chicken, try frying only dark or white meat your first time. I also like to brine the chicken first - it really helps to keep the breast meat nice and tender.

Classic Southern Fried Chicken

Good ol' southern fried chicken. I don't eat it often, but I can't imagine living without it!

Admittedly, fried chicken is not an easy dish to get down right without practice - and unfortunately, not something we can eat regularly enough to get that practice - and... frankly, it's a mess.

It's a mess to prep, it's a mess to cook, it's a mess to clean up, and then there's all that oil to contend with afterward too.

Given the fact that we have KFC and Popeye's these days, it's not surprising it really isn't made much at home anymore, but... it is so good, that it is something we Southerners certainly deem worthy of all that trouble - at least on occasion. Besides that... have you seen the price of take out chicken today? 

Chicken drumsticks, marinated in a spicy combination of chili powder, curry and ginger, then grilled, broiled or baked.

Grilled Chili Lime Drumsticks

This is a wonderfully flavorful chicken marinade that could be used for wings, thighs, drumsticks, a spatchcocked or a whole cut up chicken and will work either for the grill or the oven.

I have to say that I was highly impressed with my new grill for my first skin-on chicken - no major flare ups! Gotta work a bit on temperature regulation, but that'll come in time and learning the exact hot spots on the grill. This is a way bigger grill than my previous ones so I'm like a kid in a candy store, though I am no grill aficionado y'all. Rather I look at a grill as an extension of my oven and stovetop, that just happens to live outside! I'll leave the real grillin' to the experts.