An easy cobbler made from canned peaches and cake mix.

Cake Mix Peach Cobbler

It's a little early yet for fresh peaches, and thank goodness after a few weather-related bad years, this summer's peaches are looking to be a bumper crop!

I love fresh peaches and the past several years, I've been purchasing peaches from different orchards all across the south, just so that I could get a taste of peaches from lots of regions. It's actually rare for me to buy grocery store peaches, although I will search out some regional peaches at our farmer's markets at peak season.

In the meantime, thank goodness for frozen and canned peaches!

Fresh peaches, tossed in lemon juice and skillet cooked in a buttery, brown sugar sauce with cinnamon, vanilla and a bit of whisky or bourbon, if you like. Shown here with my Grandma Mac's Perfect Pound Cake.

Skillet Peaches

Southern peach season - typically mid-May through mid-August - is in full force... and I have barely eaten any fresh peaches!

I don't cook with them much, mostly preferring to take them as a fruit snack really, and the past few years, I've been ordering peaches from around the south that we don't get here.

Somehow, I missed it this year, and last year even. Although you can still find some peaches around town, mostly from California. No doubt they're fine peaches too, but you can't match a local peach, and by local I mean the south in general - Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina, of course.

Fresh Fruit Salad tossed with a lime and mint infused simple syrup.

Fresh Fruit Salad with Lime and Mint Dressing

Okay. I'm a gonna say it again. It is HOT y'all. Whew!

Magazines are arriving all decked out in the unmistakable colors of fall, loaded with fall baking recipes, chilis, soups and stews, and apple recipes are everywhere, even already with many bloggers. A Florida Sam's Club even has Christmas decorations out now. Yes. In August. I'm serious y'all!

 

Peach Cobbler, made with canned peaches and a sugar and flour crumble topping.

Canned Peach Cobbler

When I went to make some spiced peach halves recently, I accidentally opened a large can of sliced peaches, so I thought it would be a great time to put up this version of peach cobbler. As if any Southerner would need an excuse for a comforting pan of warm peach cobbler, even if slap in the middle of winter, right?

I usually refer to this as a winter cobbler because it's intended to be made when peaches are out of season, though I see no problem with using canned peaches or frozen peaches any time of the year frankly. It is especially excellent when made with peaches you've home canned yourself, though store bought canned peaches are delicious too.

Old Fashioned Holiday Fruit Salad with Custard Sauce

Old Fashioned Holiday Fruit Salad with Custard Sauce - a mixed fruit salad, made with canned fruit cocktail, mandarin oranges, grapes, maraschino cherries and fresh apples and finished with an egg custard and fruit juice based dressing - a long-time favorite on many Southern holiday tables.

Holiday Fruit Salad

Fruit salads are popular for holiday meals and there must be thousands of variations, from congealed, to mixed fruit, to frozen. This classic version made from an assortment of fresh and canned fruits and dressed with an egg custard that substitutes juices for the traditional cream sauce, dates back many years and has been a holiday favorite in my family for years.

A classic favorite for years, this fruit salad is made with fresh apples, lite fruit cocktail, mandarin oranges, pineapple tidbits, and dressed with the fruit juices blended with instant vanilla or lemon pudding.

Fruit Cocktail Salad

Hey y'all... it's been awhile! Did ya miss me?? Well, in case you were wondering... you see, there was this pesky little hurricane named Isaac that interrupted our lives all of last week. After he barely by-passed the west coast of Florida, he was headed right to the Mississippi Gulf Coast - my backyard!

There were days of prep, checking supplies, filling gas cans for the generator that would keep our freezer and fridge going, bolting down the hurricane shutters, stuffing the garage and storage sheds with all those nice things like chairs, tables and grills that you want to make sure are still around afterward, and all the fun stuff that goes with preparing for a hurricane.

Summertime Peach Cobbler - super easy cobbler made with fresh peaches, cinnamon sugar and a simple buttery batter.

Summertime Easy Fresh Peach Cobbler

Cobbler has to be just about the one easiest dessert in existence, yet in its simplicity, it is both heart and belly warming. It's hard to see one without throwing a craving on yourself to make one!

Apart from an old fashioned dumpling style cobbler, this is based on a very basic, old school batter that many of us, including me, have used for years, and it works well with a wide variety of fruit.

It is often referred to as cuppa cuppa cuppa cobbler, or 1-1-1 cobbler because it used one cup of butter, one cup of flour and one cup of sugar, though I've revised mine a bit from the original, reducing the butter and, because I like it a little more cakey, I use a method that is just a tad bit different. It's a very simple recipe and it works.

A classic southern side, slices of apples are fried in a mixture of bacon fat or butter and brown sugar then tossed in a dusting of traditional apple pie spices.

Southern Skillet Fried Apples

Skillet fried apples aren't deep fried y'all! As I've mentioned before, in the South we refer to frying things a lot, even though it often has nothing to do with submerging a food item in deep boiling oil.

So many folks outside of the South associate our recipes titled fried cabbage and fried corn the same as they do our fried chicken, which of course, we love, but the truth is, very often, the term "fried" simply refers to the cooking of something in what we call a frying pan aka skillet. Yep. Simple as that!

Five cup salad, and all of its expanded cup versions, is another old fashioned fruit salad that is perfect for any holiday table. A very simple but delicious and well-loved dish.

Old Fashioned 5 Cup Salad

Five Cup Salad is another fruit salad that has been around forever - well, for as long as I can remember anyway - and, while it's good any time of the year, is a great addition to the holiday table too.

Many of us will remember it from days gone by in our Mama's and Grandma's kitchens, but as always, there are some variations that have appeared in this fruit salad over the years. Some adding additional cups of various ingredients, some even changing up the fruit, but I think this version represents the old, basic 5 cup salad.

Congealed salads may have gone the wayside in many southern homes, but this Cherry Coke Salad might just bring you right back to it.

Old Fashioned Cherry Coke Salad

Coke Salad. The Amazing Coca-Cola Salad. Cherry Cola Salad. Fruit salad embedded in cherry Jello. Congealed Salad.

It's known by many names, but it's that last term that tends to garner harsh judgment toward the old gelatin encased salads. It's name comes, of course, from that fact that the contents - be they fruit or vegetables - are thickened, or congealed, into gelatin. I'm not sure why congealed salads fell out of favor, and all but disappeared from the holiday table. Maybe it was the term "congealed" that made them sound un-appetizing, but really, although some were made using a bit of shredded vegetables, most are made with fruit, and are simply fruit salads encased in Jello.

Apple pie made with mixed apples and mango jam or apple jelly and pictured here with a drizzle of caramel sauce.

Old Fashioned Apple Pie

This recipe is for a very basic, old fashioned apple pie, using 3 pounds of mixed apples for a nice depth of flavor, and the addition of a bit of jam or jelly as a nice little extra flavor burst. A brush of the bowl juices across the top and we've got another great recipe for the apple recipe collection!

Watermelon rind pickles are a multi-step process. First, the trimmed rind of a watermelon is cut into slices and soaked overnight in a salt water brine, then boiled to tenderize, and later boiled in a spiced, vinegar and sugar mixture and left to stand overnight, before preparing for water bath canning.

Watermelon Rind Pickles

I don't know what it is about the taste of sweet down south. Maybe sweet things just help to take our minds off of the heat, who knows. We sure like our desserts in The Deep South, no doubt about that. People will talk all day about not wanting to cook but then their eyes will light up at the mention of some baked goods! Some Southerners even like their mayonnaise sweet, sauces sweet, cornbread sweet, and we sure like our watermelon rind pickles sweet!

Many southerners have very fond memories of sittin' on the back porch, or more likely a picnic table in the middle of the yard - the better to hose us down - parked in front of big slices of sticky, sweet watermelon, holding a knife in one hand to cut the juicy pulp off the rind, and very often a salt shaker in the other, and havin' seed spittin' contests with or at our siblings. Yes we do that, and while I know that newly bred seedless watermelon is all the rage these days, I truly still like a good ole seeded watermelon. The only down side is their size and having the place to store it in the fridge, so the smaller seedless ones have become quite popular.

Easy Homemade Southern Peach Ice Cream

Ice cream made with fresh peaches, sweetened condensed milk, half and half and instant vanilla pudding, makes a creamy texture that you'll be sure had to be from a homemade custard.

Homemade Peach Ice Cream

Homemade peach ice cream is another food that makes me think of my Grandma Mac. She didn't make it often during the summer, but when she did, it was so good. She had the old-fashioned hand cranked type of ice cream maker too - what a lot of lovin' work must've gone into making that ice cream, and goodness, it sure tasted it too.

Banana Fritters - Bananas dipped in a cinnamon batter, skillet fried in butter, then rolled in a mixture of brown sugar and toasted coconut.

Pan Fried Banana Fritters

This works best with the fresher and more firm bananas just from the store, rather than the riper ones that have been on the counter for a few days. They are awesome served alongside a scoop of vanilla ice cream, alone with just a simple drizzle of cream, couple sprinkles of pecan or walnut, or even as a side to some hot pancakes or waffles, and with an extra drizzle of cane syrup or honey. Just delicious!

Cinnamon Honey Baked Apples with Walnuts and Raisins

Apples stuffed with brown sugar, cinnamon, apple pie spice, butter, walnuts and raisins or dried cranberries, drizzled with honey and baked.

Cinnamon Honey Baked Apples

In December, I purchased a Holiday Mixed Fruit gift box special that had 44 pieces of beautiful, juicy and delicious fruit - anjou pears, ruby red grapefruit, juice & navel oranges, tangerines & tangelos, and 16 apples, 4 different varieties.

I thought that it was an amazing value!

Ambrosia has moved on to more of a fruit salad these days, here made with apples, bananas, mandarin oranges, mini marshmallows, pecans, coconut and maraschino cherries, but it started out very simply once containing oranges and coconut.

Ambrosia Fruit Salad

Ah, ambrosia... a southern favorite for sure. Classic, old-fashioned ambrosia had only two ingredients though - oranges and coconut - served most often with a dressing of simply orange juice and sugar. It's fallen out of style these days though, because most folks aren't interested in something so plain, but that, my dear, is a true southern ambrosia.