Known as Mulitas in Mexican culture, highly seasoned chicken is sandwiched between homemade corn tortillas with shredded cheese and finished with guacamole or avocado, sour cream, pico de gallo or salsa, or whatever your favorite toppings are.

Chicken Tortilla Sandwiches (Mulitas)

I don't remember where I first heard about mulitas, and, in fact, when I first did, I mistakenly assumed it was just another name for a quesadilla!

The reason for that is that I usually make my quesadillas the same way as these mulitas.

Although both can have very similar fillings, some of the differences I've seen between quesadillas and mulitas include:

Tortilla chips, covered in shredded beef, seasoned pinto beans and white cheese, and finished with your favorite garnishes.

Cowboy Nachos

I love nachos pretty much any way you can fix them. I mean who doesn't like piles of tortilla chips, topped with loads of cheese and all kinds of goodness? It's a great game day or movie night snack too and pretty darn easy to throw together.

This one uses some leftover beef roast that you've reserved from that Sunday dinner, along with some seasoned pinto beans, and then finished with some Pico de Gallo or all those delicious individual garnishes we all love - chopped fresh tomatoes, chopped purple onion, sliced green onion, chopped cilantro, sliced or chopped pickled jalapeno, sour cream, guacamole or chopped avocado.

Meat and Potatoes Casserole, a baked dish, layered with potatoes, seasoned ground beef, cream soup sauce and topped with shredded cheese.

Meat and Potatoes Casserole

I've been super busy the past few weeks, trying to get my spring gardening in before the heat sets into south Mississippi. It comes pretty quick, and seems quicker as I get older, and once it does, it makes it impossible for me to do much in the way of gardening. I just can't tolerate the heat anymore.

You may recall that we moved a few years ago, and although this house had so many features we loved, gardens and flowers were not one of them. Previous owners had either not had an interest in planting or had failed due to the east/west exposure. All the post-Katrina planting I did at the old house, which frankly was an awfully good selling point and one of the reasons the new buyers fell in love with the place, I'm having to completely start from scratch with at this house.

One of my Freedom hedge roses - I planted 4 more of them this spring!

BBQ Sketti, a spaghetti made with leftover pulled BBQ pork, chicken or beef.

BBQ Sketti - Pulled Pork Spaghetti

How was your long holiday weekend? Although we had stormy weather, there were enough breaks here and there to sneak in some fun. I have to say it's been a pretty fab week overall really, beginning with our family reunion last weekend, a baby's first birthday, a delicious family birthday dinner for my sister at Half Shell Oyster House, a Biloxi Shuckers baseball game and a nice firework show afterward, in-between a bit of blog and magazine work, and ending with a cookout at home yesterday with the typical goodies - burgers, dogs, pulled pork, smoked sausage, baked beans and potato salad - and that we managed to get in just before the last downpour.