New York Pushcart Style Hot Dog Onion Sauce

Highly seasoned sweet onions, simmered in a tomato-based vinegar and brown sugar sauce and spooned over baked hot dogs, dressed with a spicy brown mustard.

Hot Dog Onion Sauce

Y'all. I feel so left out about onion sauce, or more specifically, pushcart onions. I had never even heard of them before now!

Food trucks aren't a big thing where I live, though we do have a few around here and there. We don't exactly have pushcarts here in the Biloxi area either, although Lucky Dog pushcarts do exist in New Orleans and apparently now in Bay St. Louis, over on the Louisiana/Mississippi state line. I've had a few of their dogs over the years.

You'll certainly find hot dog vendor booths at our festivals, though I'm more likely to buy a corn dog there than a plain hot dog!

This barbecue sauce made with classic Coca-Cola, is a sweet and tangy finish for all of your smoke and grill cooks as well as a delicious condiment for those burgers.

Coca-Cola BBQ Sauce

Yep. Recipes with Coca-Cola is a thing in the South!

I mean, after all, it is an Atlanta product. The company has been headquartered there since its founding in 1892.

Cola has found its way to recipes from marinades and sauces, to pulled pork, ribs, beans and even desserts and if you want the real deal, the bottled version is still the best in my humble opinion, even better when you have access to cane sugar based Mexican Coke.

Mini smoked sausages in a tangy sauce, perfect for any gathering.

Party Cocktail Sausages

Meatballs and mini smoked sausages - most notably those Lit'l Smokies - are two party staples and the best part? The sauces you use can completely customize them.

One standard mixture is the old school chili sauce and grape jelly blend and frankly everybody I know, even my grandkids, love that, whether it's on meatballs or sausages.

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.

Stuffing made with boudin sausage, wrapped with well-seasoned jumbo shrimp and served with an easy shortcut demi-glace drizzle.

Boudin Stuffed Shrimp

I based this recipe on a video that passed by me one day on Facebook from The Southern Weekend show, although, because it was a chef inspired recipe, it was rather involved. 

There are a couple of sauces that a chef would automatically have already made and on hand. A demi-glace would be one of those sauces.

Traditionally a French demi-glace, a word translated as half sauce, is made up of an espagnole - a very long simmered, brown meat stock and considered the traditional "mother" of brown sauces because of its many derivatives.

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.

Fresh tomatoes, air fryer roasted with onions and whole garlic cloves tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper and blended. Perfect for pasta dishes but use anywhere you would use diced tomatoes or puree them for a more sauced version.

Air Fryer Roasted Tomatoes

As of this writing, Fall has "officially" arrived, though it does take a while to effect any change here in the Deep South. I mean, as we speak, there's a potential hurricane threatening the Gulf Coast!

Regardless, one thing is for certain, we're getting to the end of local and backyard tomato season.

Though he loves the sauces and casseroles I make with them, The Cajun is not a big fan of fresh, raw tomatoes and he wouldn't dream of a tomato sandwich! Me, I love them and I enjoy them with many meals, including simply sliced with a little salt and pepper, even alongside my breakfast eggs.

A smoked bone-in half ham, baked and finished with a glaze patterned on our Southern Jezebel Sauce, made with apple jelly, pineapple preserves and pepper jelly mixed with lemon-lime soda.

Apple and Pineapple "Jezebel" Glazed Ham

I love cooking a baked ham all year round, so it's not just a holiday thing for me. I cook them for a planned meal, then put up freezer bags of vacuum-sealed ham chunks and the ham bone for later.

I wanted to give y'all another ham and had in mind the old school, traditional pineapple ham made with 7-up, Sprite or ginger ale, but decided to step it up a little bit by incorporating elements from my jezebel sauce, which is often used as a side condiment with baked ham, but using it here instead as a glaze.

Marinated Cracked Blue Crab Salad

Highly seasoned boiled crab and claws, marinated in a vinegar and oil dressing, with fresh vegetables, lemon and lots of garlic.

Marinated Blue Crab Salad

From the time that I was a little girl, tying down chicken backs into crab nets on a Biloxi pier with my Grandma Mac, fresh crabs have been such a central part of my life.

In gumbo or stuffed into the shell, made into crab cakes or patties, stuffed into po'boy bread, or jumbo shrimp, in pasta, even that hot crab dip that shows up at pretty much every event in existence around here, I can't even imagine a life without some fresh blue crab in it.

A tangy enhanced ketchup sauce, loaded with flavor, perfect for burgers and meatballs.

Burger and Meatball Sauce

A big leap above the standard ketchup, this is one of my favorite burger sauces, but it's a great meatball sauce too.

Though somewhat of a riff on the vintage grape jelly and chili sauce meatballs we all know and love, I patterned this version after a burger sauce once used by an old favorite and sadly now gone, little bitty, local burger joint in Biloxi.

There was nothing particularly unusual about their flame-cooked burgers really, but it was the sauce that really made them ultra delicious to me. For many years I had fond memories of it, and thought I'd give a hand at trying to make one somewhat like it. This recipe was the result. It makes about 4 cups, perfect for loads of burgers, or several pounds of meatballs, though it can certainly be reduced.

Oven-roasted shrimp served in a fiery, tomato-based, Italian Fra Diavolo sauce with pasta.

Roasted Shrimp Fra Diavolo

Fair warning. Sort of like shrimp sauce picante, just by virtue of the name, this sauce is fiery!! I ain't lying y'all. Let's just say I didn't need any lip plumper after eating this.

Now I made it exactly as I have written it, but if you prefer things a bit more on the mild side, simply eliminate the Cajun seasoning on the shrimp and reduce the red pepper flakes. Take note too though, that with any leftovers, heat will be intensified even further!

Jumbo Shrimp with Homemade Cocktail Sauce

Shrimp Cocktail from Deep South Dish blog. Jumbo shrimp, poached, boiled or oven-roasted and served with a zesty homemade cocktail sauce.

Shrimp Cocktail

Don't you just feel fancy when you're at a restaurant where they still have a shrimp cocktail on the menu? I tend to order one when they are, but even when I don't, I kinda light up when I see somebody else get one delivered to their table. It's a little luxurious to me! Hey, what can I say. Those little small things make me happy! I had a bag of jumbo shrimp in the freezer that I needed to use so thought that it would be a good time to get a shrimp cocktail recipe up.

Sure, there's always basic cocktail sauce, simple lazy man sauce, or even super-flavorful Comeback Sauce, that we whip up in a hurry for our boils, and any one of those works just fine for dipping boiled shrimp. Yes, you can even buy it all bottled up for you at the grocery store, but when we have these nice, beautiful jumbo shrimp that we want to use for an appetizer - like for a holiday menu - well, they deserve a little step up, if you ask me!

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.

Highly seasoned, sauteed shrimp, tossed in fettuccine noodles and a lighter alfredo sauce with a quality freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Shrimp Fettuccine Alfredo

I don't know too many folks who don't like a rich alfredo sauce. I mean, let's face it. When you go out to a restaurant do you ask for your cream sauces to be made with skim milk? Um, nope.

Heavy cream is delicious, though I don't keep it in my fridge all the time, and it's not something I want to consume on a regular basis. I usually only buy it for a very specific recipe. Like holiday mashed potatoes. Custard ice cream. Rich, oyster stew. Or my spicy tomato cream sauce for pasta. Definitely my cream biscuits with the leftovers!

Meatballs and Marinara - Meatballs, tossed in a quick, homemade marinara sauce, topped with mozzarella cheese and served over rotini pasta. Add a side salad and some crusty bread for a fantastic meal!

Meatballs and Marinara

The Cajun loves meatballs. I swear his eyes literally light up when I say we're having meatballs for supper, without him knowing a thing about how we're having them. Just the word meatballs makes him happy!

Of course, I'm pretty sure he could also finish off a full 3 pounds of them in one sitting, if I let him. He is definitely your quintessential meat and potatoes man, so I do try to "fill in" with things like sauce, maybe some pasta, a little bread and a salad.

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.

A boneless prime rib roast made with a rub of olive oil, herbs, spices and seasonings and served with an au jus. Offer an optional sour cream horseradish sauce at the table.

Boneless Prime Rib Beef Roast with au Jus

Most people are terrified of cooking a prime rib roast at home and for good reason. It is a very expensive cut of meat if you mess up!

I actually felt the same way for a very long time and I didn't try to cook one myself because I was so intimidated that I'd ruin it.

But, it's also a delicious cut of meat, so it's worth the effort, and, if you follow these four essential rules, you'll have a perfect, and impressive, holiday roast.

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 homemade spaghetti meat sauce made with fresh tomatoes and ground beef.

Homemade Fresh Tomato Spaghetti Meat Sauce

There is not a thing wrong with shortcut spaghetti sauce - I use a semi-homemade version of one myself most of the time. It's a quicker version that takes canned pasta sauce and jazzes it up a bit to give it homemade flavor. I've been making it that way forever, and it's a great recipe when you want a good sauce in a hurry. My husband loves it, and that's good enough for me.

 

A homemade substitute for store-bought chili sauce made with tomato sauce and paste, lemon juice and a mix of seasonings.

Homemade Chili Sauce

I was already nearly done with stacking groceries on the belt at the grocery store, when I remembered that a couple of recipes that I wanted to make use bottled chili sauce. Doesn't that always happen?

A quick glance near the checkout told me it wasn't gonna be close enough at hand to just do a run and grab, so rather than having to get back in a line for a couple of items (and probably finding another handful of things I really didn't need along the way), I decided I'd just go home and try to make up my own homemade version.