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.

A quick beef and rice skillet with a little Southwestern flair from sweet and hot peppers, chili powder, cumin and paprika, diced tomatoes with green chilies and Mexican blend cheeses. Eat as is, or roll up in flour or corn tortillas and top with a dollop of salsa, guacamole and sour cream.

Southwestern Beef Skillet

I love a good skillet meal! They're easy and certainly quick and because of that they don't heat up the kitchen too much, an important bonus in these triple digit summers we're having in the south.

I actually cut this recipe off of a package of Kraft shredded cheese sometime back and finally got around to giving it a try. I found it to be a bit bland sounding though, and it also appeared to be lacking in some of the typical flavor elements you might find in a dish labeled as "southwestern," so I used it as a base, and made some changes by adding more veggies, spices and seasonings.

A tomato and cucumber salad, dressed lightly with a seasoned, mayonnaise-based dressing and lots of crumbled bacon!

Bacon, Cucumber and Tomato Salad

I didn't have nearly as many tomatoes or cucumbers this year. Early on, in the spring, they did great, but then by June we had constant, heavy rainstorms - which, by the way haven't stopped - intertwined with heat indexes in the triple digits - that haven't stopped either - and the tomatoes really suffered.

Guess I'm either going to have to start from seed so I can plant earlier, or else just forget about it and hit the fresh market weekly for my tomato fix!

My early tomatoes - Deep South Dish on Instagram

An easy, re-purposed pasta dish made from leftover pasta, pasta sauce, meats, like pepperoni, smoked sausage or other leftover meats and cheese. Fast and delicious!

Fried Pasta

While you can certainly make fried pasta intentionally using freshly boiled pasta, sauteed meats and jarred pasta sauce, it's really a dish born out of leftovers and wow is it a delicious repurpose!

Although, I've written it out here for you with measurements - which results in about 4 cups pasta, or what I say is two healthy adult sized portions - essentially there's no recipe. Just a good olive oil, butter, leftover pasta and leftover sauce is really all there is to it. Throw in some leftover cooked or smoked sausage, meatballs, pepperoni, shredded beef, whatever you've got.

Pasta Salad Collection

 

  A collection of my favorite pasta salads, all from Deep South Dish blog, all in one place!

I love pasta salads, anytime of the year really, but most especially in the hot summer months. You'll almost always find one in my fridge, and my Tuna Macaroni Salad is a summertime favorite.

Some form of pasta, often with a protein, dressed with a vinaigrette or creamy dressing, and you've got a great meal, that's not too heavy for those super hot days when your energy is already sapped.

A dense, lightly sweetened cake, perfect for sugar-sweetened, syrupy strawberries and whipped cream.

Classic Strawberry Shortcake Cake

Strawberry shortcake. It's a very simple dish really, but so good! Freshly sliced strawberries left to soak in a little sugar until a syrupy glaze forms, then spooned over a sweetened, biscuit-like dense cake, with those gorgeous sweet juices drizzled on top and finished with a dollop of whipped cream. Now, that's an easy and delicious dessert.

Truly, you can use any good biscuit recipe and sweeten it with a bit of sugar for a decent strawberry shortcake. I certainly have. Cream biscuits are especially good, however, a more classic shortcake, which back in the day, often appeared in the form of a single layer cake, is something that will hold up to those juices!

A few basic ingredients: cherry pie filling, crushed pineapple, sweetened condensed milk and Cool Whip make up the base for this old school frozen delight! From there, make it your own with easy add-ins.

Frozen Cherry Fruit Salad

I live on the Gulf Coast, and down here, the humidity is as important as the temperature. Maybe even more so! We've been under 100+ degree heat advisories here for awhile now because of that heat index. In June. Already. I pray we don't see a hurricane this year, well, ever again in my lifetime really, that knocks out power for long. Gotta have that air conditioning down here!

When the weather heats up like this, cooling foods are a steady in my house. Watermelon, cucumbers, grapes, cantaloupe, strawberries are consumed regularly around here! Of course, although they may mostly be relegated to those family gatherings more so these days, we have our icebox and freezer desserts too. This cherry salad is one of those that has been around for years.

Ham Bone Red Beans and Rice in the Instant Pot/Electronic Pressure Cooker

Ham bone red beans and rice, both made in an instant pot/electronic pressure cooker.

Instant Pot Ham Bone Red Beans and Rice

The Monday tradition of red beans lives on here in the Deep South, even if they’re made on Sunday, which, when they're made from dried beans, more often they are!

Because time is precious these days, I have four different ways I make them up here on the blog currently, depending on the time factor I have on my hands.

From a quick skillet version like you get with those convenience boxes (but without the added chemicals and preservatives), to a shortcut version that you'll never believe started with canned beans, plus one for the slow cooker and of course, old school, slow-stewed from dried beans (still my number one favorite)... I've got you covered. 

Hand-formed, extra large, lard-based cathead biscuits, baked in a hot cast iron skillet.

Cathead Biscuits

It's hard to believe from modern-day biscuits, that southern biscuits were once teeny, tiny little things. Not so much anymore, because like many foods, we've super-sized them!

Who can blame us, though. From skillet biscuits, to cream biscuits, to sweet potato, classic buttermilk and everything in between, we do love our biscuits in the south and we pretty much love them large.

Enter, Cathead Biscuits.

Large shrimp, baked in a buttery seasoned beer, oil and vinegar sauce, great for a party, or the beach!

Party Shrimp

Shrimp is abundant here along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and this is a party recipe that we've been making in one form or another for as long as I've been around. Often made simply with bottled Italian dressing, and maybe the addition of a few other ingredients, it's also been floating around social media for several years now, sometimes called Italian Shrimp. I made my sauce base from scratch instead.

Southern Living dubbed it Beach Shrimp

I don't know where this idea originated, but back in 2007, Southern Living magazine dubbed it with the title of Beach Shrimp, since it's a great dish to make for that beach vacation! It's delicious slightly warm from the oven, or chilled and brought to room temperature. Prepare it in a disposable aluminum pan for easy clean up.