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 pasta salads from Deep South Dish blog.

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.

A beef broth, marinated flank steak, with Creole mustard, balsamic vinegar and herbs, prepared in the classic London Broil method, with a quick sear on a hot grill and sliced at an angle, against the grain, for a full-flavored tender steak.

Marinated Flank Steak - London Broil

If you set out to research it, over and over again, you will read that London Broil is not a cut of beef, but instead is a method of grilling and carving. Yet... like this chunk of meat I cooked here, there it sat in the meat case with a label calling it simply, "London Broil" and nothing else.

Really?

A cornbread dressing made with yellow squash, sauteed with onion, celery and bell pepper.

Cornbread Squash Dressing

I hear from a reliable source that squash is starting to come in! I didn't plant any this year so if you're trying to get rid of some, stop on by with a bag and I'll gladly take some off your hands!

For some reason, I never see pattypan squash around here, not even at the farmer's market, but yellow squash happens to be my favorite in the summer squash family. I like it far better than zucchini, though I do eat both. I think yellow is a little sweeter and more mellow than zucchini but both make pretty good zoodles.