Super Easy Shortcut Shrimp Etouffée

An easy shortcut cheater etouffee that uses cream soup as a roux shortcut and works well for both shrimp and crawfish.

Cheater Shrimp Etouffée

Before you scoff at the ingredients in this shortcut method, I say give it a try.

I feel certain you will be surprised.

It's a technique I learned many years ago from Sissy, a friend of mine from Starkville, Mississippi. I was at her house one day when I watched her whip this up while we stood in the kitchen chatting, and well, I was both fascinated and skeptical when I saw the secret ingredient.

Pan seared chicken breast in a buttery cream sauce tossed in fettuccine noodles with Parmesan cheese and toasted pecans.

Chicken Pecan Fettuccine

During the Christmas holidays last year, a popular food blogger posted a cranberry sauce recipe that very often, at least down south, has pecans in it, though this midwestern blogger could not understand why anybody would want to do that! Why everybody down south knows why... it's because pecans are good of course! And generally speaking, plentiful around here, though it seems less so these days.

Any Day Everyday Baked Macaroni and Cheese

A creamy baked macaroni and cheese that uses a combination of cheddar and Velveeta and a buttery roux.

Any Day Baked Macaroni and Cheese

Okay, you probably wouldn't want to eat this every day, but what I mean by that is that this is my 'regular' mac and cheese recipe that can be used any day, as opposed to my special occasion mac and cheese, which is excellent, but very rich, decadent, loaded with eggs, butter with cheese. I finally got around to making this one, and it, on the other hand, is a little, well, more reasonable, and what you could serve any day of the week.

Homemade Southern Banana Pudding

Banana pudding, layered with vanilla wafer cookies, bananas, and a made from scratch egg custard, topped with a homemade meringue.

Homemade Banana Pudding

Woohoo, it's homemade banana pudding y'all! And let me tell you - while we southerners love our banana pudding, we really love it, homemade, from scratch, with real custard, layered and meringue topped. Now that's southern banana pudding - the way banana pudding was meant to be eaten y'all.

My Perfect Mojito

 

Making a fresh mojito is so easy! Here's how.

Mary's Perfect Mojito

I have loved mojitos since the first time I ever tasted one, and while Cuba may have been the birthplace of the mojito, they always make me think of Miami and the Florida Keys.

What a beautiful drive that is between the two, and that 7-mile bridge to Key West, a place so laid back that even the dogs saunter around so slowly they appear to be sleepwalking and the few traffic lights seem almost lazy. Where people get around on bicycles and scooters and nobody is in any kind of a hurry.

Sour Cream Lemon Poppy Seed Cake with Fig and Walnut Topping

A tender cake of lemon, sour cream and poppy seed is topped off with a glaze made from fresh figs and walnuts.

Lemon Poppy Seed Cake with Fig and Walnut Topping

Growing up we always lived in a subdivision neighborhood. Things were pretty tight-knit in the old neighborhood, and everybody knew each other back in those days. We were constantly outside, playing and running around - nothing like today where many of us don't really know most of our neighbors and you barely even see children out and about.

Creole tomato sauce made from garden fresh tomatoes, onion, green and red bell pepper, celery and seasonings.

Creole Tomato Sauce

For me, it was a busy weekend around here, and appropriately, much of it centered around food. I don't know why I didn't make some aspect of the food industry my career. Sure would have been fitting since I apparently love it so much! It would have been super cool to have done something like this and make a career with it for sure.

Yellow cake mix gets a boost of banana, brown sugar and cinnamon, and is topped with a quick caramel icing and chopped pecans.

Easy Banana Cake with Quick Caramel Icing

This cake came about when I saw a from scratch, two layer banana cake that was just gorgeous and looked so darned good with a yummy butter and cream cheese icing and dotted with chunks of walnuts. I even bought the bananas with the intent of making it, but for some reason every time I thought about making it, I would look at the recipe and put it off. It seemed a bit daunting to me and I'm not a great layer cake baker.

Caramel icing, made easy, with brown sugar, a perfect finish for not only caramel cake, but peanut butter cake, banana cake, and homemade yellow cake.

Quick Caramel Icing

Another easy icing, similar in technique to my peanut butter icing, this caramel icing is fantastic paired with Easy Banana Cake, or would be great to top my Basic 1-2-3-4 Yellow Cake.

Mexican Shredded Beef

 

Tacos made with a shredded, well-seasoned Mexican style beef roast.

Mexican Shredded Beef for Tacos

Until I started reading up on them, I never knew that authentic Mexican tacos were made using shredded beef, rather than the Americanized version of Tex-Mex style ground beef tacos we are all accustomed to in the United States, and yes, even in our Mexican restaurants.

The other day I was at the grocery store and it happened to be one of the days that they reduce meat, because I noticed lots of yellow stickers from across the aisle in the meat case. So, I wandered over to see what they had and found a great chuck roast for just a couple bucks.