Showing posts with label Summer Harvest. Show all posts

Thursday, July 6, 2023

Marinated Cucumber and Tomato Salad

Cucumbers and sweet onions, marinated in a slightly sweetened white wine and rice vinegar dressing with mustard seeds and tossed with fresh tomatoes.

Marinated Cucumber and Tomato Salad

Seeing as it's summer
That it's hotter than hot right now, and
I'm certainly getting my fill of all the cooling foods I can right now

Here's yet another cucumber and tomato salad to add to the collection!

This version was inspired by one that I ran across in Paula Deen's At the Southern Table cookbook. It was a little bit different from the typical cucumber and tomato salad and interesting enough that it had me curious, so I thought I'd give it a try... with my own adaptations, of course!

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Sunday, September 25, 2022

Air Fryer Roasted Tomatoes

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.

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Saturday, August 27, 2022

Skillet Squash and Zucchini with Corn - Calabacitas con Elote

A skillet meal of yellow squash and zucchini, corn, onion and tomatoes with garlic, that can be used as a side dish or served stuffed into warmed corn tortillas for a vegetable taco.

Skillet Squash and Zucchini with Corn - Calabacitas con Elote

I think it may have been when I shared the recipe for my Southern-Style Skillet Ratatouille on the Facebook page recently when a reader, Austin, mentioned calabacitas, a Southwest/Mexican-style dish that also uses some of the summer bounty of fresh vegetables that many of us love.

Summer is coming to an end soon so let's get them in while we can y'all!

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Friday, July 16, 2021

Veracruz Hot Corn Dip

A hot corn dish, Veracruz Corn may be served as either a side dish, great alongside your barbecue, or as a hot corn appetizer with crisp tortilla chips. Filled with goodness of fresh, off the cob corn, marinated in a fiery blend of Southwestern seasonings, tossed with veggies and then dressed with a chipotle aïoli and cheese, and passed under the broiler.

Veracruz Hot Corn Dip

I based this corn dish off of one that I saw in Eva Longoria's cookbook, Eva's Kitchen: Cooking with Love for Family and Friends. It sounded a little like maque choux, but with some spicy flair, which it most certainly has!

Veracruz corn was a popular dish on the menu at the now shuttered Beso Steakhouse in Hollywood, owned by Longoria, and though I believe it was considered a side dish on the menu, I really enjoyed it best as an appetizer, served hot with some crisp tortilla chips.

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Thursday, August 20, 2020

Skillet Squash

Sliced squash and chopped onions, caramelized in a skillet with bacon drippings and finished simply with salt, pepper and a pat of butter.

Skillet Squash

You don't really have to wait for summer to prepare summer squash because it's pretty much available year round these days. Still, it's one of my favorite, abundant and inexpensive, summer veggies, whether it's in a casserole, a dressing, in a gratin, or creamed. Heck, I even slice it up and snack on it raw!

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Sunday, July 19, 2020

Classic Fresh Purple Hull Peas

A classic recipe for southern peas, in this case, fresh purple hulls, simply seasoned with bacon, onion, garlic, salt and pepper, perfect as a side dish or as a feature on a vegetable plate. Pictured here with my whiskey glazed baked ham, Dr. Weil's steamed broccoli and the cornbread from my cookbook {affil link}, made with stone ground cornmeal from the Smoky Mountains.

Fresh Purple Hull Peas

If I had to pick one of my favorite southern peas, it'd have to be purple hulls. I just love them, and they are super easy to grow and easy to find, even if you don't grow your own.

Purple hull peas get their name from the color of the hull, and it used to be that if you ever shelled any from the pod, your purple stained fingers would be a dead giveaway. It might be that most shelling takes place in an air conditioned home these days, rather than in a rocker on the front porch in the heat and humidity, but I've shelled several pounds at a time and didn't have issue with those colorful fingers.

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Thursday, June 18, 2020

Grilled Squash with Herbs

Thickly cut slices of summer squash, tossed with extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper, and a mixture of dried herbs, then grilled.

Grilled Squash with Herbs

I hesitated to share this "recipe" at first but then I thought hey, the first time I ever wanted to grill squash, I had to look up "how to grill squash" because I wanted to do it right, so hopefully it will be helpful. There is always somebody, somewhere just learning to cook.

Besides y'all. Doesn't that just look scrumptious? It's really quite simple, but along the way I've discovered a couple of helpful tips.

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Tuesday, May 5, 2020

Blackberry Crumb Cobbler

Sweetened blackberries, layered in with crumb topping and baked.

Blackberry Crumb Cobbler

A few years back, I was feeling a little nostalgic for those days when blackberry picking was a common thing that children did, so I planted two thornless blackberry bushes I purchased from Cottage Farms on QVC.

I think I've had them for three summers and those things have been producing like crazy! If you decide to plant some here's two things I have learned.

The first year they grew like mad.

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Thursday, December 12, 2019

Unbundled Green Beans with Brown Sugar Sauce

Fresh green beans, blanched, tossed with bacon and onion, then baked in a brown sugar glaze.

Fresh green beans, blanched, tossed with bacon and onion, then baked in a brown sugar sauce.

Unbundled Green Beans

No doubt at some point you have seen or made bacon wrapped green bean or asparagus bundles. Marinated with either a brown sugar sauce or a seasoned olive oil vinaigrette, then wrapped in bacon and broiled, baked or grilled, they are indeed delicious, but pretty time intensive to make. This recipe gives you the flavor, in a casserole form, without so much work.

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Sunday, December 9, 2018

Green Bean Étouffée - Smothered Green Beans

Green beans with onions and tasso or andouille, smothered in a light roux gravy.

Green Bean Étouffée

Give us the opportunity to smother something in gravy in the south, and we'll sure do it - seafood certainly, but yes, even green beans and peas y'all! Hey, what can I say? Gravy is good stuff.

If you've ever had the opportunity to eat the green bean side dish from Popeye's Louisiana Kitchen - my favorite place for fried chicken when I have a craving for it and don't want to deal with the mess - then you're already familiar with smothered green beans. A simple side dish made from a light roux, sauteed onion, chopped tasso and green beans simmered in the gravy. It's absolutely delicious!

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Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Summer Vegetable Gumbo - Garden in a Pot

A mix of summer's best veggies like sweet onion, fresh corn, zucchini, yellow squash, tomatoes, green beans, sweet bell pepper and okra, a perfect dish for the veggie lovers!

Summer Vegetable Gumbo - Garden in a Pot. A mix of summer's best veggies like sweet onion, fresh corn, zucchini, yellow squash, tomatoes, green beans, sweet bell pepper and okra, a perfect dish for the veggie lovers!

Summer Vegetable Gumbo - Garden in a Pot

Let's have a last hurrah for summer y'all! We are finally at the end of it this Friday, well, at least according to the calendar. There won't be any fall-like temperatures showing up here in the Deep South for awhile yet even then. In fact, the past two days there has been a heat index advisory of 110 degrees. Hey, the good news is this dish can be served hot, warm or at room temperature!

I love vegetables, and this stew is loaded with the summer vegetables I love.

Other than just a general vegetable stew, I actually wasn't quite sure what I wanted to call this recipe when it was all said and done, but when I opened the stored container to heat up a serving the next day, and the aroma immediately spoke gumbo to me, so that's what I settled on.

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Thursday, August 30, 2018

Skillet Green Beans

Fresh green beans, quickly skillet blanched, then stir fried with sweet onion, garlic, a hint of brown sugar and herbs.

Skillet Green Beans

I love green beans. They're easy to grow, but even if you don't grow them, they're readily available and reasonable, and you can even buy them in the middle of winter these days. It's one of the few vegetables The Cajun will eat, so we eat them in one form or another pretty often.

As to cooking them, let's face the truth here. If you are from the south, you, probably, like me, aren't super fond of crispy green beans, unless, of course they are battered and fried. You, like me, likely rather love the slow-stewed green beans that cook down forever.

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Wednesday, July 18, 2018

Bacon, Cucumber and Tomato Salad

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

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

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Friday, May 18, 2018

Cornbread Squash Dressing

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.

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Monday, June 26, 2017

Garden Fresh Vegetable Spaghetti

A fresh tomato pasta sauce, made with garden vegetables - peppers, squash, zucchini, corn, eggplant, okra, beans - whatever you have! For a protein boost, add leftover roasted chicken, seasoned and sauteed shrimp, cooked ground beef, sausage, or other meats.

Garden Fresh Vegetable Spaghetti

I have been up to my ears in garden fresh tomatoes the past few weeks... not that it's a bad thing, don't get me wrong! It's just that as fast as I process some into sauce, I'm plucking a near equal amount off of the plants.

The last picking right before the tropical storm and steady coming!

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Friday, November 4, 2016

Country Green Beans with Ham and Potatoes

Country Green Beans with Ham and Potatoes - Green beans, slow stewed in a ham broth, with chunks of torn ham or tasso and potatoes, and served with a flavorful pot likker.

Country Green Beans with Ham and Potatoes

If I had to pick only one vegetable I could eat for the rest of my life, it'd sure be hard.

While The Cajun's veggie list is very limited, I pretty much love them all. Just take a look at the cover of my cookbook and you'll see one of my favorite meals ever!

Yep, I'm a veggie plate gal and I can make a meal out of just about any vegetable pairing. Well... actually that cover shot was my supper that day!

Deep South Dish Cookbook, available at your favorite local bookstore, or online at Amazon!

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Saturday, September 3, 2016

Southern Style Skillet Ratatouille

Southern Style Skillet Ratatouille - a simple stew of diced vegetables, made with bacon drippings, the Trinity of Southern Cooking, zucchini and summer squash, tomato, eggplant, okra and fresh herbs.

Southern Style Skillet Ratatouille

Most folks these days seem to associate ratatouille with the Disney movie of the same name, and many may only know it from that. It actually is a real Mediterranean dish, most closely associated with France and said to have originated in Nice. The word perhaps comes from "touiller" and translates to mean something akin to "toss or stir."

Traditionally ratatouille is simply zucchini and tomatoes, with peppers, garlic and onion, sometimes sliced, sometimes cut into chunks. Somewhere along the way, eggplant was included, and though it wasn't always a part of the traditional dish, it's pretty much expected these days. I decided to make it with a dice of a variety of summer vegetables that we love in the south.

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Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Refrigerator Dilly Beans

Fresh green beans, quickly blanched, then covered in a pickled brine, with fresh dill, garlic and hot peppers.

Refrigerator Dilly Beans

I have a love-love relationship with anything pickled - cucumber pickles, of course, my favorite being bread and butter - I can plow through a jar of those like nobody's looking, though frankly I really haven't met a pickle I didn't love.

I adore pickle relish.

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Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Southern-Style Baby Lima Beans or Butter Beans

Fresh or frozen baby lima beans or butter beans, slow simmered in a ham hock seasoned broth with onion, chicken base, salt and pepper, and finished with a nob of butter or bacon drippings - a definite summertime southern favorite.

Southern-Style Baby Lima Beans or Butterbeans

You can use this for both butterbeans or baby lima beans, both of which I love.

Southern Style Hissy Fit Warning... I love all kinds of butterbeans - big and small and speckled - and I don't understand for the life of me, why some southerners get all up in a tizzy about what they think a butter bean is, any more than what constitutes a "real" cornbread or whether a hoecake is flour or cornmeal based.

The internet has opened the south to all southerners and revealed that despite what we thought growing up, there is no one south. Truth is, how you cook in the south and what you call things in the south, depends on what part of the south you grew up in and how your mama did it, which is more likely than not to be different from how somebody else's mama did.

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Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Summer Veggie Skillet - Squash and Okra with Onion and Tomato

A vegetable skillet meal, made from fresh summer squash, sweet Vidalia onion, with fresh okra and tomato.

Summer Veggie Skillet - Squash and Okra with Onion and Tomato

This is one of my favorite summertime skillet vegetable dishes - just simply squash and sweet onions, sauteed in a little bit of bacon drippings and butter, and stewed down with sliced okra, fresh tomatoes and finished with some garden parsley and basil. Quick and easy to make, I can make a meal of this entire pan on these hot summer days!

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