A pasta salad made with farfalle bowtie pasta and cooked chicken, tossed with ranch dressing, bacon, grape tomatoes and baby spinach.

BLT Bowtie Chicken Pasta Salad

Good gracious the heat!

As I publish this here in July we've been under an extreme heat warning, not just the average heat warning, for days. I'm intensely thankful for air conditioning these days, and frankly the ability to pay for it cuz y'all... it ain't cheap for sure!

How's that heat going for the meal planning here lately?

A classic tuna salad made with grated, boiled eggs.

Grated Egg Tuna Salad

I liked the texture of the grated egg salad I shared recently so much, that I decided to make a tuna salad like it! Grating the eggs makes for a creamier result over chopping them.

I pretty much followed the lines of my classic tuna salad, though I did change up the proportions a bit - more tuna, more egg and onion powder in place of green onion.

Flour tortillas filled with pan-seared seasoned Gulf shrimp, sauteed green onion and cheese, folded and browned in butter.

Shrimp Quesadilla

Quesadillas are good anytime, even for breakfast, and they are the perfect summer meal because they are not heavy, they're quick and easy to make, filling versatile and they just taste great!

Serve them up with salsa and a side of fruit like summer peaches and you've got a great meal.

I keep flour tortillas and shredded cheese on hand all of the time so I make them often, with various meats and cheese, or even with just plain cheese, and in this case, I decided to go with some Gulf shrimp.

My homemade take on the viral TikTok fast food salad hack, made with a kale, cabbage and lettuce base, dressed with a honey mustard vinaigrette and topped with honey and hot sauce tossed crispy chicken tenders.

Cabbage and Kale Chicken Strip Salad

If you're not a big fan of kale, stay tuned y'all. I think you'll love this, I really do! Read on.

The inspiration for this salad came from a video that passed my timeline on social media one day.

The gal shooting the video was sitting in her car in the parking lot of Chick-fil-A with a drive through order. The hack was with their Kale Crunch Salad and an add on 3-piece chicken strip meal which she tossed in the box with a packet of buffalo sauce and honey. She tore the strips with her fingers and topped her salad with them.

I thought it sounded good and since I don't have a Chick-Fil-A nearby, I got one of those well "I can make that at home" vibes y'all.

Raw shrimp, preferably Wild-caught American, peeled and deveined, passed through a milk and egg mixture, then into a seasoned cracker meal dredge and deep fried to golden brown delicious!

Cracker Meal Deep Fried Shrimp

Growing up, my Mama did not use flour on her fried seafood. She used boxed cracker meal.

If I had to guess, I'd say that once I started cooking for myself, I ventured away from using it because it can be a bit pricey and these days, even hard to find, but flour? Well, I always have that on hand.

I do prefer to use self-rising flour because it contains baking powder, which contains cornstarch, and seems to me to give a more crisp and crunchy texture than plain all-purpose flour does.

I know some folks have disagreed with me, and that's okay, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it y'all!

Crispy thin cucumber and onion slices in a more sweet than tangy vinegar and sugar dressing.

New York Deli Style Cucumber Salad

I'm gonna be honest here. I've never been a big traveler, so there's a lot I've never experienced.

I don't like flying commercial. I hate being in a car for very long.

Day trips locally? I'm all for that if I can go and get back home that same day.

Long story short. I've never stepped foot in New York, much less New York City. The only time I've traveled even close to there was to air my cookbook (#ad) on QVC!

A creamy egg salad made with grated boiled eggs, finely minced onion, mixed herbs and finely shredded Italian-style cheese, dressed with mayo and mustard and served on buttered and pan grilled bread.

Grilled Cheese Grated Egg Salad Sandwich

I have a classic egg salad that I make most of the time and I'm perfectly happy with that!

Still, I do enjoy trying new things. I mean after all, I do run a recipe website, right?

And... unlike a lot of you who manage to do everything from one of those smartphones, I do my work from a desktop computer. It opens to a Microsoft tab when I start up, where I ran across a version of this on one of the featured articles, and thought it was different and interesting enough to try!

A chicken salad made with cooked chicken, celery, green onion, cold processed refrigerated dill pickles (like Grillo's) and dressed with a quality mayonnaise.

Grillo's Dill Pickle Chicken Salad

I love a good chicken salad, and my standby is still the one I lean on the most. It's a good solid deli-style chicken salad and I love it.

Since entering this food blogging experience many, many years back though, I've tried a bunch of different ones, so when I saw Elizabeth Heiskell making this one on social, I got a little curious.

Now. Pickles are a thing I do love in my chicken salad, but I use relish or pickle cubes usually and most often I lean toward a sweet relish.

A salsa made with the best flavors of summer - bell pepper, tomatoes, cucumber, chilies, zucchini and corn - nicely seasoned and tossed with a quality creamy Italian dressing.

Summer Vegetable Salsa

Okay. Question.

Is this a salsa? You know, like meant to be eaten with chips? Or as a condiment for grilled or pan seared proteins?

Or, is it a dip, solely meant to be scooped up on a chip?

Or, is it a salad? Meant to be eaten on its own?

A perfect pasta salad for any gathering, or just because! Rotini pasta, paired with vegetables, meats and cheeses, mixed with a salad seasoning blend and dressed with a quality homemade or commercial creamy Italian dressing. Pictured here with a tuna salad wrap and pickled baby beets.

Party Pasta Salad

It's pretty easy to make a pasta salad, and you don't really need a "recipe" so to speak. You just toss some cooked pasta with favorite vegetables, sometimes some kind of protein and dress it with a favorite salad dressing and voila, you've got a pasta salad!

Of course, you may not be able to recreate that combination unless you wrote it down and that's where a recipe comes in handy.

This pasta salad is one of those that went viral on social media, though, as usual there are lots of comments from folks talking about how they "have been making this all of their lives!"