A favorite dish of pasta with ground beef, tomatoes and chili seasonings, made easy using the Instant Pot!

Instant Pot Chili Mac

I love sauce and pasta dishes like this chili mac. It's so easy to throw together and gives you such a tasty dish that really most everyone loves and it's good any time of the year.

Besides a multitude of variations within the recipe itself that you can make by increasing and decreasing the chili seasonings and yes, even the cheese (or even leaving the cheese out), there are other ways to vary it too, just to give it a different flavor. Taco seasoned comes to mind as does a more mildly seasoned ground beef "helper" style of pasta and everything in between.

Strips of chicken breast, tossed with fajita seasonings and combined with sauteed peppers and onions, served on warmed corn or flour tortillas.

Skillet Chicken Fajitas

I love when you're sitting in a Mexican restaurant and a server passes by with a sizzling cast iron fajita plate filled with veggies and meat. It leaves behind it such a fragrant trail doesn't it?

Apparently,  it's a bit addictive too, that aroma, because you will often see tray after tray after tray delivered after that first one passed through!

Even my veggie adverse hubby aka The Cajun, fell into that fragrant allure once, and ordered some, despite my warning that they were more vegetable than they were protein.

A spicy, slow-simmered red sauce made with tomatoes, garlic, olive oil and red pepper flakes and tossed with penne pasta. Here I've added a few additional seasonings, some chopped sweet onion and finished it with fresh Parmesan cheese and parsley.

Spicy Arrabiata Sauce with Pasta

The word arrabiata (ah-rah-BYAH-tah) literally translates into the word "angry" and it's the heat from the addition of red pepper flakes here that earned the sauce the name, setting it apart from other more traditional Italian sauces.

If you enjoy a little heat in your sauce, start with the lesser amount of red pepper flakes. If you are already a lover of super spicy, increase that according to your personal taste.

While you can use fresh tomatoes, this sauce is often made using shelf-stable canned tomatoes, whether home canned or commercially bought, so it's an easy pasta sauce that can be prepared from the pantry anytime.

The classic dip combination of spinach and artichokes in an Alfredo base, with Italian and cream cheese and crabmeat.

Alfredo Spinach and Artichoke Dip with Crab

We're kind of in that awkward stage of food seasons down here along the Gulf Coast. Summer is gone from the calendar and mostly along with all the great summer vegetables, and though fall has arrived, the weather here can get a little wacky. Some days cooler, then others downright summerlike.

One thing is for certain this time of year though.

Tis the season for football and football means appetizers and snacks! Sandwiches, wings, meatballs, gumbo, chilis, soups, snacks, a wide variety of finger foods and dips, of course! You can grab up some ideas by tapping on those categories, or right here at this link.

A homemade from scratch snack cake made with peanut butter and finished with a caramel cream cheese frosting.

Homemade Peanut Butter Snack Cake with Caramel Cream Cheese Frosting

If you've been around my blog any length of time, you already know I'm far more of a savory cook than I am a baker. Primarily that's simply because I'm not a huge sweets person.

It's not that I don't enjoy sweets because I absolutely do, and those beautiful desserts that pass by us all on social media certainly get my mouth watering, but I'm more likely to crave a bag of potato chips over something sweet.

I'm just more of a salty gal!

Tortilla scoops, filled with a blend of bacon with Rotel diced tomatoes, mayonnaise and cheese and topped with taco sauce and more cheese, then baked, for a great party appetizer!

Cheesy Bacon Rotel Cup Appetizers

Football season is king around this house with my husband, aka The Cajun. He loves the game, so I'm always looking for a good appetizer to snack on when it comes to game time, and this is a great one.

Typically made using phyllo cups, those can be a little hard to find around here for some reason. One day when I was adding my standard tortilla chips to the grocery list, I was reminded about the tortilla scoops. I thought hey, I bet those would work for those little snacks I like to make.

Turns out, somebody had already thought of that, so I made the adjustment and frankly, it worked out well!

Fresh green beans, trimmed, cut and blanched, prepared with onion, garlic and toasted almonds and finished with lemon, salt and pepper.

Green Beans with Almonds

Green beans are a very common vegetable side in this house because even my veggie adverse hubby, known here as The Cajun, will eat them!

I have to give some kudos to the man though, because since I've been blogging food, he has gotten a bit more adventurous with trying different veggies and other dishes that, frankly, he once would not touch. Typically if I put it on his plate, he'll try it and many times, says how good it was!

Oysters, cooked stovetop or on the grill in a cast iron skillet and tossed in a seasoned garlic butter blend. Crackers are dipped in the butter, topped with oysters and a splash of hot pepper sauce.

Cast Iron Oyster Appetizer

Where's my oyster lovers because trust me on this one. You will want to make this!

It's a great snack for movie night, or as a party or game day appetizer and your oyster loving friends will love it too, although you'll want to increase the recipe two or three times.

The idea came from a local cookbook Cooking on the Coast by the O'Keefe family, contributed by Jody O'Keefe, who got it and named it Oysters A and M Breaux, after friends of theirs from Cajun Country.

Cast iron skillet Southern cornbread made with buttermilk and stone-ground cornmeal.

Real Southern Cornbread

What's the fastest way to stir up a hissy fit among Southerners?

Say to them "a real Southerner would never ... [fill in the blank]," that's how.

I hear it sometimes on social media about my own personal recipes because there are some folks who have set in their heads that to be "Southern," a recipe must be prepared a certain way - the way that they grew up with it being prepared, and only that way.

Corn tortillas cut into wedges and tossed with seasoned ground beef, enchilada sauce, green chilies, black beans and cheese and baked.

Sheet Pan Beef Enchilada Casserole

One day I ran across this recipe while browsing through Instagram - something that I like to do when I'm avoiding doing something else I should be doing. That can happen a lot these days and social media can be really good for that!

Anyway, this fella Kevin Ashton (@oldscoolkevmo) is a chef for a sorority house and he makes a lot of good eats that he cooks for himself at home and those gals and shares them on his social media. I'm sure they must really enjoy the things he comes up with because it's a wide variety of cuisines and it all looks good!

By the way, he's also battling stage 4 cancer (but seems to be beating it), so go and give him some love on one of his platforms y'all!