Boiled or sautéed shrimp, layered with paper thin strips of lemon, red onion, bell pepper, jalapeno, and garlic, whole bay leaves and dressed with a vinaigrette. Shown here on a slice of toasted bread.

Pickled Shrimp

The Cajun went shrimping last Friday and I spent most of the weekend heading and putting up shrimp. Of course, his favorite way to eat shrimp, hands down, is my crispy Fried Shrimp, so those were on the menu right away! I mean c'mon... the man certainly earned that in the least!

Summer squash - zucchini, crookneck or a mixture of the two will work - is briefly stewed in onion, garlic and cream, mixed with leftover cooked rice, topped with a Parmesan breadcrumb and baked to a crispy golden brown delicious.

Summer Squash and Rice Gratin

As I watched The veggie hating Cajun shovel this in with our meal, y'all know I had to grin, but he caught me peeking at him! "I know," he says, "what is it?" "It's food," I say, grinning. "Just eat it."  He did! Every, single, speck of it. That says a lot y'all, coming from a non-veggie eating man.

This was a delicious side dish that I adapted from Real Cajun, a cookbook that you may recall I recently reviewed. The photography in this cookbook is simply incredible, so much so that as the book lay by my chair on the floor, my youngest cat was convinced that the crab claw poking out of the gumbo on the cover was a real crab. I wish you could have seen him inching and backing off from the book, and finally reaching out and carefully patting at it multiple times with his paw, only then convinced it was just a photo!  If you're a cat owner, this behavior makes complete sense to you.

Reader Recipe Round-up 6-22-11

So many folks posted on the Facebook Wall last week about the dishes that they had made, I wondered if the rest of the readers would enjoy a compilation post showing who made what, and what adaptations that they made - so I posed the question to the readers, and they said yes!

Blogs, and particularly food blogs, have kinda exploded in growth since I first started doing this myself, so I realize that y'all have many choices for recipe sources - and limited time. Thank you for making Deep South Dish one of your choices to visit! It thrills me beyond words when you let me know that you've made and enjoyed one of my recipes.

I also took a quick cruise through the comments for the past week and tried to find the scattered ones where you mentioned making a site recipe, but please accept my apologies if I happened to have missed you. I hope to feature one of these every so often as I can, so I'll try to do better on the next round-up. Here are some Deep South Dish recipes that readers shared they made, and what they said about making the recipe - I hope that you enjoy the round-up & hopefully we'll see more of these in the future.

Crunchy Ramen Noodle Salad

Crunchy Ramen Noodle Salad - A refreshing salad made with cabbage or broccoli slaw and crunchy oven toasted ramen noodles, bathed in a vinegar and oil marinade long enough to soften the veggies and noodles, but still leave a nice bite. Add in leftover beef, chicken, pork or shrimp to match the flavor packets and you have a great main dish salad!

Ramen Noodle Salad

Poor ole ramen noodles - they get a bad rap, because like most pre-packaged products, they tend to have high levels of sodium and flavor enhancements like MSG, but... how many of you will confess to having at least a couple of packets of them hanging around in your pantry right now?

I'll be the first because I pretty much always have a couple of packets in my pantry. They are a quick and easy meal that still rates better nutritionally than a pass through the fast food burger or chicken joint. So yes, while of course I don't eat them everyday, I do enjoy them guilt-free on occasion.

A nice tender quick bread, seasoned with cinnamon and studded with walnuts, made using some of that garden bounty of zucchini.

Zucchini Nut Bread

I suppose just about anybody that grows zucchini has a collection of recipes for their abundant bounty, including one for a sweet quick bread. On the other hand, those of us who are lucky enough to be the recipient of bags of that bounty, sometimes just don't know what all to do with them! This recipe is for the latter of us.

A Man-Pleasing Menu for Father's Day

Time to honor Dad on his special day and what better way than with a great steak dinner. I've gathered up a suggested menu from my recipe collection that I think your special guy will really enjoy!

If you think this sounds yummy, I'd sure ♥ it if you'd click to pin it, tweet it, stumble it, or share it on Facebook to help spread the word - thanks!

{scroll down for pictures & recipe links}

Pot Roasted Chicken - Chicken in a Pot with Bacon, Onion and Potatoes

Whole chicken, slow-roasted in a covered Dutch oven, with bacon, onion & potatoes. Add a nice garden salad & a loaf of warmed French bread for sopping up those marvelous pan juices.

Chicken in a Pot

I happened to catch whole chickens on sale for 67 cents a pound recently, so of course I stocked up on a few and had in mind one of them would land as another form of roasted chicken for the Sunday Supper series for sure.  But, as I do sometimes, about mid-stream of beginning to prep the chicken for roasting, I decided to pull down Julia Child's cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking {affil link} and do something different.

 

Start with leftover cooked chicken, or a rotisserie chicken, add a blend of mayo and barbecue sauce, bacon, onion, celery and pecan, and put it all in a wrap. Add some carrot sticks and a side of fruit and you have a wonderful hot weather meal in no time.

Barbecue Chicken Salad Wrap

This recipe appeared in my email inbox one day a few weeks ago when it was hotter than, well, you know, and sounded so good for a hot day, that I shared the link to it on the Facebook page.

The original recipe called for it to be served on just a few leaves of Bibb lettuce, but I thought it would be perfect for a wrap. Shredded lettuce on the bottom, topped with the chicken salad, a little chopped tomato and wrap and roll! Ramona, one of our Facebook readers, said she was making it with the addition of celery and pecans, and I agree - they both provide nice flavor and a little extra crunch.

Southern Strawberry Cake with Coconut and Pecan

Take our well-loved, made from a mix strawberry cake, add the usual strawberries and strawberry gelatin, but bump it up a level with toasted pecans and coconut, and you've got one delicious dessert y'all!

Strawberry Coconut Pecan Cake

I think the heat wave across the country, and especially the drought we're experiencing here in the Coastal South, is making it pretty difficult for most of us to get in the mood for cooking, much less baking. I can't even seem to get focused for recipe development, and that's not like me! I mean you need only look here to see it's been a week between my posts.

A hearty casserole of ground beef, seasoned with onion and bell pepper, some beans and corn, a little mixture of chili seasonings and topped off with rustic, cornmeal dusted biscuits.

Chuckwagon Casserole

It's no secret that I love casseroles - and yes, I love them any time of the year because they generally take little prep work and then go into the oven freeing up your time to do other things. They are an easy way to get a filling and tasty meal on the table with not a lot of effort too.

I know a lot of people want to switch over to no-cook meals, main dish salads, sandwiches, and cooking outside when the summer heat kicks in, but my husband still likes a meal, no matter the season, and cooking outside is pretty rough on me with the heat. Thank goodness for the modern convenience of air conditioning is all I can say!