A breakfast casserole made with eggs, biscuits and sausage gravy.

Egg, Biscuit and Sausage Gravy Breakfast Casserole

This is another one of those recipes that's been making the rounds on Facebook for awhile, made with canned biscuits, a packet of sausage gravy and eggs. Nothing wrong with that!

I wanted to make it from scratch though, so I made up a quick biscuit dough and easy homemade sausage gravy instead. You may certainly exchange that out for the convenience products to save time, but do keep in mind the sodium levels on any pre-packaged product so that you don't oversalt or overseason. You'll need an 8-count can of refrigerated biscuits and a packet of sausage gravy mix that makes 2 cups (such as Pioneer brand).

A classic soup combining dried split peas and ham, with a mirepox of onion, carrots and celery, enhanced with a ham bone or ham hocks.

Split Pea and Ham Soup

As much as I look forward to all those delectable holiday dishes that we wait all year to eat, I tire of it all pretty quick. By a day or two later, I usually start craving simple things like egg salad or grilled cheese and tomato soup, and anything that hasn't been consumed is destined for the freezer, where it will be re-purposed in another way, another day.

Merry Christmas from Deep South Dish

Thank you for making Deep South Dish one of your sources for Southern recipes and for being a part of the family here. Your kind comments, endless encouragement and continuing support is what keeps me doing this.

Merry Christmas from The Cajun and me as we look forward to a healthy and prosperous New Year for all of us in 2014. God bless.

.

A traditional Mississippi Gulf Coast Christmas treat, this is my small batch version of pusharatas - a heavily spiced, drop fritter, made with apple, orange and lemon, raisins and pecans, and deep fried and finished with a dip in a thick powdered sugar glaze.

Small Batch Pusharatas

I love pusharatas. Love. Love. Love. But, because of their history here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, the best recipes are mostly huge batches, making hundreds! That is excellent when you are giving them away as gifts, of course, but sometimes you just want enough for your own cookie trays, so this year I wrote a smaller batch recipe.

 

  An old-fashioned heirloom fruit salad recipe, made with whole seedless grapes dressed with a sour cream and cream cheese dressing, whipped cream folded in and finished with a brown sugar and pecan topping.

Grape Salad

This is a retro fruit salad recipe from waaay back. You'll see versions of it all over the internet with very little variation in the base recipe of seedless grapes tossed in a creamy, sweet dressing, usually made with cream cheese, sour cream and sugar and finished with a brown sugar nut topping.

A wonderful heirloom recipe dating back 100 years, this simple pecan cookie bar is topped with a brown sugar meringue layer, giving them a slightly crisp, cracked topping.

Original Old Fashioned Mud Hen Bars

You may never have heard of Mud Hen Bars before, or you may have seen them for first time in the last couple of years across the explosion of food blogs, but it's actually one of those recipes that's been around even longer than I have.

Santa Claus Whiskers Cookies - a slice and bake butter cookie, filled with chopped candied cherries and pecans, and rolled in coconut before baking.

Santa Claus Whiskers Cookies

I have the tried and true favorites that I like to make every Christmas, but sometimes I like to add something new to the cookie tray and this was one that I kept running into when browsing my cookbook collection. It's a slice and bake log cookie, so it needs an overnight rest once you roll it up, but it comes together easy enough.

Top Favorite Sweets for Christmas

Top Favorite Sweets for Christmas from Deep South Dish

When the holidays roll around, things can get pretty hurried up and hectic, that's for sure. It's awfully convenient to run by the deli and pick up already made cookies and sweets, or order gourmet treats from across the internet, and I certainly do that too, but there's really nothing that can beat the taste of homemade from scratch treats that come right out of your own kitchen.

Old Fashioned Holiday Fruit Salad with Custard Sauce

Old Fashioned Holiday Fruit Salad with Custard Sauce - a mixed fruit salad, made with canned fruit cocktail, mandarin oranges, grapes, maraschino cherries and fresh apples and finished with an egg custard and fruit juice based dressing - a long-time favorite on many Southern holiday tables.

Holiday Fruit Salad

Fruit salads are popular for holiday meals and there must be thousands of variations, from congealed, to mixed fruit, to frozen. This classic version made from an assortment of fresh and canned fruits and dressed with an egg custard that substitutes juices for the traditional cream sauce, dates back many years and has been a holiday favorite in my family for years.

A whole chicken, cut up, seared and roasted in a cast iron skillet with tarragon, thyme and fresh rosemary and lemon slices.

Cast Iron Skillet Roasted Cut Up Chicken

Chicken is so economical, and we eat a lot of it in this house.

I often buy the big family packs of chicken pieces and split them up, or whole chickens when they go on sale for 99 cents a pound and under, cut them up and freeze them. Leg quarters, drumsticks, wings, whatever is on sale, I know I'll find a use for it. Sometimes we'll make a meal out of wings!

A slight crunch on the outside and chewy on the inside, these light and airy cookies are made with coconut, sugar, flour and beaten egg whites.

Coconut Macaroons

Coconut Macaroons are another fabulous and super easy cookie to add to your Christmas sweets tray, but don't confuse them with French macarons, which, although meringue based, are sandwiched with some kind of a filling and a whole 'nother kinda cookie.

Homemade stock made from a ham bone or ham hocks.

How to Make Homemade Ham Stock

For most Southern households, major holidays mean ham and most often ham means a leftover ham bone. If you don't have an immediate use for that ham bone, save it and freeze it, or use it to make a stock that you can freeze for later.

Southern Candied Yams (Sweet Potatoes)

Sweet potatoes baked in a spiced, sugar syrup.

Candied Yams

We eat a lot of sweet potatoes here in the Deep South, and especially in Mississippi and Louisiana, because they are state crops for us, fresh and in abundance, especially in the fall and winter months.

Creamed Brussels Sprouts

Brussels sprouts, steamed first, then sauteed in butter and cream, and finished with a bit of salt, pepper and Parmesan.

How to Cook Brussels Sprouts

I have been trying to learn to love brussels sprouts all my life, and more so since I started blogging about food. I've tried them a multitude of ways, and quite a few different versions here lately - a simple saute, oven braised, roasted and now creamed.

Kentucky Legend Off the Bone Ham Review

Kentucky Legend, Original Off the Bone Double Smoked Ham.

I recently had the opportunity to try out a Kentucky Legend Off the Bone smoked ham, and gracious y'all, it sure is a fantastic ham - wow!

Slow Cooker Pepper Jelly Glazed Boneless Ham

Boneless ham, cooked in a slow cooker with apple cider and glazed with a brown sugar, mustard and pepper jelly glaze.

Slow Cooker Pepper Jelly Glazed Ham

I love baking my ham for the holidays, although a slow cooker is a great way to cook ham too, and like crockpot dressing, it's also a great way to free up space in the oven.

When you think about it, a slow cooker is really the perfect environment for ham anyway. Thanks to the natural self-basting that occurs, the ham stays moist and tender, and although a glaze may not finish quite the same as oven baking, that is easily remedied with a quick run through in the oven at the very end to get that nice, shiny set on the glaze, which is exactly how I finished the ham pictured.

Baby carrots made with a traditional butter and brown sugar glaze.

Brown Sugar Butter Glazed Carrots

Honestly, what would a holiday be without some kind of glazed carrot on the table? One of my favorites is Julia Child's savory glazed version, slow stewed in beef stock and butter, but the orange juice and cane or maple syrup glazed is another great version too. This is probably the more classic holiday glazed, candied carrot, made with a traditional brown sugar and butter glaze.

Easy spiced peaches, made from canned peach halves and a spiced vinegar and brown sugar syrup - a perfect holiday side.

Spiced Peaches

Lots of folks still put up peach preserves and butters and jarred slices and peach halves in the summer, and many of them are sure to include a few jars of them spiced.

They really are delicious.

Did you know that you can get that same tasty flavor for a practical holiday side dish, with no canning and just a few basic, pantry items? These really are so simple to put together and just the perfect accent to the holiday meal.

Skillet seared pork chops finished in a pan gravy.

Skillet Pork Chops with Pan Gravy

My husband loves pork chops any way that I fix them, and this is a just a simple skillet recipe that's great for this time of the year when things start to get a bit more hectic. Seasoned, seared and then low simmered in a basic pan gravy, they're fast and tasty. I served these with brussels sprouts for me (I am still trying to learn to love them), alongside some sliced tomatoes and a salad for The Cajun, with leftover rice from another recipe. Special thanks to Jim for reminding me about this simple method.

Brown Sugar Chicken with Bacon - my take on the popular three ingredient chicken, made with boneless, skinless chicken breasts, dredged in a seasoned brown sugar and wrapped in bacon.

Brown Sugar Chicken with Bacon

I know that by now you've probably seen the three ingredient chicken recipe floating around Pinterest and Facebook. It uses chicken, a packet of dry Italian dressing and seasoning mix with brown sugar. It's quite a tasty recipe as it stands, very easy and everybody seems to really enjoy it.

The Pioneer Woman Cooks: A Year of Holidays Cookbook Review

Update! Congratulations to Mary Louise who said...

Love this site! Thanks for giving your readers an opportunity to win Ree's cookbook.

Mary Louise please contact me by email at mary@deepsouthdish.com as soon as possible and provide your full name and mailing address so I can get Ree's new book out to you. I know that you will love it!

By now, surely everybody has heard of Ree Drummond, self-proclaimed accidental country girl, award-winning blogger at www.thepioneerwoman.com, Food Network personality, and bestselling author of cookbooks, children's books and even her memoir, a romance novel of her courtship with Marlboro Man. I have all of Ree's cookbooks, but hands down, The Pioneer Woman Cooks: A Year of Holidays, available today on Amazon and store shelves everywhere, is my favorite one yet.

"There's food, glorious food in this cookbook,
and you won't run out of yummy things to make."

A tender biscuit stuffed with smoked honey ham and shredded cheese.

Ham and Cheese Biscuits

These are great breakfast or brunch biscuits served alongside some fluffy eggs or even as a base for an egg sandwich. I like to use a sweeter honey ham for these, but any good smoked ham works fine too. With the self rising flour, ham and cheese, I don't usually add any additional salt, so do keep that in mind if you're tempted to add some.

Make mini biscuits for that next party and serve with some good pepper jelly - yum y'all!

All You Frightfully Fun Halloween Handbook Review

UPDATE! Congratulations to Tammy Ward who said...

"I love dressing up and taking my grandsons trick or treating."

Tammy, shoot me an email as soon as possible with your mailing address at mary@deepsouthdish.com and I'll get this handbook out to you right away. Congratulations!!

Wow y'all, can you believe October is winding down already? Course, it takes awhile for those temperatures to start dropping down here in my part of the Deep South, but we're even seeing some chill down here this week finally, and the end of October means Halloween fun!

Fried brown sugar and cinnamon dough, filled with chopped apples and finished with a maple glaze.

Maple Glazed Drop Apple Fritters

Apple fritters are delicious little bites of puffy fried, brown sugar and cinnamon dough, filled with chunks of apple. What could possibly be wrong with that?

I like to finish them with a powdered sugar glaze infused with just a touch of maple extract just because I do love how it tastes with apple. That's, of course, completely optional, as they are plenty good with a basic glaze or even just a simple dusting of plain powdered sugar, if you prefer.

Southern Living No Taste Like Home Cookbook

As a food blogger, I have had the privilege of reviewing quite a few Southern Living cookbooks {affil link} and while they have all been fantastic books, I think this is my most favorite one to date.

Organized geographically, Southern Living No Taste Like Home: A Celebration of Regional Southern Cooking and Hometown Flavor {affil link} by renowned food writer Kelly Alexander, is like a culinary travelogue across more than twenty of the South's tastiest hometowns. "All hometown food is special, of course," she writes, "but I daresay Southern hometown food is extraordinary." Based on my website visitors, I'd have to agree.

Classic macaroni and tomatoes pairs up with spicy andouille for a little Cajun kick.

Macaroni and Tomatoes with Andouille

Macaroni and tomatoes is a depression era dish that so many folks still have fond memories of.

In its purest form, it's simply lightly stewed fresh garden tomatoes or home canned tomatoes, and pasta, usually elbow macaroni, stirred in, maybe a little butter, and salt and pepper.

That's about it.

Cajun Cabbage Stew - a stew of ground pork or beef, andouille sausage, cabbage, the trinity of onions, bell pepper and celery, potatoes and carrots, in a chicken or beef broth base with Rotel tomatoes.

Cajun Cabbage Stew

There isn't anything Earth shattering about this stew. It's just a good ole belly filling stew for cabbage lovers like me, and in fact, if you add in a little bit more broth in the second stage of cooking, you'll have a perfectly acceptable cabbage soup. I've used a variety of meats - andouille, ground beef, ground pork, Italian sausage, chorizo and even leftover brisket, but I like the ground beef and andouille combo the best.

 

I took two great Southern classics, Frozen Strawberry Dessert and Strawberry Pretzel Salad, and combined elements of both to make this Frozen Strawberry Pretzel Salad, made with cream cheese, frozen strawberries, banana, pineapple and whipped topping on a salty, pretzel crust.

Frozen Strawberry Pretzel Salad

I know its officially fall on the calendar finally, and some of y'all in those areas of The South farther north from here are seeing cooler temperatures and thinking about soups and stews and pumpkin and apple and oatmeal recipes. Down in The Deep South, and most especially the coastal Deep South, summer is still roaring along. I'll sure be glad when I can give my A/C a little break, but for now it's blasting away, trying to keep things cool around here.

A well loved salad in the South, made from fresh broccoli and cauliflower, sweet green bell pepper, red onion, celery, and a sweet and sour dressing, with just a touch of Deep South flair.

Broccoli and Cauliflower Salad

I love this salad. I don't even mind the rawness of the broccoli that usually bothers me with broccoli salad, I guess because its offset by the addition of cauliflower. My anti-veggie hubby won't eat this his salad of course, but it keeps great for days in the fridge, so I make it up and eat on it all week where it just keeps getting better.

A fresh peach jam made with peaches, sweet red bell peppers and jalapeno.

Peach and Pepper Jam

Like cornbread, whether a hoecake is make from flour or cornmeal, what is the so-called "right" way to make southern chicken and dumplings and how we all make other regional foods, the title of who can claim the top peach in the country is one of those things that can create an argument quickly among several Southern states. Truth is, I figure whatever peach is local to you is probably the winner.

A basic coleslaw, dressed with a sweetened vinaigrette, called Forever Slaw because of it's long refrigerated shelf life.

Forever Slaw Vinegar Coleslaw

It's been hotter'n hot here this past week or two y'all. The Cajun and I went out shopping together yesterday and I thought I was gonna fall out from running around in the heat.

Grape jelly made with the Southern Muscadine and Scuppernong grape.

Muscadine and Scuppernong Jelly

It's muscadine time! Muscadines are the native Southern grape, ripening here in the South during the late summer and early fall months. You'll find both muscadine and scuppernong grapes right now and through about October at U-pick farms, local farmer's markets and produce stands and many local grocery markets in the South.

A cold spaghetti salad, made with angel hair, vermicelli or thin spaghetti, Italian dressing, fresh tomatoes and a variety of add-ins.

Cold Vermicelli Spaghetti Salad

Many of my blogging colleagues are all abuzz about fall recipes right now - every form of apple and pumpkin and oatmeal, caramel and maple syrup, soups and stews and chili, casseroles, butternut and acorn squash recipes are all already starting to appear.

I've been blogging since 2008, and it begins every year right about mid-August, but... as I write this, it is 105 degrees on the heat index down here in mid-afternoon and, well, I just ain't ready for that yet y'all!

A hot dip made with pepper jack cheese, mayonnaise and sweet Vidalia onions, topped with more cheese, buttery Ritz cracker crumbs and garnished with bacon.

Cheesy Warm Vidalia Onion Dip

You've probably noticed that Vidalia onions are a little smaller now than they were earlier in the season, an indication that the season is winding down and will soon be over until next spring.

Million Dollar Sweet Pickle Relish

An heirloom recipe, Million Dollar Relish is a sweet pickle relish made from cucumbers, onion and sweet red and green bell peppers.

Million Dollar Relish

A couple of years back, Mary Fonville, a reader from our Facebook page, shared her personal recipe for Million Dollar Relish, an heirloom recipe for a sweet pickle relish that she's been personally making for more than 40 years.

A homemade spaghetti meat sauce made with fresh tomatoes and ground beef.

Homemade Fresh Tomato Spaghetti Meat Sauce

There is not a thing wrong with shortcut spaghetti sauce - I use a semi-homemade version of one myself most of the time. It's a quicker version that takes canned pasta sauce and jazzes it up a bit to give it homemade flavor. I've been making it that way forever, and it's a great recipe when you want a good sauce in a hurry. My husband loves it, and that's good enough for me.

A country skillet breakfast meal, often called Farmer's Breakfast, made with fried potatoes, onions and peppers, eggs, sausage, ham or bacon, and cheese. Makes a great breakfast burrito filling.

Country Skillet Breakfast

This is a great breakfast meal, but honestly, it's just as good for brunch, lunch or even breakfast for dinner, and makes a great filling for breakfast burritos, a popular addition to the once a month cooking forum I used to frequent back in the day.

Young, tender, yellow summer squash, prepared simple and basic. Sweet Vidalia onion and bell pepper is first sauteed in bacon drippings and butter, the squash is added, and slowly smothered down.

Smothered Summer Squash and Onions

Yellow squash is plentiful in our Southern summers and this is pretty much my top favorite way to enjoy it. It's the same basic way many of our other favorite squash recipes begin anyway, from creamed squash to squash dressing and casseroles, though it sure stands pretty well all on its own too.

7 layer pasta salad includes layers of shredded lettuce, rotisserie chicken, broccoli, cooked pasta, green peas, chopped tomato and shredded cheese. It's finished with a topping of a mayonnaise based ranch dressing and garnished with chopped bacon and sliced green onion.

7 Layer Pasta Salad

Layered salads are great for entertaining and holidays, from baby showers to birthdays, Christmas to barbecue season, and really versatile enough that you can pretty much theme them flavor-wise to anything from basic, to Asian, to Italian or Tex-Mex.

Classic Southern style fresh okra, sliced and tossed in a seasoned cornmeal mixture, and fried in a cast iron skillet.

Classic Iron Skillet Fried Okra

I ran across some of last year's okra I grew and put up, waiting in the freezer for me to use up, so I decided I better get on it and fry some up!

Okra is not hard at all to grow here in the heat of The Deep South, though you do need a nice sized area that gets plenty of sun to have enough to put up. I never manage to get more than a few pods from one stalk before they give up the ghost, but once the pods do begin to show up, they grow pretty quick and harvesting will keep them coming.

An easy cream cheese filled danish made from crescent rolls and your favorite jam or preserves.

Crescent Danish

Y'all know I love Pillsbury crescent rolls for all the things you can create from them and these easy danish rolls are no exception. These are a slight adaptation from the Pillsbury website and they are so quick, easy and downright delicious, you will love them.

 

    Homemade, old-fashioned vanilla custard ice cream, made with a combination of whole milk, heavy cream, half and half, eggs and vanilla.

Old Fashioned Vanilla Custard Ice Cream

I don't treat myself to homemade ice cream as much as I would like to, and when I do, often it's a basic version made in my Cuisinart ice cream freezer, the kind that has the bucket you keep in the freezer and makes a soft serve ice cream in under 30 minutes. That's not counting chilling times and freezing times of course, but it's pretty handy for when you want to make ice cream without all the ice and salt and such... so long as you have the freezer space to keep the bucket frozen.

 

Whole figs, preserved in a thick sugar syrup.

Preserved Figs

I've talked about it here before, but I grew up in a home where the back property line butted up against a heavily wooded field. We had a short, wood framed fence along the back, easy to climb, and we had such fun playing in those woods, building caves and forts out of twigs and branches and using our imagination to entertain ourselves.

Times sure were much more innocent then.

Crab melts, also known as crabbies and crab canapes, are English muffins, topped with a mixture of crab, mayo, cheese, green onion and seasonings and passed under the broiler or baked.

Crab Melts

These are a treat that's a real throwback for sure, because for me they are another recipe that dates back to the 70s. I call them crab melts, though they have picked up a number of names over time, including crabbies, crabmeat bites, crab pickups, and crab canapes, to name a few.

Fresh garden tomatoes, seasoned with salt, pepper, Cajun seasoning, fresh basil and brown sugar, in a casserole made with bacon, butter and the trinity of Deep South veggies - onion, bell pepper and celery - topped with shredded cheddar cheese and buttery cracker crumbs.

Tomato Casserole

I recently shared a recipe from one of my round-up lists of fresh tomato recipes over on our Best Southern Recipes Facebook page and Phyllis, one of our readers there, mentioned in comments that she was still waiting on tomatoes in the area where she lived.

A no-bake, icebox dessert, layered with a mix of cream cheese, sweetened condensed milk and pudding, sandwiched between sheets of graham crackers scattered with a mix of fresh berries, and topped with whipped cream.

Icebox Cake

Oh my goodness, do I love an icebox cake! They are so easy to throw together, making them great for those, who, like me, aren't especially high skilled bakers, they make as pretty a presentation as any layer cake does, and it doesn't hurt at all that they taste pretty darned good too.