Layered with iceberg lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli, red onion, bacon and Parmesan cheese, and dressed with a vinegar and mayonnaise, mustard dressing. Shown here with my Southern Style Green Beans and Ground Beef Mac and Cheese casserole.

Next Day Salad

I seem to be on a roll here with salads! Well, it is that time of the year I suppose and I sure hope that you can bear one more, because it's a good one.

We have a family owned market (now catering and buffet restaurant) here on the Coast called Broome's Grocery. They've always been a favorite store for locals - I can remember when they were one of the very few stores to open shortly after Hurricane Katrina.

There wasn't any electricity, but they opened to sell bread and snacks and whatever non-perishables they had left on the shelf. We were all standing in the line, hot, sweaty, wore out and frankly, a little dirty from the cleanup process, none of us having water to bathe for days already, but so grateful to be able to pick up a few familiar things to eat after those first days.

I tell you what... you don't know how much you miss having running water and electricity until you don't have it anymore.

Chicken Pasta Salad made with a homemade Ranch style vinegar dressing, short cut pasta, cooked chicken, Vidalia onion, celery, cheese, bacon, peas and tomatoes.

Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad

Hey y'all... the unofficial start to the cookout season is here, the heat is on and that means it's pasta salad time! Don't you just love a good pasta salad in the summer?

They are so adaptable and easily varied, make-ahead friendly, hold well in the fridge for awhile, and are a great take along for family gatherings, potlucks and church suppers. You can literally make an easy meal of it on a hot summer's day if you like, especially when you throw in a little protein. I've added chicken here, but a good smoked ham or shrimp are both excellent too.

A cucumber and sweet Vidalia onion salad, dressed with a sweet and sour vinegar dressing.

Cucumber and Onion Salad

I shared the sour cream and onion cucumber salad and had so many requests for the plain vinegar variation, that I figured instead of pointing everybody to the variation at the bottom of the recipe, that I would plant it here right beside that version, to include it among all of the other summertime cucumber salads I enjoy.

A cucumber and sweet Vidalia onion salad, dressed with a vinegar and sour cream dill dressing.

Sour Cream Cucumber and Onion Salad

The cucumber consumption has begun!! I think that I have been through at least a dozen cucumbers in the past week, because when it starts getting hot here, and believe me, that comes fast in the Deep South, I eat a lot of cucumber salads.

Cucumbers are something like 95% water and they really do have a cooling effect on the body, so the phrase "cool as a cucumber" truly does have some meaning to it. They are surprisingly full of antioxidant vitamins also, help to rid the body of toxins and have many other health benefits.

Low to No Calorie Diet Iced Tea

A low to no calorie recipe for a full gallon of presweetened, robust iced tea, using sugar substitute.

Low to No Calorie Diet Iced Tea (Milo's Copycat)

It used to be you ordered tea anywhere in The South, and iced sweet tea was what you both expected and got, without you having to say so.

There is no doubt that we are still very endeared to our sweet tea in The South, but these days you have to specify - sweet, unsweet, half and half sweet and unsweet, half and half, tea and lemonade, or, hot! I don't have a huge sweet tooth, and find most everybody else's sweet tea to be far too sweet for me, so when The Cajun and I eat out anywhere, I always order the half sweet and half unsweet and that suits me just fine.

This is my Deep South take on classic German Potato Salad, made with a warm bacon dressing, including our Holy Trinity of Southern cooking, along with pickles and juice, sugar, mustard, horseradish, hot sauce and black pepper. Best served warm or at room temperature.

Deep South Style German Potato Salad

We love our Classic Southern Style Potato Salad here in The South, but German Potato Salad is a popular Southern favorite too. I make no claims to the authenticity of this version, but with the inclusion of our Deep South Holy Trinity of Southern cooking, mine is a Deep South take on this classic favorite. Not only is it the perfect potato salad for our sweet and sour Southern palates, it's a great potluck, picnic and church supper dish too.