Onion, sweet bell pepper and garlic, sautéed in bacon drippings, topped with black-eyed peas, chicken stock, chopped ham and a pork hock and cooked under pressure in the Instant Pot. 

Instant Pot Black-Eyed Peas

Black-eyed peas are always on my New Year's Day menu. Always. And... maybe I'm especially superstitious, but this year I think it's even more important to uphold that tradition, don't you?

Typically, I have made mine in the style of which I do most southern peas - using dried peas and cooked right on the stovetop - but, with the popularity of the Instant Pot {affil link} and other electronic pressure cookers, the past few years I've switched over to making them this way for the New Year's Day meal.

A casserole of lump crab, a highly seasoned cream sauce and a mix of two shredded cheeses.

Crabmeat au Gratin

Crab au gratin is a delicious, decadent treat for sure, because, unless you are doing your own crabbing, boiling and picking, it can be a pricey dish for sure. If you've ever done any of the above though, you know the work that goes into picking crabs, and the effort required to get those nice, large lump pieces, so it's worth the price.

This dish can be used as an entrée, served with a nice garden salad and some hot French bread, or as an appetizer, served with some nice, sturdy crackers. As an entrée, I prefer to serve it in individual au gratin dishes {affil link}, though it can also be prepared in a casserole dish and spooned out onto plates. It's much more atheistically pleasing in the individual dishes. 

A quick, small batch soup, made using a vegetable mirepoix of onion, carrot and celery, with fresh minced garlic, okra, tomatoes, leftover cooked chicken and rice and a quality commercial stock or broth.

Southern-Style Chicken and Rice Soup

Whole chickens are on sale around here often and I sure take advantage of them, always buying a larger one for intentional leftovers. Sometimes I'll roast one, sometimes stew it, or cut it up and bake it.

Very often I'll use my Instant Pot {affil link} to cook a whole chicken using my "ready chicken" recipe, use some of it for a meal, then reserve the rest to use in a soup, chicken and dumplings, a casserole, some chicken salad, or even just to put up in the freezer for another day.

Chicken wings, baked in a barbecue sauce, infused with onion, garlic and pepper jelly, that provides that sweet heat we all love here in the Deep South!

Pepper Jelly Barbecue Wings

Here's another one for the wing collection! 

We eat a lot of chicken around here and wings are an all time favorite cut for me. In fact, as white meat goes, I prefer them over chicken breasts, and the flats section of the wing are my favorite over the drumettes. The Cajun will eat either, so you can bet that I make sure that I pick out the flats I want first!

A quick and easy dessert salad, made with fruit, pudding mix, non-dairy topping, chopped pecans, and topped with a pinch of nuts, coconut and Maraschino cherries.

Pineapple Orange Fluff

Okay, seriously. How can you not love a fluff? Easy to throw together. So creamy and delicious!

There are lots of different variations on it these days, but the standard base ingredients usually include some kind of fruit, a complimentary flavor of pudding mix and non-dairy topping (aka Cool Whip) at minimum. I typically like to add mini marshmallows and chopped pecans also.

Three of the most popular versions, and my personal favorites, are pistachio, orange and pineapple, although there are a multitude of variations left only to the imagination! Some recipes these days use pie filling, some sweetened condensed milk, cottage cheese, some use Jello instead of pudding, some use sour cream, some even use flavored coffee creamers or extracts.

A shortcut sweet potato casserole with the unusual addition of banana and finished with rows of marshmallows and brown sugar sweetened cornflake cereal crumbs.

Sweet Potato Banana Crunch

I am all for being about tradition when it comes to holiday meals. Keep the dishes that you know and love on the menu, because everyone will be expecting them, every, single year!

My Mama's holiday table was the same every year, with very little variation between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I miss those times so much, and while we now share our holidays with my son, our daughter-in-law and grandkids, I still find myself missing my Mama tremendously this time of year.

A classic Deep South dressing, made with torn French bread, vegetables and fresh Gulf oysters with their liquor.

Classic Oyster Dressing

Growing up, Mama always made two dressings. One, she made with bread, most often using the Pepperidge Farms herb stuffing mix and it went right into the bird, with leftovers to be baked in a side dish. I always ate the one from the turkey and despite modern day warnings, I somehow survived. It really was the best!

The other dressing she made was an oyster dressing for my Daddy. Daddy was the oyster lover in our family and other than me, none of the rest of the family were all that interested in it to my recollection.

A quick and easy, creamy corn chowder made with veggies, sautéed in bacon drippings, cubed potatoes and shrimp.

Corn Chowder with Shrimp

I started off intending to make this chowder with some frozen crawfish tails, that I was sure I had in the freezer. Unfortunately, after having to hurriedly rearrange things and transfer stuff from the refrigerator freezer, to the deep freeze, courtesy Hurricane Zeta, it was just faster and easier to grab some shrimp.

No worries. They are delicious too! The only difference really, is the flavor that comes from the fat in the crawfish, but honestly it's a good chowder either way. You can even use a combination of the two, or throw in some crab as well. Although not as popular down here, clams may also be substituted. Oysters as well.

Soft and chewy oatmeal cookies with coconut and pecans.

Coconut Pecan Oatmeal Cookies

I'm not much of a baker. Never have been, and that's perfectly okay because there are plenty of bakeries around town that have very talented people making gorgeous and tasty creations that I can't, and frankly worth every penny spent.

Just like any other gal though, I do enjoy desserts occasionally though, and of them all, freshly baked cookies are right at the top of the list.

Thick cut, bone-in, pork loin chops, filled with a simple cornbread and mushroom stuffing and baked. Shown here with sour cream sauce, succotash and a side salad.

Stuffed Pork Chops

I rarely buy thick-cut pork chops, but it's really an absolute when you want to stuff them. Chops already are fast cooking, but when you create a split pocket in them it's essentially like creating two thinner cut chops with goodness stuffed in the middle!

Although there are a multitude of stuffing mixtures that can be used, I chose to make a simple trinity enhanced, cornbread based stuffing using some leftover cornbread and mushrooms I had on hand. Whether you choose to brine your pork chops or not is a personal decision, though it does provide a little bit of insurance against overcooking, should you not have an internal thermometer.

Fresh coin cut carrots, steamed in the Instant Pot, then tossed with a honey based butter glaze.

Instant Pot Honey Glazed Carrots

I tell y'all what. I am sure enjoying my Instant Pots {affil link} and I've used them an awful lot. To be fair, I have also enjoyed the other brands of electronic pressure cookers that were born before the IP brand was all the rage, all of which I still have, but what I'm saying is that you just cannot beat the ease of preparation and time savings with this appliance.

A quick and easy, small batch chowder, made with the trinity, smoked sausage, beef stock, stewed tomatoes, potatoes and white beans.

Smoked Sausage and White Bean Chowder

I sure love a good soup and even better when it's one of those quick and easy versions, but one that still tastes great!

Soup is pretty easy to make, no doubt about that, and you don't really even need a recipe. In fact, some of the best soups come out of refrigerator or freezer leftovers thrown together! Trouble is though, trying to recreate the same flavor the next time. While they are all usually still good, it's hit and miss on capturing the same taste you got before. That's where soup recipes come in handy.

Center cut, boneless, pork chops, lightly seasoned, pan seared or grilled, and finished with an apple cider, brown sugar and mustard glaze.

Apple Cider Boneless Pork Chops

 Pork chops are so lean today and fast cooking, which makes them a great weekday meal that doesn't require a lot of work. Because pork is so lean though, it can be bland. This finishing glaze fixes that and makes for a tasty, fast and easy dinner. The only thing to remember is that they cook very quickly and to take care not to cook them to death!

Bone-in chicken thighs and legs, rub marinated, then grilled over indirect heat or smoke cooked, brushed with Alabama white sauce and served with additional sauce on the side.

Smoked Chicken with Alabama White Sauce

I have to admit, I don't cook outside as much these days. The heat is just too hard on me as I've gotten older, and it gets hot as a match in the summertime here! I mean, I was filling bird feeders yesterday and just in that short time I thought I was gonna die!

Though I haven't let go of my stack smoker, Weber, Lodge Sportsman, or my gas grill, of all of the cookout tools I have, I still love my Traeger pellet cooker {affil link} the most.

A classic homemade version of French onion dip, with a twist on the original!

Classic French Onion Dip

I love onions! I use them for seasonings in most cooking, though my preference is and always has been sweet over the harsher yellow onions, and certainly Vidalia onions, when they are in season. I'll even eat those raw on burger and dogs or with beans.

I have a couple of favorite onion dips using Vidalias that are marvelous! One is made with onions and pepper jack cheese, topped with buttery crackers and bacon, and served hot. The other is a cold dip, but made with caramelized onions. This classic onion dip that most everybody knows, and loves, is actually pretty simple in its origins. An envelope of dry onion soup mix combined with a large carton of sour cream, done and done. And, it's pretty darn delicious in and of itself!

A salad of fresh, garden tomatoes and sweet, summer Vidalia onions, mixed with a salt and pepper mayonnaise dressing and finished with broken saltine crackers, right before serving. It's reminiscent in flavor, of a tomato sandwich!

Old-Fashioned Tomato and Saltine Cracker Salad

Okay, okay... I know that if you've never heard of this before, you're thinking that just doesn't sound right! I get it.

Crackers? Mixed with tomatoes and mayonnaise? It does sound a little odd, and I know, you're thinking mushy, soggy, wet crackers right? Truth is, it's a salad that has been around, at least in the south, for a long time, and, it's actually very, very good.

Sliced squash and chopped onions, caramelized in a skillet with bacon drippings and finished simply with salt, pepper and a pat of butter.

Skillet Squash

You don't really have to wait for summer to prepare summer squash because it's pretty much available year round these days. Still, it's one of my favorite, abundant and inexpensive, summer veggies, whether it's in a casserole, a dressing, in a gratin, or creamed. Heck, I even slice it up and snack on it raw!

A small batch churned version of ice cream, made with a fresh blackberry puree.

Small Batch Blackberry Ice Cream

Let's just start off by saying that it took a few experiments to get to this version of blackberry ice cream. I made three batches, so it's a good thing that I have a blackberry vine that puts out quite a lot of berries every season!

Since no churn ice cream seems to be all the rage here lately, I thought I'd give it a try. I started with the standard base of whipped heavy cream with sweetened condensed milk, but thought I'd add some cream cheese and swirl in the blackberry puree instead of blending it in.

A flavorfully seasoned boil mix to use for a smaller batch of 1 to 2 pounds of jumbo shrimp, with sausage, potatoes and corn.

Small Batch Shrimp Boil

Most shrimp boils around here are done on a back porch, in a propane boiler set up {affil link}, and on a huge scale with often at least 20 pounds of shrimp (or more), and sometimes crabs or crawfish too. Hopefully out of that, we can sneak away a pound or two of peeled shrimp for those dishes we all love that call for already cooked shrimp.

Although I've certainly pan sautéed plenty and grown quite fond of using roasted shrimp when I just need to season a pound or two of shrimp, every once in awhile, I also want those highly seasoned potatoes, corn and sausage that come along with it. Enter the small batch version of my shrimp boil!

Fresh peaches, softened, pureed and stewed for a fruit spread that is summer in a jar.

Peach Butter

When it comes to preserved fruit, I am generally much more of a jam or preserve gal, because while butters are usually pureed and have a smooth texture, I rather enjoy the presence of some chunks of fruit, so I guess it's a texture thing for me.

My Mama never canned, well anything, not that I can recall at least, so I never knew much about the subject and had little interest. Since starting a blog about food however, I've certainly seen a lot and as "butters" go, apple butters are featured all over the place with bloggers in the fall.

Sliced fresh jalapenos, lightly blanched, then stacked in a quart jar with sliced garlic and brined in an apple cider vinegar and sugar brine.

Cowboy Candy - Candied Pickled Jalapenos

I used to grow lots of vegetables, including sweet and hot peppers, but haven't grown any in quite a bit. Haven't really grown much of anything other than tomatoes, and maybe a few herbs here the past few years. Just can't take the heat enough to keep the garden in good shape. But, peppers are in abundance and pretty cheap during the summer months, so you don't have to be a gardener to grab a bunch!

This is a variation of a Bell's Best cookbook recipe from the 70s that uses both sweet and hot peppers, but primarily sweet peppers. I decided to make it using only jalapenos. It's often referred to as Cowboy Candy across the net, but it's simply a pickled jalapeno that's a little bit heavier on the sugar, and somewhere along the line of those candied Fire 'n Ice pickles, we all love so much.

Classic Fresh Purple Hull Peas

A classic recipe for southern peas, in this case, fresh purple hulls, simply seasoned with bacon, onion, garlic, salt and pepper, perfect as a side dish or as a feature on a vegetable plate. Pictured here with my whiskey glazed baked ham, Dr. Weil's steamed broccoli and the cornbread from my cookbook {affil link}, made with stone ground cornmeal from the Smoky Mountains.

Fresh Purple Hull Peas

If I had to pick one of my favorite southern peas, it'd have to be purple hulls. I just love them, and they are super easy to grow and easy to find, even if you don't grow your own.

Purple hull peas get their name from the color of the hull, and it used to be that if you ever shelled any from the pod, your purple stained fingers would be a dead giveaway. It might be that most shelling takes place in an air conditioned home these days, rather than in a rocker on the front porch in the heat and humidity, but I've shelled several pounds at a time and didn't have issue with those colorful fingers.

A great summer salad made with garden fresh tomatoes, veggies and bacon, tossed in a flavorful mayonnaise dressing and macaroni.

Bacon and Tomato Macaroni Salad

This year, I only planted tomatoes, and although there are a few stragglers out there, they've all just about played out. I've had a few small baskets of them going at any given time this summer though, and I sure have been enjoying them, in every form possible!

This macaroni salad is among the definite summer favorites of mine and one that's been sharing space in my fridge throughout this heat wave.

Fresh green beans, trimmed and snapped and layered in with salt pork, onion, sliced smoked andouille sausage, plenty of freshly cracked black pepper and pork or chicken base or stock, cooked in the Instant Pot.

Instant Pot Green Beans, Potatoes and Andouille

I absolutely love a pot of slow stewed, fresh green beans, so much so, that I can literally make a meal of a pot, especially when you throw in some ham or andouille sausage! Just give me that and some cornbread, and I am in heaven y'all!

Note: As an Amazon.com Services LLC Associate and member of other affiliate programs, I earn from qualifying purchases linked in my posts and marked as #ad or #affiliate links.

I use my Instant Pot {affil link}, or one of my other electronic pressure cookers a lot, yes, even in the summer. I was never real attached to a slow cooker much, but I do a lot of cooking in the Instant Pot.

This Instant Pot version of green beans comes in right up there along with the slow stewed version, even though instead of hours slow stewing, they come together in just minutes. I've made them enough times now, varying the way I do them, that I'm finally ready to publish a standalone version.

No worries if you don't have an Instant Pot though - just click here to get to my slow-stewed, stovetop version!

Thickly cut slices of summer squash, tossed with extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper, and a mixture of dried herbs, then grilled.

Grilled Squash with Herbs

I hesitated to share this "recipe" at first but then I thought hey, the first time I ever wanted to grill squash, I had to look up "how to grill squash" because I wanted to do it right, so hopefully it will be helpful. There is always somebody, somewhere just learning to cook.

Besides y'all. Doesn't that just look scrumptious? It's really quite simple, but along the way I've discovered a couple of helpful tips.

A whole cut up chicken, or bone-in leg quarters, cut up, baked with simple seasonings and the trinity. Pass under the broiler to brown further, as above.

Southern-Style Baked Chicken

I love a good baked chicken and though I have a few different recipes that I've used over the years, this is one of my favorite ways to make it.

We often find whole chickens, as well as family-sized packages of thighs and legs, or large block frozen bags of leg quarters on sale around here, so that's what I usually use for this dish. You can certainly use breasts, and even wings, though you'll need to adjust times accordingly, depending on size, so as not to overcook, especially with the boneless breasts.

Baked chicken is certainly not unique to the South, of course, but there is a certain way that we prepare it that makes it a little more unique to our region - just chicken, simply seasoned and baked with a scattering of the trinity, the way we love it in the South.

Marinated Cracked Blue Crab Salad

Highly seasoned boiled crab and claws, marinated in a vinegar and oil dressing, with fresh vegetables, lemon and lots of garlic.

Marinated Blue Crab Salad

From the time that I was a little girl, tying down chicken backs into crab nets on a Biloxi pier with my Grandma Mac, fresh crabs have been such a central part of my life.

In gumbo or stuffed into the shell, made into crab cakes or patties, stuffed into po'boy bread, or jumbo shrimp, in pasta, even that hot crab dip that shows up at pretty much every event in existence around here, I can't even imagine a life without some fresh blue crab in it.

The flavors of a sloppy joe sandwich in an easy, baked casserole form.

Sloppy Joe Bake

The Cajun loves my homemade sloppy joes, but my hamburger buns were a little on the not so fresh side, so I decided to go with the baked version this time. It's a delicious and creative way to change up the sloppy joe routine - plus there's cheese involved!

Quick and easy batter biscuits, made in a muffin tin.

Easy Spoon Biscuits

This recipe has been around a long, long time, but I've been seeing a form of these all over Facebook here recently as "no yeast rolls," though that's a bit of a misnomer because they aren't rolls at all. I mean, in my eyes, yeast is what makes a roll a roll and gives it that special lift and texture.

This is more like a quick batter bread really, that's poured into a muffin tin for little individual biscuits, similar to those muffin tin spoon rolls, that actually are made with yeast, but are just as easy as these biscuits.

Sweetened blackberries, layered in with crumb topping and baked.

Blackberry Crumb Cobbler

A few years back, I was feeling a little nostalgic for those days when blackberry picking was a common thing that children did, so I planted two thornless blackberry bushes I purchased from Cottage Farms on QVC.

I think I've had them for three summers and those things have been producing like crazy! If you decide to plant some here's two things I have learned.

The first year they grew like mad.

Jumbo shrimp, tossed in a seasoned olive oil with lemon zest and lots of garlic, topped with a panko and Parmesan crumb topping and baked.

Sheet Pan Panko Shrimp

These are almost sheet pan scampi or garlic shrimp meets oven fried shrimp, without all the hassle of dipping and battering. The inspiration for this dish came from Marlene Koch's cookbook, Eat What You Love Everyday {affil link} and it works well as both a main dish or an appetizer. The Cajun and I weren't that hungry, so I left the tails on and we ate this as an appetizer. They were amazing!

Spaghetti Recipe Roundup

When folks think of spaghetti, they typically think of the classic spaghetti in meat sauce or with meatballs. It's definitely a favorite, easy to make and easy to teach, and even though it's the version I make most often, I also like variety!

I've put together a collection here of some of my favorite spaghetti recipes, all right here on DeepSouthDish.com, for when you're looking not only for the classic version of spaghetti, but maybe something a little different.

Seasoned and seared pork chops, simmered with tomatoes, onion and sweet bell peppers.

Creole Smothered Chops

These are just so tasty, it's hard to believe that they are also simple and easy.

They aren't really "smothered," as in the sense most folks think about with that word - all saturated in some kind of gravy or sauce. It's more of a light smother of veggies.

Shrimp and vegetables, sauteed in a garlic butter sauce and tossed with pasta.

Garlic Butter Shrimp with Pasta

Recipes like this one have been widely shared on social media the past few years, typically made on its own without pasta. That's pretty good for a snack or party food, but I'm all about the main dish, so of course I had to write my version to include pasta!

It's pretty similar to a shrimp scampi actually, with some subtle differences, enough so that it sets it apart for me to consider it as a separate post from my scampi, plus I've included some additional variations in this one too.

A hearty, one-pot Italian-style meal, made with bone-in chicken thighs, Cajun andouille, potatoes, tomatoes and white beans.

One Pot Italian-Style Chicken Stew

This is a good and hearty, one-pot, Italian style stew, though "stew" is really a loose interpretation here. It's hearty, but not thick and rich as we think of stews to be, but rather a bit lighter, making it fully appropriate any time of the year.

I based my recipe on a bit of a combination of MarkCharles Misilli's One Pot Italian Chicken from the cookbook Easy Everyday Favorites and Jacques Pépin's Chicken Bouillabaisse in his cookbook Fast Food My Way {affil links}, since I find them to be strikingly similar.

A casserole of cubed rye bread, shredded corned beef, sauerkraut and Swiss cheese finished with a savory egg custard.

Baked Reuben Casserole

I know that some of you make a New England Boiled Dinner of cabbage, root vegetables and a full corned beef brisket for holidays like St. Patrick's Day, but I'm a cheater. The Cajun doesn't care much for any of that stuff, so I take a shortcut to get the corned beef and cabbage I want, and he eats leftovers. I've been making it that way for years, using shredded deli corned beef or the canned stuff, and I love it, so it suits me just fine.

That said, I'm guessing some of you have been consuming Reuben sandwiches from the St. Patrick's Day leftovers, something that I also enjoy occasionally, but my husband can also do without. This casserole is yet another way to use some of that leftover corned beef. Almost a strata, except that it's tossed instead of layered, and sometimes referred to as a savory bread pudding, it's apparently a pretty common recipe around the net, though I hadn't made it myself before. The recipe that I patterned it after is from the Taste of Home cookbook, 201 Recipes You'll Make Forever. {affil link}

Classic American-style stuffed cabbage leaves.

Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

I don't really know when it was that I fell in love with cabbage, but I do love it. I can't recall one single instance where my Mama ever even fixed it, but I've certainly made it plenty myself!

My favorite way to eat it is what we in the south call fried cabbage, though it's not really "fried," at least not in the sense of the word that folks automatically think of as fried in the south. It's more of a sauté and braise, or even smothered really. I love it!

Cabbage rolls though?

A smaller batch of classic jambalaya, made with the trinity, rice, shrimp and smoked sausage.

Skillet Jambalaya

There are rice with protein dishes in just about every region of the country. Chicken Bog, Red Rice and Pilaf are some of the top southern favorites, but in my part of the south, it's all about jambalaya.

Whatever version you know, they all involve rice, vegetables, protein - and often a variety of proteins - and mostly made in huge batches, intended to feed a crowd, making it perfect for Mardi Gras.

Sometimes a gal just wants some jambalya for herself!

A simple dish of lightly seasoned pasta with potatoes, onions and peas. Simple, filling, comfort food and one of my year-round favorites, but a great option for Lent too.

Pasta with Peas and Potatoes

Lent has arrived, so I'll be sharing some very simple, non-recipe "recipes" over the next couple weeks to add to my list of Lent-friendly meal ideas. Some you will likely be familiar with already for Lent, others may be a reminder of recipes you've forgotten about.

Most of them, like this one, actually come from the Depression-era, when meals were simple, cheap, filling and meat free. They are actually meals that I eat throughout the year, especially if I'm on my own for dinner.

This chicken and dressing casserole is an old school well-loved dish in the South. It goes by many names - Poulet de France, Poulet de Normandy, Poulet Chicken or simply Poulet - made with cooked chicken, stuffing mix, milk sauce, topped with cream soup, and finished with cheese.

Chicken and Dressing Casserole

I have mentioned here before that once upon a time I did the Once a Month Cooking (OAMC) system {affil link} where you spend one weekend essentially cooking meals to freeze for the month. I did it with a small upright refrigerator freezer too and I loved it. The internet was a different place back then and nothing like it is now, so everything occurred on bulletin boards and forums.

Anybody else remember when AOL, Prodigy and CompuServe were the top three ways to the internet and you could only access them with a dial up connection, meaning that you had to tie up your home phone line? There was no such thing as a smartphone in those days.

Boy oh boy am I datin' muhself there.

Inexpensive, filling and belly warmin', large lima beans have always been a favorite bean in the south, and now, they are made easy with the Instant Pot!

Instant Pot Large Lima Beans

Beans are a popular meal down here, and we eat them year round in the south. Heck, red beans and rice dinners are practically a religion down here along the Gulf Coast, and a diner staple every single Monday of the year, all year long.

Even with slow stewing on the stovetop, these beans don't require a lot of tending to, but factor in the Instant Pot, or whatever electronic or stovetop pressure cooker you favor, and they are done with little prep and in no time. I don't even saute the veggies - though you certainly can.

Chicken wings with a zing! Meaty chicken wings, coated with a lightly spicy rub and marinated in the fridge for an hour or up to overnight, baked and tossed with a simple, classic buttery hot sauce or tossed in a wing glaze.

Deviled Chicken Wings

I love chicken wings! I'm constantly playing around with them, trying different seasonings and different cooking methods - baked, air fried, smoked, grilled, slow cooker, and yes, even in one of those microwave Rangemate grills! {affil link} Each of them provides a little different feel and texture and benefits, but I've yet to run across a wing I didn't like.

A simple soup, made from tiny butter beans, lightly seasoned with onion and celery, thickened with a puree and finished with a sprinkle of sliced green onions. Easy and delicious!

Butter Bean Soup

Among the varieties of southern beans and peas, butter beans are right at the top. In addition to their creamy buttery texture and taste, they are a powerhouse source of low fat, high protein fiber, rich in iron and B vitamins too.

They're certainly popular in the south and a lot of folks start planting them in the early spring for a plentiful summer crop. I hope that you put some up in the freezer, because this soup is fantastic! No worries if you didn't though, because they're widely available year round in both dried and frozen forms too.

A bone-in turkey breast, oven-braised in chicken stock with aromatics, in a covered pot and pictured here with a baked sweet potato and my Super Creamy Macaroni and Cheese.

Braised Turkey Breast

It's rare that I will cook a turkey or chicken without brining it first. Although I use an in oven thermometer {affil link} these days, there has been many a time that I thought I had that timing down perfect, only to result in an overcooked, tasteless and dry bird. It's not hard to do given how poultry is bred today. Those thermometers are a godsend, especially with roasting any meat.

A brine gives a little extra insurance against that, whether you're using a thermometer or not, as well as infusing some salty goodness into the meat. That said, since this turkey breast was going to be cooked with a braising method, I decided to give it a try without either. The braising process does wonders to meat and I was delighted with the result!

Heaven on a Cracker or a Chip - Bacon Cream Cheese Dip

A super easy dip, made with cream cheese, Monterey Jack cheese and mayonnaise with green onions, finished with a bacon and Ritz cracker topping and warmed in the microwave. Simple and divine!

Heaven on a Cracker - Bacon Cream Cheese Dip

New Year's Day food is just about played out in the house. I made both my black-eyed peas and the cabbage with sausage and tomatoes, plus the rice of course, in my Instant Pot! Well, Instant Pots because I had three of them going!

Yesterday though, The Cajun and I were enjoying the opening of NFL playoffs (quite exciting they were), so I thought I would make a dip I've been wanting to try forever and kept forgetting about. It's a variation of a recipe from one of the Sweet Potato Queen's books {affil link}, that she calls Heaven on a Cracker, and it is rich and delicious.