A tomato and cucumber salad with red onion, olives and feta tossed in a Greek-style dressing.

(Almost Greek-Style) Tomato, Cucumber and Olive Salad

I'm always up for making different kinds of salads using tomatoes, cucumbers, or both!

I saw this Horiatiki Salata aka Hearty Greek Salad on the America's Test Kitchen channel on Roku one day recently and thought it looked so good I needed to make it right away!

Only thing is, I didn't have everything on hand that it called for though, so I had to make some adjustments, which is why I say this is an "almost" Greek-style salad.

A fried bologna sandwich with mayonnaise and Colman's mustard sauce piled with thick sliced bologna, caramelized onion, cheese, shredded lettuce and vinegar potato chips.

Fried Bologna Sandwich

Y'all. This is hands-down the best fried bologna sandwich I have ever had in my entire life, and I've eaten a lot of fried bologna sandwiches.

Most of mine aren't anywhere close to this - just a slice, or two of bologna fried in a skillet, then sandwiched in two slices of white bread with some mustard. Delish!

The melding of the flavors here though, is just fried bologna perfection.

Catfish fillets rubbed with a blackening seasoning and cooked in the air fryer!

Air Fryer Blackened Catfish

If you love well seasoned fish, you're gonna love this blackened catfish and it's made a little easier with the air fryer!

Usually when I blacken anything, it requires a screaming hot cast iron pan and that creates an intense amount of smoke, so for me, it's relegated to cooking outside on the grill. It works great, but the heat has really kept me from being able to do outdoor cooking in the summer.

This method provides a beautiful and flavorful blackening and it's done right in the air fryer on the kitchen counter and minus the smoke.

Shrimp and Pasta with Vegetables (Primavera)

Linguine pasta in a cream sauce with a mix of vegetables and shrimp.

Shrimp and Pasta with Vegetables

This dish came about when I found quite a few mixed bags of frozen vegetables up in my freezer that I had bought for something very specific that I had intended to make - but forgot about. That happens to me alot!

And I know, you're gonna say "now Mary. That's pasta primavera!" Well, yes, to a certain degree, it is!

Pasta primavera is an American dish of pasta in a cream sauce with fresh vegetables, typically fresh spring vegetables, and the primary difference here is that instead of those typical fresh vegetables, I used those frozen ones.

Waste not, want not, and plus, it shaves off a little time!

A Southwestern style pasta salad featuring rotini pasta with taco seasonings, salsa, veggies and beans. Drizzle with your favorite salad dressing and garnish as desired.

Taco Pasta Salad   

Pasta salads are such a welcome addition to the summertime menu, aren't they?

Some days it's just so hot that the thought of putting a lot of effort into a full out meal can be daunting and overwhelming, nevermind the fact that I may not even have an appetite for that!

What happens with me during those times is that I end up snacking on a whole bunch of junk, instead of having a "meal."

Not great.

Yellow squash, cut into chunks, dipped in a blend of buttermilk and hot sauce and dredged in seasoned flour, sprayed with oil and air fried.

Air Fryer Squash Nuggets

I love summer squash and it can be prepared all kinds of ways - in a salad, stuffed, in a gratin, stir fried, smothered with onions, creamed, in a dressing, in a casserole and on the grill, among others.

And, I absolutely love deep fried squash y'all.

I mean deep fried foods are just so darned tasty - especially that good ole southern fried chicken!

A mixture of long grain rice, cooked stovetop in chicken stock with green and sweet onion, garlic, parsley and a variety of seasonings with Wild American shrimp stirred in at the end.

Cajun Shrimp Bowl

I love simple, one pot meals like this, especially in the heat of the summer. And yeah, especially when my central A/C goes south and the part takes a week to get here from Houston. During the hottest month of southern summers too. 

Ugh. I am dying.

Thank goodness for backup portable air conditioners because we have several going at the moment, though they are pretty much intended for use during a hurricane power outage to be seated right in front of, so they can't really keep up and the house is at minimum in the low 80s - all day long. Better than nothing I guess.