The best of late summer and early fall vegetables - eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash and sweet bell pepper - tossed with an olive oil, vinegar and herb-based dressing, diced tomatoes, garlic, chunks of red onion and sliced smoked sausage, then baked.

Ratatouille and Sausage Bake

I can't even begin to tell you how much I love a vegetable dish like this. The Cajun?

Not so much.

So, when I cook something like this it's all for me!

Chili Beans and Rice

A mix of kidney beans with pintos, chili seasonings and browned, smoked sausage, served over rice.

Chili Beans with Rice

Any kind of a beans and rice dish is a winner for me.

• It's hearty and filling.
• It's high in protein and fiber.
• It's inexpensive.
• If you use a brown rice and a turkey smoked sausage, it's pretty good nutrition.
• And, the most important thing. Done well, with a great blend of herbs, spices and seasonings, they are delicious!

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 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!

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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!

A casserole layered in with pasta, pasta sauce, cheese, sausage and pepperoni. All the flavors of a great pizza, in a casserole! Half recipe pictured.

Sausage and Pepperoni Pizza Pasta Casserole

I mean, how can you not love something that has a stack of pepperoni on top, and while it may look like a pizza, there's pasta under there, another favorite of mine.

Yum, yum y'all!

I've been trying to get a new post up forever, so not a lot of chat today... some of you who are happening across this blog will be happy about that I'm sure! {I've seen those memes!}

A sausage and peppers dish, using spicy Cajun sausage, pan seared cabbage wedges, sweet onion and diced tomatoes with green chilies, served over rice.

Cajun Sausage and Peppers with Cabbage

This is just a little different take on the old Italian sausage and peppers dish, adding a mix of colorful peppers, spicy Cajun sausage and pan-seared cabbage wedges.

Instead of a sauce that's typically used with sausage and peppers, I'm using diced tomatoes with green chilies in order to allow the individual elements all shine on their own and not be buried in sauce. For the sausage, I'm using smoked instead of a raw, encased sausage.

Classic Chicken and Andouille Sausage Gumbo (Gumbo Ya-Ya)

A classic light roux-based gumbo, made with a cut up chicken and andouille sausage, served over hot steamed rice.

Chicken and Andouille Sausage Gumbo

I've been making and sharing Miss Lucy's chicken gumbo with y'all for years, but admit, her classic Cajun-style method is not exactly the way that I usually make my gumbo.

Miss Lucy's recipe makes a roux, then adds water to the roux and then adds the chicken, sausage and trinity (onion, bell pepper and celery) to the pot, a classic Cajun one pot prep.

I prepare my gumbo in a way that is more traditional where I live - brown the meats, prepare the roux, cook the trinity in the roux, then add the water or stock and the rest.

However you make it, we eat a lot of it and it's mighty good!

Shrimp and White Bean Stew - Great Northern, cannellini, navy or your favorite small white bean, cooked in a ham bone broth, with the trinity, Rotel tomatoes, andouille sausage and small shrimp.

Shrimp and White Bean Stew

I literally have been trying to get this recipe written and uploaded to the blog for almost two weeks! What can I say... seeing as I'm at the age of being mostly retired now, we techically at least because, trust me, a recipe website is as much work as what I did in my corporate legal career!

Anyway, I don't spend too much of my time being in a hurry to do much of anything anymore.

You may have also noticed that the Deep South summer-like fall heat finally gave way to some much cooler, near winter-like fall temperatures. Though it's sure been nice having some cooler temps the past couple of weeks, along with that comes a certain degree of laziness on my part. Though I do still cook, not a lot of writing happens.

Deep South Spaghetti with Andouille Sausage

A spaghetti meat sauce made with the trinity and thin slices of spicy, andouille sausage, for a taste of the Deep South.

Dad's Deep South Spaghetti with Andouille

When I make a pot of meat sauce for spaghetti, I usually toss the cooked noodles with a few spoons of the sauce, then top each serving with more sauce. Dad mixes the cooked pasta and sauce together and also adds thin slices of Andouille sausage to his meat sauce. I admit, I sure love when he sends a plate of his spaghetti over to me and since The Cajun also loves his Dad's spaghetti, I patterned this version after his.

Sausage Reubens aka 5 Finger Banjo Picker Sandwich

Sausage Reubens, a sandwich spread with Creole mustard and made with grilled or pan-fried sausage and onions, topped with sauerkraut, sliced tomatoes, sliced jalapenos and white cheese, patterned after the 5 Finger Banjo Picker Sandwich from a Decatur, Alabama tavern known by locals as The Brick.

Sausage Reubens

Here's the sandwich I promised you with the last post on how I dress up store-bought sauerkraut and boy y'all is it a good one!

We eat sandwiches for supper all the time, sometimes with a side of chips, sweet potato fries or French fries, sometimes a bowl of soup or a side salad. Thank goodness it qualifies for a meal around here because we've been eating a lot of sandwiches this past summer, and a lot of them have been made in a microwave grill pan.

A quick skillet meal, made from andouille sausage, broccoli, leftover, cooked veggies, bow tie pasta, and a touch of sour cream added at the end for creaminess.

Creamy Andouille and Pasta Skillet

Don't you just love a good, quick skillet meal? This one I especially love because it's so versatile. In this instance, I just used some good andouille sausage, making it super easy because it's something that I always have on hand, and smoked sausage thaws pretty quick, making it an easy last minute meal. It's delicious with both chicken breast and shrimp also.

A cross between gumbo and jambalaya, this quick and easy skillet meal packs a burst of gumbo flavor, but without the usual lengthy time commitment - great for busy weeknights.

Skillet Gumbolaya

This is a great skillet meal that's a bit of a cross between gumbo and jambalaya. It's another one of those quickie dishes that I'm making while I work my way through getting whatever gardening and planting I want done before summer heat sets in.

Honestly though, I'm not quite sure which is worse... spring allergies or summer heat!

I got a high allergy alert on my Weather Channel app a little earlier, and just the thought of it made me cough! We've got a little rain moving in tonight and tomorrow, so I may get a break on the allergens and a little time to catch up on blogging and writing duties, speaking of which...

A white bean stew, made with smoked ham, a good quality andouille or smoked sausage and a mirepoix of vegetables.

Ham and Sausage White Bean Stew

I have still been working my way through the freezer - some of our meals were reheated leftovers, others, whatever meat I happened to grab first.

In the past two weeks or so, I've baked a ham that I'd picked up on a holiday sale and froze, which along with some frozen sides, gave us a couple of meals and leftover ham for sandwiches. Pre-seasoned ground beef I'd picked up on sale, cooked and put up, became one of our favorite casseroles - Ground Beef Mac and Cheese.

Spicy Sweet Andouille Sausage Bites

Andouille smoked sausage, grilled, browned in a skillet or broiled, cut into bite-sized pieces and tossed in a spicy sweet sauce. Great party appetizer!

Spicy Sweet Andouille Bites

There is literally some kind of football on in this house every single day. Don't get me wrong - I like football just fine! The Cajun is a fanatic though, so on those three days of the week that a live football game of some form isn't on, he's catching up with a replayed game he didn't see live, because he was watching another game.

In between that, there's all the commentary shows where they show highlights, talk about all things SEC and NFL, with team reports, developing stories, player interviews, player injuries, breaking news and all other things football. He really needs a man cave with about a half dozen televisions. That probably wouldn't even be enough!

Potatoes, cabbage and onions, simply seasoned and smothered down in broth with a spicy andouille sausage, is definitely a favorite in the Deep South.

Smothered Potatoes and Cabbage with Andouille

I love cabbage, well... just about any way that you can make it, but The Cajun ... not so much. Not at all actually. I can't figure out what is wrong with him! I still buy it anyway, of course. I'm not gonna deny myself something that I really enjoy because someone in my family doesn't, and neither should you.

Over the years of blogging, I have heard so many of you saying that you really love something, like cabbage or okra, but nobody else in your family will eat it, so you never make it anymore. I can only speak to being a woman, mother and wife, but those titles often mean that we do for others and put ourselves at the bottom of the list and we really need to stop doing that, yes, even with something as simple as a vegetable. I'm not saying that we should become selfish, but that we should treat ourselves as well as we do others is all - that's the message we should give to those we love. We count too.

A quick, chicken broth-based soup, made with white beans and greens, spicy andouille smoked sausage and veggies. Add pasta if you like!

Turnip Green Soup aka Swamp Soup

Hello everybody and, if you're landing here when I wrote this in September... Happy Grandparents Week! Okay, okay, I realize it's an "invented" holiday - though not really for the reasons that you probably think. It didn't actually come about because a corporation wanted to sell cards and promote the sale of flowers as rumors would suggest.

Grandparent's Day was initiated at a grassroots level by a West Virginian mother of 15, Marian Lucille Herndon McQuade, who with her husband, Joseph L. McQuade, had 43 grandchildren, 10 great-grandchildren, and one great-great grandchild. Mrs. McQuade wanted Grandparents Day to be a family day, to honor grandparents, and to give them an opportunity to show love for their children's children, providing them with the wisdom and guidance that only older people can offer.

Sausage and Peppers Stew with Onions with Beans

A quick skillet stew of sausage with peppers and onions, tomatoes, barbecue sauce, and beans.

Sausage and Peppers Stew

I love this quick take on classic sausage and peppers with onions, adding in beans, making it much more filling and satisfying. It's kinda like if you took beanie weenies and sausage and peppers and married them.

I've used Italian sausage here, but you can use any kind of Italian-style sausage like chicken or turkey, or even a good andouille sausage, and I've also used those gourmet hot dogs that come with the steak packages you get as a gift at Christmas.

Nutritional Factoid: Did you know that while most canned beans are very high in sodium, draining and rinsing them gets rid of nearly half of the sodium level? And, just so you know, it also helps to reduce some of those gas-causing sugars too.

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.

An oyster filé gumbo, made with the Trinity, oysters, a chicken and spicy andouille sausage.

Chicken, Andouille, and Oyster Filé Gumbo

My father-in-law has been buying full sacks of Gulf oysters the past few weeks and we have been the lucky recipients of several pints, stuffed with delicious, salty, freshly shucked oysters and plenty of liquor. Dad also makes this wonderful oyster gumbo and he usually sends a quart of that over too. I know. My in-laws are wonderful people, I love them to death, and yes. I am spoiled rotten.

Basic lima bean and corn succotash gets a boost from summer bounty with the addition of sweet Vidalia onions, fresh tomatoes, bell pepper, okra and some smoked meat.

Southern Summer Succotash

Hope everybody had a wonderful holiday weekend with friends and family, and an extra day off today to recover. All the carbs and meat of late have me in the mood for some veggies and what a great time to introduce some summer succotash!

To be honest, I love a simple succotash mixture of baby butter beans and corn, maybe with a bit of onion and garlic, always some butter, and sometimes just a splash of cream. You can make succotash using fresh, frozen or even canned vegetables, so it's pretty much a year round dish you can serve anytime.