A classic tuna salad made with the addition of grated apple and served here on griddled Texas Toast.

Tuna Salad with Apple

Not long ago, my sister in law told The Cajun she was getting rid of some old cookbooks and asked him if I might like them.

Since physical libraries don't hold onto cookbooks for very long these days and the older cookbooks are extremely useful tools for recipe research, I'm never one to turn down cookbooks, so I said of course! 

Most of them were older Southern Living annuals and back then, not only were they summaries of the year's recipes shared from the magazine, a lot of folks don't realize that many Southern Living recipes started much like you see with Taste of Home - they were recipes submitted by readers! 

Bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts, simply seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic powder, oven braised in a light sauce of chicken broth and wine, with vegetables.

Oven Braised Bone-in Chicken Breasts with Vegetables

This dish was inspired by a recipe in Frank Stitt's Southern Table, a cookbook he describes as Provençal-influenced southern food. In other words, fancier than me!

For this dish, essentially a coq au vin, he prepared a sauce made with the accumulated juices and both a white and Madeira wine that was reduced as a sauce. He served the chicken next to an Autumn Root Vegetable Puree made with boiled and pureed turnips, carrots, parsnip, sweet potato and rutabaga and a glazed ragout of Autumn vegetables, made with roasted beets and pan-sauteed cipollini and pearl onions and carrots, with apple wedges, quartered potatoes, turnips and slices of parsnip, served alongside.

Whew!

Chefs do tend to get a little fancy, but for little old home cook me, well, I needed something a bit more simplified.

Rotini pasta, tossed with a mix of vegetables - broccoli, red onion, sweet bell pepper, carrots and tomatoes here - mixed with a seasoning blend and dressed with a quality homemade or commercial Italian or Ranch dressing.

Supreme Pasta Salad

Whew y'all! It's been super-hot and humid here along the Mississippi Gulf Coast and we're heading into a couple of 100+ degree actual temperatures here the next few days. No telling what the "feels like" temp will be with the humidity factored in. Wow.

Many of you have been in a similar heat wave that we have down here, and it sure feels like it will never end, even though summer actually only "officially" started this week! Yeah, okay...

We all seem to be suffering with this heat.

Carrots and sweet potatoes, tossed with olive oil, salt and red pepper flakes and oven roasted.

Roasted Carrots and Sweet Potatoes

I love roasted vegetables, and this is the time of year - when you don't mind turning on your oven - to get your fill of them!

Roasting really brings out the natural sweetness and enhances the overall flavor of vegetables and you just can't beat the ease of preparation.

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.

Oven roasted chunks of carrots, tossed with olive oil, seasonings, cayenne, balsamic vinegar and honey.

Honey Roasted Carrots

One of the best ways to bring out the flavors of vegetables is to roast them and carrots really shine. Bring them beyond the typical oil, salt and pepper with a few special enhancements and you've got a dish that is fit for your holiday dinner table.

Russet potatoes and chunks of carrots and onion are cooked stovetop in a tomato-based sauce with seasoned pork chops or pork steaks, for an easy one pot meal.

One Pot Pork Chop Dinner

The Cajun is a big meat and potatoes man. I may have mentioned that before I think! He's just not that into vegetables, so he's always a little disappointed when the first of the year rolls around and I'm back to trying to eat more balanced, and maybe even a bit healthier than usual. Meaning more greens and vegetables.

I'm a little bit slow starting this year, as I've been under the weather since right before Christmas and let's just say it's been one thing after another. Haven't had much of an appetite, but I think I dropped a couple pounds as a result. I'm actually still on the mend today and frankly, still not feeling that well, so food hasn't been all that appealing to me. I guess I'll let him have his meat and potatoes way.

 

Fresh carrots, pearl onions and sweet green peas, slow simmered in butter and finished with a toss of fresh herbs.

Classic Buttered Peas and Carrots

I am a vegetable lover and frankly, there are very few that I don't like. Brussels sprouts would be one.

Oh, I'll eat them, and I've even tried them multiple ways to put them up on the blog since many of you do enjoy them, but they just aren't in my top favorites. Other than that, I pretty much love any vegetables, including carrots and peas, and I especially love this classic combination of the two, slow simmered in butter and finished with some fresh herbs.

A classic, cold salad made from carrots, raisins and pineapple, sometimes coconut and peanuts, and dressed with a sweetened mayonnaise.

Classic Carrot Raisin Salad

We are still in the process of moving out of our old home, while the new house is looking more and more like we have lived here for 20 years! And the garage, oh you don't even want to know what that looks like, but as I have the energy, I bring in a box and go through it.

We are moving all of the Christmas stuff, the china from the china cabinet and have a freezer and a few pieces of furniture to go and we'll be finished... finally. The Cajun and I were so tired and hungry yesterday afternoon that we stopped by Hartz's Fried Chicken and treated ourselves to their buffet for an early supper.

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.

Refrigerator Pickled Vegetables (Giardiniera)

Refrigerator Pickled Vegetables (Giardiniera)

Giardiniera

I decided to make up a batch of pickled veggies over the Memorial Day weekend. Pickled vegetables, or Giardiniera (meaning "the garden") is probably familiar to you from the grocery store shelf, but it's a super easy pickled condiment to make at home too.

A creamy beef stew with potatoes, onion, carrot and celery and cooked in the slow cooker. Here it is served over rice, in the Deep South tradition.

Hearty Slow Cooker Beef Stew

I've made this stew a few times over this fall and winter, but the process of measuring out, documenting and photographing a recipe, so that other folks can follow it too, can be a bit daunting at times, when all you really want to do is just sit down and eat!

Hobo Stew, made with ground beef, a mixture of vegetables, canned tomatoes and V-8.

Ground Beef Hobo Stew

Pantry friendly and adaptable, I just love this stew. In some variation and often depending on the type of meat you use, you may know this dish by the names of Campfire Stew, Girl Scout Camp Stew, Hobo Stew, Ground Beef Stew, Beggar Stew, Mulligan Stew, Poor Man's Stew or V8 Stew - just to name a few. I just settled on calling it a Ground Beef Hobo Stew.

Historically, a basic Dutch oven style stew that dates back to the early 1900s, it was slow cooked over the coals of an open campfire, often in a can (remember that from Girl Scouts?), or made up in a large casserole style foil packet.

A vegetable medley casserole with a classic mixture of pimentos, carrots, peas and corn, transformed with a few simple seasonings and a fabulous cream sauce into a wonderful vegetable casserole, topped here with panko.

Mixed Vegetable Casserole

One of the most popular canned peas in this part of The Deep South is a petit pois variety, literally translated from French as little pea. They are the tiniest, sweetest little baby peas and not at all cheap either, but when you realize just how many peas have to be shelled to just feed a single person, like fresh crabmeat and pecans, you appreciate the labor that goes into them and happily pay the price because you understand. The petit pois have a very short fresh season, only a few weeks in early June, so we enjoy them mostly canned down here. These are the tiny little peas that usually grace the southern holiday table and thanks to their delectable sweetness, I'm not at all surprised. We do love sweet in The South.

Copper Pennies Carrot Salad - Sweet and Sour Carrots

Copper Pennies, an old fashioned chilled carrot salad, made with thinly sliced carrots, sweet onion and sweet bell pepper, soaked in a sweet and sour vinegar marinade made with canned tomato soup.

Copper Pennies Carrot Salad

Just like pineapple, we southerners also love our sweet and sour dishes.

From salads, to green beans, to pickles, that combination of flavor has long been a southern favorite and Copper Penny Carrots are another dish that falls into that category. Named so because they resemble pennies, it is a cold marinated salad of thinly sliced vegetables - carrots, sweet onion and sweet bell pepper - tossed and left to marinade in a hot, sweet and sour mixture of tomato, vinegar and seasonings.

Also known as bronze pennies, they are as fabulous as a holiday side as they are at a barbecue, and perfect for the Easter table.

Carottes Glacées - Savory Glazed Carrots from Julia

Carottes Glacées - a savory glazed carrot side dish, made from strips of carrots, slow boiled in beef stock with a little sugar and plenty of butter.

Savory Glazed Carrots

Everybody has heard of, and probably had, some kind of glazed carrots made using brown sugar, or honey, or maple syrup, or oranges, or a combination of any of these wonderful flavors - especially around the holidays. But Julia's glazed carrots are pure, unadulterated, simple and just delicious.

A simple pasta dish with carrots and peas and a light tomato sauce made with tomato paste.

Giada's Pasta with Carrots and Peas

This is a meatless dish that I watched Giada de Laurentiis make one day on the Food Network channel. She used linguine, but I didn't have any in the pantry, so I used a combination of Barilla Plus and regular spaghetti pasta.

Microwave Orange Honey Glazed Baby Carrots

Baby carrots, steamed in orange juice in the microwave, then glazed with honey, cane or maple syrup and butter.

Glazed Baby Carrots

A quick and easy side dish recipe, written for cooking in the microwave with holiday cooking in mind when the stovetop can be otherwise occupied. It can also be done on the stovetop too of course.