A creamy chowder made with a light roux, bacon and the trinity of vegetables, in a chicken stock and milk base, with chicken, corn and potatoes.

Chicken and Corn Chowder

I've got another new soup to share with y'all for National Soup Month before we roll out of this crazy January. We warmed up a few days and are now heading back to a little bit of a chill down here along the Gulf Coast, but thankfully not nearly as crazy cold as it was recently!

Y'all. We came close to having snow here along the beaches in that round, but all we ended up with was some sleet. Snow always seems to just miss us.

Certainly it's the season for soups, stews, chili, gumbo and... chowders! Although a lot of us enjoy all of those year round, winter is a perfect time for a good soup and I love trying new ways to make it!

A quick small batch turkey or chicken soup with corn and noodles.

Turkey or Chicken and Corn Soup

Tis the season for soup!

Even though the weather has been pretty consistently inconsistent here in the Deep South.

We've been flip-flopping between freezing to humid and warm down here along the beach - and mostly warm and humid lately. But you know what they say... just wait a day or three and that's subject to change of course!

A skillet meal of yellow squash and zucchini, corn, onion and tomatoes with garlic, that can be used as a side dish or served stuffed into warmed corn tortillas for a vegetable taco.

Skillet Squash and Zucchini with Corn - Calabacitas con Elote

I think it may have been when I shared the recipe for my Southern-Style Skillet Ratatouille on the Facebook page recently when a reader, Austin, mentioned calabacitas, a Southwest/Mexican-style dish that also uses some of the summer bounty of fresh vegetables that many of us love.

Summer is coming to an end soon so let's get them in while we can y'all!

A delicious corn casserole side dish, made with a good seasoning base of bacon and drippings with onion and bell pepper, a light roux, and just a touch of sour cream along with some Rotel diced tomatoes with green chilies.

Rotel Corn Casserole

I just love corn and I especially love the versatility of it!

Don't get me wrong - I love it pretty good right from the cob, unadorned, with the exception of some butter and salt, of course, and there are a lot of ways to prepare it just for that. One of my top favorites is the no-shuck, no silking, 4-minute microwave method, especially when I need just an ear or two for another dish.

Of course, fresh corn on the cob is best at its peak and in season, but it's now available year-round, and though you pay a little more for it, I still find it to be pretty tasty even though it's having to do a bit of traveling. I also enjoy both frozen and canned corn, and you'll find a wide variety of recipes using all of those right here on my website.

Quick Small Batch Refrigerator Corn Relish

Whether you serve as a condiment alongside grilled meats, or a simple snack with tortilla or corn chips, this small batch, quick refrigerator corn relish will be a refreshing addition to the menu.

Quick Refrigerator Corn Relish

I had a craving for some corn relish, but didn't want a huge batch made for canning. I wanted more of a snack-sized, easy version to enjoy right away!

A hot corn dish, Veracruz Corn may be served as either a side dish, great alongside your barbecue, or as a hot corn appetizer with crisp tortilla chips. Filled with goodness of fresh, off the cob corn, marinated in a fiery blend of Southwestern seasonings, tossed with veggies and then dressed with a chipotle aïoli and cheese, and passed under the broiler.

Veracruz Hot Corn Dip

I based this corn dish off of one that I saw in Eva Longoria's cookbook, Eva's Kitchen: Cooking with Love for Family and Friends. It sounded a little like maque choux, but with some spicy flair, which it most certainly has!

Veracruz corn was a popular dish on the menu at the now shuttered Beso Steakhouse in Hollywood, owned by Longoria, and though I believe it was considered a side dish on the menu, I really enjoyed it best as an appetizer, served hot with some crisp tortilla chips.

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.

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!

A vegetable casserole, made with whole and creamed corn and a mixture of vegetables in a custard-style milk and egg sauce.

Scalloped Corn Casserole

Just like corn casseroles, there are a lot of variations on scalloped corn. Some automatically add cheese, some eggs. Others don't. I can't tell you which is more "authentic" than the other, so let's just say that this one is likely more of a Deep South version and a happy medium!

Not quite a standard corn casserole, creamed corn, corn pudding, or a corn spoonbread, but I guess that it falls somewhere in between all of those.

A corn salad made in the tradition of Mexican Street Corn on the Cob, with fresh cooked corn and dressed with a mayo and sour cream mixture of Cotija cheese, chili powder, cilantro, lime juice and zest. Toss in some crisp veggies, chill well and garnish with a little more cheese and cilantro before serving.

Mexican Street Corn Salad

So, I finally got around to trying a Mexican Street Corn Salad y'all and wow, am I glad I did - it is delicious!

The Cajun's idea of a salad is pretty much a head of iceberg lettuce - that's it. When I make a side salad for a meal, I'll put in other things that are hit and miss as to whether he'll eat them. Sometimes he surprises me, but mostly he picks around things like onion, shredded carrots, cucumber, tomato, radishes, things like that.

A mixture of fresh corn, cut from the cob, sauteed with Vidalia onion, sweet and hot peppers, and finished with southwestern seasonings.

Fiesta Confetti Corn

You've probably seen this version of canned corn at the grocery market, though it has gone through several renames. Once referred to as Mexicorn, it then became Fiesta Corn and I think now, is mostly referred to as a Southwestern style corn.

It's basically just a mixture of corn with onions and peppers - both sweet and hot - finished with some southwestern seasonings. I use some version of this corn in quite a few recipes, but it's also good as a simple side dish, and even better when it's homemade. Here's how to make it.

A quicker, off-season version of Crawfish Bisque made using frozen pureed and whole Louisiana crawfish tails, commercial seafood or chicken stock, the trinity (onion, bell pepper and celery), tomatoes, corn and Cajun seasonings.

Shortcut Crawfish Corn Bisque

Bisque is a soup.

A fairly thick, generally smooth and creamy soup, made from seafood, though often fully pureed to intensify the flavors, leaving no recognized ingredients behind, except perhaps of a garnish.

Seafood is precious, even down here on the Gulf Coast where it is abundant, so I prefer not to puree all of it, but rather to use a fairly rough puree to add body to the soup, but also keep some pieces whole, along with the trinity (onion, bell pepper and celery) for texture and appearance.

A simple and easy side dish casserole made with diced yellow squash, bacon, small shrimp and corn.

Squash Casserole with Shrimp and Corn

Yeah, yeah, I know... everybody is all about pumpkins, soups, stews and fall dishes right now, but I'm still working on end of summer amid these nearly 100 degree days we're still having along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. That hasn't stopped me from making fall favorites like chicken and dumplings, shortcut shrimp etouffee and Cajun-style chicken and andouille gumbo, because I've fixed all of those the last couple of weeks!

This recipe involves the use of yellow straightneck or crookneck squash, a veggie once relegated strictly to the summer months, but now available slap dab in the middle of winter these days. I admit, it's nice but I can't quite get used to that, although you still can't beat the flavor of one that's plucked right out of your backyard.

Stone ground grits, made with whole milk or half and half, chicken broth, and roasted fresh corn, scraped from the cob.

Roasted Corn Grits

As a side dish, these roasted corn grits rock!

I patterned them after the dish of the same name at Zea Rotisserie and Grill in Metairie, Louisiana after hearing somebody, somewhere along the way talking about them recently. Oh my goodness. I thought my garlic cheese grits were good, but these? Off. The. Chain.

The roasted corn adds such incredible flavor.

A mix of tender frozen and creamy corn, baked in a savory egg custard.

Corn Pudding

Corn Pudding suffers a similar identity crisis as corn casserole. What defines it is most often what you grew up with and nobody makes any of it the same way.

What some folks call corn spoon bread, others call corn casserole... and vice versa.

What some call corn casserole, yet others call corn pudding... and vice versa.

A fresh tomato pasta sauce, made with garden vegetables - peppers, squash, zucchini, corn, eggplant, okra, beans - whatever you have! For a protein boost, add leftover roasted chicken, seasoned and sauteed shrimp, cooked ground beef, sausage, or other meats.

Garden Fresh Vegetable Spaghetti

I have been up to my ears in garden fresh tomatoes the past few weeks... not that it's a bad thing, don't get me wrong! It's just that as fast as I process some into sauce, I'm plucking a near equal amount off of the plants.

The last picking right before the tropical storm and steady coming!

A super easy, cheesy and creamy, delicious slow cooker corn side dish, perfect for any gathering, church social, reunion or holiday.

Slow Cooker Cheesy Creamy Corn

It's been three years since Charlotte, one of our Facebook family members mentioned a corn dish similar to this, and I've missed at least three cycles of major holidays getting it posted, failing to remember to get that final shot of what it looks like on a plate! Eh, what can I say? These days, sometimes, it takes me awhile to do things.

Well, although those major holidays have once again passed, because peak summer corn is still a bit away from us and since I made this for Easter, I'm posting it now. Besides those big holidays, it's an equally great side dish for those backyard family barbecues, church socials, family reunions and potlucks you'll be attending anyway, and, it's so easy to both make and transport too!

Corn on the cob, smeared with a garlic and herb butter blend, individually wrapped and baked or grilled.

Foil Packet Corn on the Cob

I'm hearing chatter here and there of back to school already and I'm not all that unhappy!

No, it's not for any of the reasons you're probably thinking. It's all because back to school means fall is near, and I am sincerely looking forward to fall this year. This summer has been miserable and it seems as if it gets harder and harder to handle as I get older.

I've become a near vampire in the summertime anymore to avoid the heat, so I'm ready for some soup and sweater weather!

A classic corn casserole made with frozen and creamed corn, cracker crumbs, pimentos, eggs, milk and butter.

Classic Corn Casserole

Corn casseroles seem to have an identity crisis going on in this day and age.

There doesn't seem to be a division anymore between what folks define as corn casseroles, corn spoon bread and corn pudding, so much so, that what once made each of these dishes unique from the other, has been completely lost.

Because this dish is heavy in corn, but lighter in binders and eggs, I consider it to be a corn casserole. You may know it as something different, but there is one thing for sure. It gets gobbled up.

 

A wintertime creamed corn side dish, made from frozen corn and rich with butter and cream, perfect for the holidays.

Winter Skillet Creamed Corn

There's nothing better than fresh corn on the cob in the summer and hopefully you put some up in the freezer for this super easy, winter holiday side dish. If you didn't, don't fret.

It's perfectly wonderful with good ole store-bought frozen corn and you can even save yourself a pretty penny by using a generic brand. The plus with starting with frozen corn, is that it saves you a few steps too, making it the easiest ever creamed corn and a breeze to throw together.