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.

With green beans available year round, this green bean vegetable salad with potatoes makes for a great side dish any time of the year.

Green Bean and Potato Salad

Green beans and potatoes go together like hand and glove, and we sure do love that hot dish served in the south.

But... have you ever considered combining this classic southern mix up with a vinaigrette and serving it cold? It's actually a great combination as a cold vegetable salad, though it's also good slightly warm or at room temperature too!

Cucumbers and sweet onions, marinated in a slightly sweetened white wine and rice vinegar dressing with mustard seeds and tossed with fresh tomatoes.

Marinated Cucumber and Tomato Salad

• Seeing as it's summer
• That it's hotter than hot right now, and
• I'm certainly getting my fill of all the cooling foods I can right now

Here's yet another cucumber and tomato salad to add to the collection!

This version was inspired by one that I ran across in Paula Deen's At the Southern Table cookbook. It was a little bit different from the typical cucumber and tomato salad and interesting enough that it had me curious, so I thought I'd give it a try... with my own adaptations, of course!

Small Batch Fresh Tomato Relish

This easy to make fresh tomato relish adds a great punch of bright flavor to so many dishes, you'll want to have some in your refrigerator all summer long!

Fresh Tomato Relish

With summer tomatoes heading in soon, I thought it would be a great time to introduce this fresh tomato relish. Of course, it's good even with hot house tomatoes throughout the year, but you just really can't beat the superior flavor that comes from backyard or otherwise locally grown fresh tomatoes.

What exactly is a fresh tomato relish?

It's a little like a pico, minus the lime and cilantro, but made with a dressing that is much like the well-loved tomato salads we consume here in the south all summer long - a little sour, a little sweet.

A creamy tomato-based stew with shrimp, crawfish and crab and served over hot, steamed rice.

Seafood Pan Roast

Several years back, I was looking through a Martha Foose cookbook, Screen Doors and Sweet Tea, that contained a recipe for what was called a seafood pan roast. Since The Cajun and I don't eat out much, this was an unfamiliar dish for me.

At the time, I couldn't find much about it around the internet either and even today there still isn't much out there. I went ahead and made it, but with no photos to let me know if I was anywhere on track let's just say mine didn't turn out quite right. With the cost of seafood, I abandoned it to experiment a bit more thoroughly another time.

Fresh tomatoes, air fryer roasted with onions and whole garlic cloves tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper and blended. Perfect for pasta dishes but use anywhere you would use diced tomatoes or puree them for a more sauced version.

Air Fryer Roasted Tomatoes

As of this writing, Fall has "officially" arrived, though it does take a while to effect any change here in the Deep South. I mean, as we speak, there's a potential hurricane threatening the Gulf Coast!

Regardless, one thing is for certain, we're getting to the end of local and backyard tomato season.

Though he loves the sauces and casseroles I make with them, The Cajun is not a big fan of fresh, raw tomatoes and he wouldn't dream of a tomato sandwich! Me, I love them and I enjoy them with many meals, including simply sliced with a little salt and pepper, even alongside my breakfast eggs.

Thick slices of cucumber pair up with red onion and a tart vinegar dressing. Add the ends of some fresh tomatoes that you need to use up if you like!

Everyday Cucumbers

I'm constantly playing around with cucumber salads and while they may all look very similar, it's a bit surprising how minor changes in ratios, ingredient additions - such as with herbs - and even textures from different cut sizes, can actually make a big difference in taste.

The inspiration for this one came from Vivian Howard's mom's everyday summer salad featured in her book Deep Run Roots. This cucumber salad made a daily appearance at the table when she was growing up and while sometimes it was just cucumbers, other times it had red onion or included the leftover ends of tomatoes.

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!

Cheese Delights - Broiled Open-Faced Tomato and Cheese Sandwich

An open-faced, broiled tomato and cheese sandwich with bacon and fresh basil.

Cheese Delights

One day, when I was sharing my broiled tomatoes on the Facebook page, Cheryl, one of the readers there, was reminded of an open-faced tomato sandwich her grandmother used to make. She called them Cheese Delights.

You can find a variety of open-faced tomato and cheese sandwich recipes around the net, and while they have different preparations and some with a variation in ingredients, you'll primarily find the ingredients to contain at least:

Fresh, juicy tomatoes and garden cucumbers, paired with purple onion and dressed with a local honey and mustard vinaigrette, finished with torn basil, fresh from the garden.

Tomato and Cucumber Salad with Honey Mustard Vinaigrette

Y'all know that I love me some fresh summer cucumbers and juicy, seasonal tomatoes and as salads go, I mostly just toss them with a mix of vinegar and sugar and call it a day. I do love that whole sweet and sour thing and that's the way I combine them most often.

Sometimes it's just simply cucumbers with onions, mostly sweet Vidalias, because it is the season for them too after all, but sometimes a sharp, purple onion is in order instead.

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.

Highly seasoned grilled shrimp served on grilled fresh corn tortillas with salsa fresca, onion, cilantro and fresh lime.

Tex-Mex Grilled Shrimp Tacos

I love any kind of Mexican or Tex-Mex food, though outside of the usual standards of tacos, burritos and quesadillas - we pretty much go out more often than making it at home. The main reason is I have an adventurous palate and almost never order the same thing.

The Cajun, well he's the total opposite and almost never steers away from the crunchy beef tacos. It's kinda funny really, because he'll study the menu for awhile, but then when the server arrives, it's always crunchy tacos!

Fresh tomatoes, onion, jalapeno, fresh lime juice and cilantro make up this fresh salsa. Use it as a dip for tortilla chips, as a garnish for tacos, fajitas and quesadillas, or as a side condiment for grilled meats.

Pico de Gallo

Although we are nearing the end of backyard season, tomatoes, like most other once seasonally available vegetables, are actually now available year round.

Even still, you and I both know that winter tomatoes are picked early to survive their long travel path and just do not taste the same as our summer tomatoes, especially those backyard tomatoes, straight off the vine. Now is the perfect time to enjoy this fresh salsa as much as you can.

Thing is, with pico de gallo, there really is no "right" recipe. It's strictly personal.

A quick and easy skillet meal made with ground beef, fresh tomatoes, rice and summer squash and finished with shredded cheese.

Ground Beef and Squash Skillet

Y'all probably already know that I am into skillet meals. They're quicker than their more involved counterparts - like my skillet jambalaya, gumbolaya, skillet lasagna or ziti, and great for busy weeknights.

Like a lot of you, I also love summer squash, but mostly it gets pushed into being either a snack or a side, rather than a featured dish. This version makes it more main dish with the addition of ground beef and rice, though it's really a very versatile dish. Well drained canned or thawed frozen mixed vegetables or corn may also be added to expand it even further.

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 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.

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.

Summer Vegetable Gumbo - Garden in a Pot. A mix of summer's best veggies like sweet onion, fresh corn, zucchini, yellow squash, tomatoes, green beans, sweet bell pepper and okra, a perfect dish for the veggie lovers!

Summer Vegetable Gumbo - Garden in a Pot

Let's have a last hurrah for summer y'all! We are finally at the end of it this Friday, well, at least according to the calendar. There won't be any fall-like temperatures showing up here in the Deep South for awhile yet even then. In fact, the past two days there has been a heat index advisory of 110 degrees. Hey, the good news is this dish can be served hot, warm or at room temperature!

I love vegetables, and this stew is loaded with the summer vegetables I love.

Other than just a general vegetable stew, I actually wasn't quite sure what I wanted to call this recipe when it was all said and done, but when I opened the stored container to heat up a serving the next day, and the aroma immediately spoke gumbo to me, so that's what I settled on. 

Sausage and Garlic Potatoes - skillet fried potatoes, cooked with Italian, breakfast or turkey sausage, plenty of garlic and fresh or canned tomatoes.

Sausage and Garlic Potatoes

Okay, right up front, I reckon this isn't the prettiest picture, and I'm sure, due to the nature of the internet, somebody is gonna feel free to let me know that.

Truth is though, you and I know that a lot of the best tasting foods aren't necessarily the most photogenic. As a person with a blog of recipes, some are a little difficult to "style." Have you seen my mandarin orange fruit salad, aka to many of you as ambrosia salad? There is no way to make that dish look good, but man is it delicious! I've already told y'all what I think about all that photography business anyway. I'm just more about the food around here! Heck, I didn't even take this one out of the skillet I cooked it in.