Shrimp in a creamy pasta sauce over pasta.

Creamy Shrimp and Pasta

Mealtime has been pretty simple around here with all the yardwork goin' on, and I need to get to the grocery store too!

The leaves are steady falling out there, which if any of you have to deal with this every spring (or fall, depending on your tree), you understand the frustration. No sooner do you get them up, and sweep your walkway before it looks like you never touched it! But ... if you wait and don't keep at it, well, not only is the job MUCH bigger, but those leaves are smothering that grass up underneath that is trying to sprout and crowd out the weeds!

A simple seasoned and seared chicken breast finished with a cranberry-based barbecue sauce and baked.

Cranberry Chicken Bake

Cranberry chicken is a very simple recipe - a combination of cranberry sauce turned into a barbecue sauce and baked with a lightly seared chicken.

It's a super easy dish, but the combination of the tart cranberry, with the sweetness of the brown sugar, and just a tiny bit of a kick from some Cajun seasoning, produces a super tasty sauce. Be sure to serve some of that sauce on top of the chicken and also on the side.

Stuffed pistolette rolls, baked or deep fried, crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside and filled with a creamy shrimp or crawfish sauce.

Baked Shrimp Stuffed Pistolettes

Lawdy mercy, are those good.

Remember those pistolette rolls that I made the other day? Well, I specifically set aside a couple of them so that I could make some stuffed pistolettes. And I gotta tell ya, those rolls are so darned good, it sure wasn't easy to keep any until I got around to these! When I make a batch of them they never last long. Thank goodness they are so easy to make!

Tip for Melted Chocolate

When you are using melted chocolate for drizzling, to prevent it from seizing up and hardening on you, add a teaspoon of Crisco shortening in with the chips as you melt them.

Can also use this with caramel - but use butter instead of shortening.

Chicken, slow baked over rice and bacon, in a flavorful cream sauce.

No Peek Bacony Chicken and Rice Bake

This chicken and rice dish is one of my personal favorites and a site favorite and it is awesome! Now I know that we've all had the usual condensed soup with rice and chicken bake, but this one is just a bit different. It's loaded with flavor from the bacon and seasonings ...

I'm tellin' ya the rice is just over the top! You really gotta try it.

Homemade Pistolette French Rolls

I am soooooo grieving my sweets.

And I have so many to share with y'all too! Most southern style sweets these days have shortcuts like using boxed cake mixes so they are just super easy breezy to make and, well, they are downright tasty ya gotta admit. But... we'll get back to those after Easter, promise.

But... do you know that I near about also gave up bread for Lent???!!!???? Can you imagine?

What was I thinking? Not doing sweets and desserts has been difficult. Very hard. I miss my sweets!

But if I had to give up bread too at the same time?? Ayiyiyi... I love the Lord, I do .. but I would be SO miserable and you know what they say.

If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy!

Anyway, I had a taste for some of my homemade yeast rolls so I whipped up a batch of them. Now yes, I have posted about these before, but I tell ya, they are worth a repost. I can't tell you how many recipes I tried and adapted and tried and adapated before I finally came to this one that I consider the perfect-for-me French roll.

If you arrived here off of a web search I apologize for givin' ya a repost and yet another link to click through, but forgive me cuz if you're looking for a French roll, this is the recipe for you! They really aren't a lot of trouble and they are sooooooo good, like a little mini French bread pistolette roll - those of you from the south know exactly what I'm talkin' about! The rest of y'all can just call them French rolls and that'll be just fine. Make 'em smaller (or don't!) for a great roll for dinner, or just do the larger dozen for sandwich rolls.

These are delicious just plain with a slather of Land O'Lakes pure butter on 'em, they're great for any kind of deli meat, they wrap like pure heaven around some of those leftover boulettes...

...and they are especially perfect to make up some stuffed pistolettes (y'all knew that recipe was coming up didn't ya??!).

However you wanna eat 'em, I sure hope you give 'em a try!!

Cajun Beef and Pork Boulettes with Brown Gravy

Cajun Beef Boulettes, a well seasoned beef and pork meatball, simmered in a roux based gravy, usually include a little surprise of garlic, button mushroom or even an olive tucked up inside.

Mary's Cajun Beef and Pork Boulettes with Brown Gravy

Boulettes is French for pellet or ball, and can be made with just about any type of ground meat or seafood. They are sometimes formed into patties instead of balls. Cajun Beef Boulettes include a little surprise of garlic, button mushroom or even an olive tucked up inside. Many Cajun cooks brown their boulettes in a pan first, then deglaze the pan with wine or stock and create a sauce, adding chunky peppers and onion to the stew.

Others flour and fry their boulettes. I prefer to finely chop up the veggies by hand, because I tend to turn them into mush with the food processor, and then add them in the meat mixture. I also prefer to stew the boulettes slow and long in a roux (what else?!) instead of precooking them. I think both of these produce a very tender and delicious meatball.

Easy Dark Oven Roux

A dark roux is essential to a good southern gumbo, but it's time consuming, you can get burned easily, or worse, burn the roux and have to start over. This easy oven method really simplifies roux making and you can make it ahead and store it!

How to Make an Easy Dark Oven Roux

See that chocolately brown jar of lovely goodness? This, my friends, is pure gold to a southern cook! What is it you say? It is a deep, dark red Cajun roux, and one that is most appropriate for gumbos or meaty stews. It's a roux that is time consuming to achieve on the stove top, taking a great deal of patience, and a lot of attention to get to the right color without burning it or yourself.

Banana Pudding Oatmeal

With this cold weather that has moved in, this morning was a perfect day to add to our series The Oatmeal Chronicles - or How to Make Your Oatmeal More Interesting.

Now since I gave up sweets and desserts for Lent, I did use only one crushed Nilla wafer on top and one to garnish for the sake of the photo, but I personally would recommend at least 3 to 7 crushed wafers for layering and the topping, plus the one whole one wafer for garnish (8 wafers is a serving size of the reduced fat wafers) as I've put in the recipe, in order to achieve the full 'banana pudding' effect.

I considered using some dry sugar free vanilla pudding powder, but decided on the protein powder in order to give the oatmeal a protein boost. I used a vanilla ice cream flavored whey protein powder because that is what I have in the pantry. If you don't happen to have protein powder, you might give the dry pudding a try. In keeping with the vanilla inspiration, I also used a vanilla Splenda Flavors for Coffee tube for sweetening, because, again, I happened to have some in my pantry. You could certainly exchange that for any sugar substitute, table sugar, stevia, honey, or your preferred sweetener.



Banana Pudding Oatmeal
Posted at http://deepsouthdish.com

3/4 cup of Quaker old fashioned oatmeal
Pinch of salt
1-1/2 cups of water
Scoop of vanilla protein powder
1 tube of French vanilla Splenda Flavors for Coffee
3 - 7 Nilla wafers, crushed
1 banana, sliced
1 Nilla wafer for garnish
Heavy cream to drizzle, optional

Combine the oatmeal, salt and water in a large microwave safe bowl, between 2 and 4 quarts to allow for expansion. Stir together well and microwave on high for 3 to 5 minutes, depending on your microwave, or until oatmeal is creamy.

Spoon half of the oatmeal into a serving dish. Top with 1/2 of the sliced bananas and 1/2 of the crushed Nilla wafers. Layer the remaining oatmeal on top, then the rest of the banana. Sprinkle with the rest of the crushed Nilla Wafers and garnish with one whole Nilla wafer. Drizzle with cream around the outside edges, if desired.

A nice change from the usual, sandwich those scrambled eggs between flour tortillas along with some cheese, ham, sausage or bacon, and you have a great breakfast quesadilla.

Breakfast Quesadilla

I don't know why but I had a taste for a quesadilla this morning.

I happened to have some nice deli ham on hand, but these are great with cooked and crumbled sausage or bacon, or deli turkey.

Serve with a side of fruit - I had a banana - and a bit of chunky salsa and a dab of sour cream or Greek yogurt on the side for dipping and this will feed two, or one very hungry adult. One half of it was plenty filling for me.