Transform a pork shoulder into this simple but amazingly delicious dish with a quick sear, simple seasonings, lightly caramelized onions and a simple roux. Fantastic.

Smothered Pork Roast with Rice

This Smothered Pork Roast recipe is as simple as it comes. A seared pork roast, seasoned with salt and pepper, smothered in a gorgeous garlic, rosemary and thyme infused gravy, and braised in a covered Dutch oven, low and slow. The original recipe called for a boneless pork butt or shoulder, but I could only find a 7 pound bone-in pork shoulder, and even that just barely squeezed into my Dutch oven. The downside to using the bone-in roast is that there is less meat, but it was enough for the two of us. It is a heavenly way to utilize a cut of pork that is most often reserved for pulled pork sandwiches though it can be used for other cuts as well. The fragrance of it will surely bring you back to grandma's kitchen and the flavor is just simply pork perfection.

Real Cajun Cookbook Review

Real Cajun: Rustic Home Cooking from Donald Link's Louisiana

I asked Santa to bring me a copy of Real Cajun: Rustic Home Cooking from Donald Link's Louisiana, for Christmas this year, and what a beautiful, mouth-watering testament to The Deep South did it turn out to be. The first recipe I decided to try from it, was this simply delicious smothered pork roast, and let me tell you - if this roast doesn't drum up some memories of pork roast at grandma's house, I don't know what will.

Black-eyed Pea Jambalaya - Deep South Hoppin' John

Our Deep South version of the lowcountry favorite, Hoppin' John, this Black-eyed Pea Jambalaya contains bacon, ham, spicy smoked sausage, black-eyed peas and rice.

Deep South Hoppin' John

Black-eyed Pea Jambalaya is just the way we down here in The Deep South look at what most other southerners call Hoppin' John, but let me tell you. I have seen lots of folks, from magazines to big bloggers, being scolded by Hoppin' John purists all around the internet here lately for incorrectly referring to a dish of black-eyed peas as Hoppin' John, because the newer trend lately seems to be serving black-eyed peas over rice and calling it Hoppin' John.

As always, just scroll down the page a bit past the chit-chat to get right to the recipe and a printable, otherwise...

A great cold weather soup, this delicious beans and greens soup starts with a chicken base and includes both black-eyed peas and collard, mustard or turnip greens.

Greens and Black-Eyed Pea Soup

This super quick and easy recipe for Greens and Black-eyed Pea Soup is a basic take on good ole beans and greens, but in a soup form. You can use any greens and southern pea that you prefer, and it won't matter a bit.

A mixture of long grain rice, Louisiana crawfish tails, cream soups, bell pepper and spicy seasonings brings this rice dressing to life.

Crawfish Rice Dressing

I recently had the chance to give Cajun Country Rice a try and they provided me with a Crawfish Rice Dressing recipe that sounded too good to pass up.

A recipe that has been handed down from mother to daughter, it was absolutely delicious and would make a fantastic addition to any holiday, including your New Year's Eve party menu.

A fantastic and tasty sweet breakfast casserole that you throw together the night before and then just slide into the oven in the morning.

Overnight Baked French Toast Casserole

Overnight French Toast Casserole is one way to get a delicious and well loved breakfast favorite prepared for a crowd and quickly on Christmas morning or New Year's Day. Those are two of the rare occasions where I can actually manage to remember to prep a breakfast casserole the night before.

Cajun Potato Salad made from potatoes boiled in crab boil, the fabulous Trinity trio of vegetables, a flaky Creole seasoning, spicy mustard, southern Chow Chow & what else but bacon!

Cajun Potato Salad

What is Cajun Potato Salad? There is no real definition for it that I can find, and in fact, most people just make a typical southern style potato salad, add a bit of spicy mustard and Cajun or Creole seasoning, and call that Cajun Potato Salad. Well, I decided I needed to remedy this!

A fantastic custard dessert sauce, perfect for a wide variety of cakes, assorted fruit, or as a dressing for fruit salad.

Old Fashioned Custard Cream Sauce

This old fashioned sauce is perfect for cakes and fruit. Just drizzle it on fresh fruit, cakes, or stir it into fruit salad. This is really just my Old Fashioned Drinking Custard recipe, with a few minor changes for thickening. Try it drizzled on pound cake.

Grandma's Old Fashioned Boiled Custard Recipe and Eggnog Base

A heirloom recipe, Old Fashioned Boiled "Drinking" Custard, was once used regularly as a simple drink meant to sooth the sick. It's a rich and creamy beverage, just like Grandma used to make, delicious anytime and an excellent base for homemade eggnog.

Old Fashioned Drinking Custard

Looking for the best eggnog recipe? Well, look no further than old fashioned boiled custard, because that is the beginnings of a most excellent eggnog. I'm pretty sure that boiled custard, or "drinking" custard as it was once commonly referred to, is decidedly southern. Not only is it a traditional drink in The South for the holidays, but it was often used to comfort those in the sick bed. I do know one thing for sure, we southerners absolutely do love our custards, and we love them in many forms.

Original Magic Bars with Variations

No matter how you layer them, these classic Magic Cookie Bars are addictive. Most often they are layered with a graham cracker crust, sweetened condensed milk, chocolate chips, and sometimes butterscotch, or even a combination of them, coconut and nuts.

Original Magic Bar

If you Google looking for 7 Layer Bar recipes, most of what you will find are bars listing these five basic layers - though many do also add another layer of butterscotch chips - yet they all seem to count the graham crackers and butter as individual layers.

Some recipes do melt the butter, and then simply pour the graham crackers on top, rather than mixing and pressing them in, so I guess that's one way to consider them separate layers.