Black Bean Salsa is one of those recipes we make all the time at my house. I could live on it--and often do--especially in the summer. Black Bean Salsa uses mostly pantry ingredients, and the hardest part is opening the cans. I usually have fresh limes around, but in...
Mediterranean Shrimp with Tomatoes and Feta
Mediterranean Shrimp with Tomatoes and Feta is based on a classic Greek dish, Shrimp Saganaki. In Greece it’s predominantly served as an appetizer, often as part of a mezze (i.e., appetizer) platter. The word “saganaki” refers to the two handled-pan typically used to...
Tomato and Artichoke Galette
Everybody I know loves a tomato pie. It’s summertime right now and no one will shut up about it. Tomato pie this, tomato pie that, etc, etc, and then they look at me, and I’m all like . . . What??? I don’t make that kind of tomato pie. Those of you who have...
Roasted Eggplant Parmesan
Just because a dish has been around for a couple of hundred years, doesn’t mean I can’t fiddle with it, right? The modern version of what we call Eggplant Parmesan appeared in the Italian aristocrat/gourmand Ippolito Cavalcanti's cookbook, Cucina Teorico-Pratica,...
Deviled Crab
Those of you who grew up here on the Gulf Coast surely remember the stuffed deviled crabs in the freezer at the grocery store. They were in real crab shells, filled with a sort of mildly spicy crab dressing, individually wrapped, and cost about 50 cents each. You may...
Fresh Roasted Tomato Soup
It’s summertime in Baldwin County, Alabama, and I hope you’re absolutely inundated with fresh local tomatoes. And when it gets too hot for tomatoes on the coast here in a minute, I hope you’ll buy silly amounts of Sand Mountain, Alabama tomatoes, which are the next...
Pineapple Fried Rice
I should warn those of you who are looking for genuine Thai food that this Pineapple Fried Rice isn’t especially authentic. This is a recipe I cobbled together from many different sources, and then adapted it to our US Gulf Coast pantries. It’s delicious, though. We...
The Very Best Banana Pudding
Over the years I’ve learned a few things about food and cooking: --Respect your ingredients. --Salt and pepper are ultimately the most important seasonings. --Fresh is usually best, but not always. --For Father’s Day dinner, Dads are interested in only two things:...
Grape Salsa
It’s summertime, y’all! And I have an easy and refreshing summertime snack for you: Grape Salsa. I served this Friday night at the Eastern Shore Art Center, and it seems many people had never heard of Grape Salsa. At first some people were confused. One sweet woman in...
Parmesan Roasted Green Beans
What if I told you I have a vegetable recipe that your family will gobble up as fast as they snarf down French fries? What if I also told you making it was silly easy, but it sounded sort of fancy? (Y’all know that’s my favorite kind of recipe.) Well, Parmesan Roasted...
Strawberry Cobbler
Strawberry season is in full swing here in Baldwin County, Alabama. I've already made a couple of batches of Tiny Batch Strawberry Preserves, I’ve eaten a fair number of strawberry spinach salads, and I still can’t make myself pass up local strawberries at the...
Chicken Tortellini Soup
Everybody in my universe tells me they love chicken noodle soup. I totally get it, and I like to think of it this way: rich, flavorful stock, tender carrots and celery, lemon zest and juice, dill and parsley, and plenty of tender white meat chicken. Plus pillowy...













