I mostly cook old southern style and also lots of Tex-Mex (and I agree that Tex-Mex isn't at all the same as Mexican food) since I grew up in Texas. Summertime meals always are built around fresh veggies southern style....sweet corn, tomatoes, okra, southern peas, melons, etc., preferably from our garden, but from the Farmer's Market if the garden didn't produce what I want. I use tomatoes in everything.

One of my quick, go-to summer meals is Chicken Tortilla soup because I can use fresh tomatoes, onions, garlic and peppers from the garden in it,and sometimes I add fresh corn to it as well. We eat a lot of salsa with everything in the summer, since I'm making/canning batches of it for weeks on end, and we use various hot peppers with anything and everything. Both green beans and sugar snap peas make frequent appearance at home-cooked summer meals because I freeze them when they are plentiful, and it is so easy to thaw and cook them. We also consume a lot of potatoes since we have them in dry storage from the late spring/early summer harvest.

Summer fruits are a big part of our meals, too, since they are in-season, fresh and generally don't require cooking, unless you're turning some of the fruit into jam, jelly, pies or cobblers.

We also grill a lot in the summer, since we love beef, chicken and pork right off the grill, and it helps keep the kitchen cooler if you you're grilling outdoors.

When the heat peaks from mid-July to mid-August, we back off on the cooking of hot meals a little and focus on lots of cold or cooler foods---tons of salads, fresh fruits, melons, berries, etc. and lighter meals like salmon, tuna and chicken.

I always try to build meals around what is available from our garden, whether it is fresh-picked that day or was harvested/preserved months ago. One of my favorite cookbooks is an old Southern Living magazine veggie cookbook from, I guess, probably the 1950s or 1960s. It has many different ways to prepare veggies, and using it keeps me from getting in a rut and preparing the same things in the same ways over and over again.

Yep I can dig some southern cooking to. But it just seems like the mexican flavors show up in our cooking more often than not. Though we do some fusions to like fried fish topped with smoky green salsa or fish tacos and tons of other things. Or mashed spuds topped with pepper gravies instead of cream gravies. Or chopped roasted poblanos and fresh garlic mixed in the potatoes. But there seems to always be a mexican or latin influence no matter what the dish. Fusion foods can be awesome.

I would say my style is mostly boring right now since I cant have most seasoning and foods. I roast a lot of veggies with onion and garlic and honestly that as fancy as I can get. Leafy herbs are in there if i have the energy but lately not so much.

Saute is my favorite. This year brought enough tomato harvest to create my own tomato paste. I like plain sauteed but I've really piled on the flavors for Chinese rice or Spanish rice.

I really like to cook and eat asian food. Just food in general really.

My favorite is what someone else cooks ;)

I have been sick for a few days so it was nice to be able to be back in the kitchen today. I love to make bread, so for lunch we had a big chef salad, with cheese, bacon, sunflower seeds, black olives, and all those things from the garden like cucumber, tomatoes, about 4 kinds of peppers, onion, basil, etc. We ate it with a fresh pan of focaccia topped with sesame seeds and still hot from the oven.

Amy, I agree! I don't cook from scratch nearly as much as I should any more. Luckily, my husband and son both enjoy cooking so they do it quite a bit nowadays as well.

Carol, I'm glad to hear you are feeling better and the meal you prepared sounds yummy.

One thing that I meant to say earlier, and didn't, is that I try to cook seasonally as much as possible----which can mean that we have asparagus and greens from the garden every day when they are in season, for example.

Another thing is that even though I do a lot of traditional southern cooking, we try to eat a healthier version of traditional southern cooking, which means there is very little frying of anything in this house any more. We bake, broil or grill our meat dishes instead of frying them. I kinda miss that part of southern cooking. We also eat a lot more grains like quinoa and couscous. So, traditional southern cooking with a healthier focus and lots of Tex-Mex sprinkled in.

Since we have a large garden, it produces more seasonal produce than we can eat fresh, so I do preserve a lot of it. When buying produce in the garden's "off-season", I also try to focus on buying the produce that is as close to its fresh season as possible too.

Dawn

We don't always eat seasonally, but I believe those veggies grow at a time when you are supposed to eat them, like your body might need more greens in the winter than tomatoes. Dawn asparagus is good but I can only stomach so much of it at a time. We oil it season it and grill till golden brown and delicous. We really do not broil anything and actually fry very little. We mostly grill or smoke with boil or simmer being a distant 3rd. There is no smell in this world like poblanos roasting on charcoal!

Well... maybe garlic roasting on charcoal!

Oh yeah. I've been doing much more roasted garlic since it has been my own harvest. And onions? Caramelized all the way !!

I tried to answer the question and put myself into a category, but I couldn't. I like southwest style cooking a lot, but I also like southern, Greek, Asian, well most everything. Not crazy about many German dishes, but we like a lot of different foods. Al likes wild meats, but there aren't many that I like.

Dawn, thanks for the well wishes and I am doing better. It is just the time of year when I always seem to have trouble. Fall doesn't like me.

Oh yes we are very creative here at our house, meat and potatoes,or potatoes and meat. If I try to spice it up I get the look. I do make different things for me but I get tired of cooking two separate meals.

I cannot eat leafy greens it is a texture issue. I love everything on a salad but the lettuce. I know very weird, just can't do greens. My momma use to cook Polk salad and I couldnt get it down.

Carmelized/burnt onion relish might be the best condiment ever created. On a ribeye its unbeatable

Cooking Style- If someone else does the dishes, they can make requests.

This time of year it is roasted chicken with whatever veggie is fresh on the side. Or sandwiches/left over chicken with whatever veggie is fresh on the side. Roasting or grilling has become a favorite. Not just because it is healthier than frying, but who wants to dip in flour, egg, then cornmeal, then fry, then clean all those dishes in the heat?

We also like TexMex and Mexican, but other than basic tacos, don't make a lot this time of year, because it's too hot.

I very generally tend to go by the plan: Meat on Sunday night, then during the week- One night "leftovers", One night sandwiches from leftovers, one night salads from leftovers, tacos or burgers one night, One night take-out. I think that's five meals. Leftovers could be exactly what we had on Sunday or omelets/quiche, sandwiches, stir-fry or tacos/enchiladas/burritos or soup with the leftover meat and whatever veggies are on hand. I try to expand Sunday meat to at least 3 meals total. And since we both need to improve are diets, having the meat ready, means focusing on preparing the good veggies each day and trying to make it half the plate. Well, it worked last week anyway.

Favorites right now:

Squash (yellow, zucchine, pattypan, whatever) sliced and grilled on both sides on the cast iron grill (lightly oiled) on the stove. Salt to taste.

Okra, tossed with a little olive oil and maybe some garlic powder, broil or 425F for about 15 min. in the toaster oven. If you think about it, shake the pan once or twice. Salt to taste. My husband likes butter added too.

Cucumber Salad- cucumbers and a little onion. Changes each time. Maybe tomatoes or squash, if we have them. Olive oil, vinegar(balsamic, apple cider, rice, white wine- to taste for the day), Splenda, maybe lemon, salt and pepper to taste.

Sliced mamies, with salt and pepper.

Think I need to go make dinner :)

Andria

I am cooking easy things this week, so we had hobo dinners. Small onions, new potatoes, peppers, hamburger patty, salt, pepper, and a little butter, wrapped in foil and cooked on a pan in the oven. Also had boiled squash, and fresh cucumbers and Sungold tomatoes. Almost everything was from the garden. Just like Boy Scouts. LOL

How long and what temp for the hobo dinners in the oven? I try not to eat lunch out. Being self employed sometimes thats difficult. When I can I will carry a tiny grill with me. Somtimes I make "mexican" hobo dinners with thin sliced beef, peppers, onions, and potatoes. When it comes off the grill it goes on tortillas with salsa. Delicous and very cheap lunch. Plus I can keep working while its cooking.

I cooked it in heavy duty foil bundles, on a pan at 400 degrees. I didn't time it, but it was probably 40-45 minutes. Some potatoes were small and others were cut in bite size pieces. We always added a scope of canned soup to the bundle when we did them in Scouts, but I just add a little butter for flavor and that along with the juices from the meat is plenty of liquid. I kind of loaded ours down with peppers tonight because I had a huge basket of them in my kitchen. Hopefully I will get those peppers cut up and into the freezer tomorrow and I need to make some applesauce to finish up my apples. With the rain we are getting tonight, there will be no outside work here tomorrow.

Do you cook your patties first of put them in raw? Can you add veggies like corn or green beans?

Scott, There is no smell like ANY peppers roasting! Truly! If I was trying to sell a house, I'd have peppers and tomatoes dehydrating or roasting in the oven just to fill the house with that delicious aroma. I think a house would sell based on how good it smelled!

I miss frying! I miss making home-made fried chicken and chicken fried steaks as well as fried pork chops, and fried potatoes, or my dad's summer garden dish where he'd mix together sliced potatoes, okra, onions and peppers (hot or sweet) and fry them in lard or bacon fat, sprinkling a handful or two of cornmeal over them as he fried them. We never had a name for that dish but I loved to make it, and it too has been relegated to the more fattening meals of our past and no longer is included in the healthier meals of the present day. Tim has high cholesterol, though, so frying things in the old southern style is something we dropped almost entirely at least 15 years ago. Homemade fried chicken still is a favorite birthday meal here in this household, and I'll make it if that's what the birthday person wants. I think that on their birthday a person should get to eat what they want. If you're eating healthy most of the time, an occasional old-style fried southern meal won't hurt.

Stockergal, Well, I grew up on meat and potatoes, growing up in Fort Worth a few miles from the Stockyards. Beef was always the main thing we had when I was a kid, but we did have lots of chicken and occasionally pork or fish. It is just that when you live in a Wild West sort of town like Ft. Worth (I am sure OKC was very similar in the same decades) where beef and potatoes are the holy grail of meals, that's what you eat. I'd still rather eat meat and potatoes than anything else, but we do try to eat more fish and poultry now and less red meat. My first job was as a waitress in a steakhouse and I would have eaten steak every day if I could. It has been hard to slowly (way too slowly, most likely) learn to eat in a more healthy manner.

Carol, As soon as I saw "hobo dinners", I did instantly think "Boy Scouts!" That's some good eating, and I love hobo dinners. I also love cooking anything/everything outdoors in cast iron dutch ovens, also a remnant, I guess, from our Boy Scout days.

Andria, Well, you made me hungry! We do cook a lot less in the heat. I love it when cold weather returns in fall or winter and find myself spending a lot more time in the kitchen then (coincidentally at a time when I am spending less time in the garden).

I find eating healthy works best for me one day at a time. (grin)

If I had to think that I'd only eat perfectly healthy meals for the rest of my life, I'd rebel and go buy and eat the biggest ribeye I could find, and then I'd finish the meal with incredibly rich and delicious homemade (made from scratch) chocolate cake. An occasional cheat day isn't too bad, but we truly are eating healthier than we ever have, most days.

We are trying really hard to eat healthier as we get older, and it isn't always easy. The taste buds want what they want, but I do think that once I cut a lot of junk out of my diet, I don't enjoy it as much when I do eat some of it because my taste buds have learned to enjoy things that are less fattening, less processed, less salty, etc. I suppose that's a good thing, but I miss the days when I was younger and had better metabolism and could eat anything and everything I wanted and never gain an ounce. Those days are gone forever.

If I ever find a way to grow my own chocolate, I'm in trouble.

Dawn

Dawn, I have a collection of dutch ovens and other cast iron cookware, but it is small compared to the dutch oven collection my son in Ft Worth has. I love dutch oven cooking.

Stockergal - I put the meat patty in raw. I have added carrots, and small pieces of corn on the cob, but green beans should be OK to. Sometimes I add different herbs just to change it up a bit. By the time the potatoes are done, the meat has had plenty of time to cook.

Today we had soft tacos for lunch and I told Al we were having the meals this week that our kids always loved, so I guess it is kid week at our house. He said, "Keep it up." Maybe we will have pizza tomorrow. LOL

Thanks, I am going to give them a try.

Awesome reads. I, too, make scores of soft tacos out of whatever leftovers are on hand-chicken, beef, pork making certain to add fresh peppers.

This week started with a large ham. We've whittled breakfast slabs and sandwiches from it. I tossed the rest of it into the crock for beans since it's cool and we can tolerate a hot dish right now.

Stockergal... Lettuce, because I haven't mastered growing, is a PAIN. I make tabouleh without the tabouleh and be done with it. I like to eat this "salad" on pita bread with leftover hamburger meat. Kinda like bland kahfta. My husband is meat and taters and he feels left out . I make it up to him by splurging a single t-bone or sirloin steak that was on sale with a baked potato once a week. (Ya'll notice the prices? sheesh)

My favorite breakfast omelet: diced potatoes, onions, green zucchini and scrambled eggs. Gently fried in that order.

Carol,

Cooking in cast iron is an art, and I understand why people love it so. I'd rather bake biscuits or cobblers in a cast oven with coals than in an indoor oven any day of the week.

We also use a cast iron skillet a lot. Sometimes when I'm baking cookies (and always when I am making a pecan cream pie) I will make my own brown sugar simply by browning regular sugar in a cast iron skillet. That's how my aunts always made pecan cream pie---by making their own brown sugar---so I feel like I am cheating when I use store-bought brown sugar.

I think a week of kid's meals sounds superb, by the way.

Bon, You will master growing lettuce. It is so simple. Once you get the hang of it, you'll wonder why in the world it ever seemed so hard to do it. You will have better luck with direct sowing the seeds or with buying transplants the next time you want to try it. Direct sowing works well as long as it isn't raining so heavily that the seeds wash away before they can sprout.

Transplanting young transplants (buy them the first week they appear in local stores so they won't get rootbound) is a cinch as well because the transplants already are nice, sturdy and stocky.

Growing lettuce from seed indoors and then transplanting it out is about the hardest way to do it because the seeds become etiolated very, very quickly and then tend to get damping off (even when nothing else does) and die. It probably took me 2 or 3 tries to grow lettuce indoors from seed when I first made a light shelf and began starting seeds indoors because I just couldn't get the young seedlings enough light close enough to them to keep the plants from stretching. I had grown it by direct sowing in the ground for many years, but had oodles of trouble that first year getting it to sprout and grow properly indoors under lights. I laugh about it now, but I was really frustrated with it then.

If rabbits, voles, field mice, birds, squirrels or other creatures eat it as soon as it sprouts (a common issue here, even within the fenced garden) in the ground, then you might prefer direct sowing it outdoors in a container. You can grow a ton of lettuce in one large container.

I agree about the price of beef (and many other grocery items as well). When we want beef, we go to a German grocery store in Muenster, TX, that has its own meat-slaughtering facility behind the store. You get good, high-quality, fresh beef and they'll cut it to any size you request. It tastes like I remember beef tasting when I was young, living in Texas.....and you cannot say that about a lot of the junk they sell in stores as beef nowadays. Even the ground beef there (and it isn't any more expensive than the ground beef in any of the local stores on either side of the river) is of a superb quality and it doesn't have junk like "pink slime" added to it either. If we're gonna spend money on beef, it has to be great beef. Sometimes we will see ribeyes at Sam's that look good enough to buy, and their quality never has disappointed us either, but that's a hit or miss thing. When we go to Muenster, we know we're getting great meat every time.

I have eggs almost ever morning, often in an omelet, and when I do, I usually add diced Canadian bacon, onions, green peppers....and whatever other veggies are sitting in the fridge. We have our own eggs, too, and that's a wonderful thing because they're always fresh and their yolks are a deep yellow since the chickens free-range and eat a wide variety of food. I can't stand grocery store eggs with their paler coloring.

If we close on the property, chickens will be in our future. I don't recall what fresh chicken or eggs taste like. I have somewhat recently eaten fresh beef. Not chicken, but that which tastes like rubber.

my husband loves Mexican food so he has some great recipe books and cooks away, usually he changes them some. I eat them now and then but they are fattening. I usually have a smoothie, omelet, salad, veggie drink and toast.