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We’ve probably all been cooking at home a bit more than usual with restaurants not at full capacity, and if you are anything like me, you might be tired of your meal rotation. 🙂

I have been wanting to add some new recipes to our lineup, so I recently purchased a cookbook I had been thinking about for a while.

It has quickly become a new favorite. It’s called “What Can I Bring? Southern Food for Any Occasion Life Serves Up.”

I have quite a few Southern cookbooks. I know a lot of people turn their noses up at Southern cooking, thinking that it is all fat and sugar-laden, and much of it is. But that’s what makes it so good. 🙂

It is also a lot of comfort food and is very flavorful. I grew up in the Midwest, and have been told that has affected my ability to produce flavorful food. 🙂 I know it’s true and I keep trying to get better at making tasty dishes.

I have lived in the South far longer than I lived up North, but my husband still brutalizes my food with salt and pepper fairly regularly.

So I got right to work making some recipes in this book. I LOVE this cookbook.

I like everything about it. It’s big. It’s thick and heavy. It has beautiful photography. I even like the fonts in the book. 🙂

There are stories to go with each of the recipes. I may be weird, but I love to READ cookbooks. I enjoy looking at all the pictures and reading the stories and recipes. If you do too, you will really enjoy this one.

The recipes aren’t arranged as they are in a typical cookbook, with appetizers first, then soups, salads, entrees, then desserts. Rather, the recipes are arranged by event, as in “what can I bring to this event?”

The categories include:

• Potluck
• Bringing Baby Home
• Road Trips
• Weekend Getaways
• Dinner with Friends
• Boys with be Boys
• Four Quarters and Food (tailgating)
• Under the Weather
• Moving Day

So within each of these sections, you will find all kinds of recipes like appetizers and entrees, and desserts.

The first recipe I made from this cookbook is the pot roast from the Potluck section. I’m not a huge pot roast lover, but my daughter is. She has a friend who loves to invite her over for her mom’s pot roast.

But this recipe sounded intriguing because it uses very few ingredients, one of which is a jar of pepperoncini peppers, and it cooks all day in a crockpot.

I love any meal that I can start early in the day and go about my business and have dinner ready in the evening.

So I made this roast and I can now say I AM a pot roast lover. This is so delicious. Really unusual with the peppers, but very flavorful and tender. I’ve made it twice now since getting the cookbook.

 

From the Bringing Baby Home section, which is full of recipes to take to a new mom, I made the Consomme Rice with Mushrooms. This is really delicious.

My daughter said this can be added to our menu weekly. 🙂 It’s very easy to make and bakes in the oven so you can do other things while dinner is coming together.

I also made the Summer Salad from this section. If you like “bread salads” that use crispy bread cubes as part of the salad, you will love this. It is full of vegetables and a homemade vinaigrette and is not the least bit soggy.

And for dessert, I tried the Pound Cake. Oh. My. Goodness.

This pound cake is the best one I have ever eaten. Now be forewarned. It uses a cup and a half of butter, which is a LOT. But that must be why this cake is so good. My daughter took slices of it to work with her and ate it for dessert every night until it was gone.

It comes with a recipe for peaches and cream, but peaches are not in season yet here so I skipped that part until the summer when the peaches come in. I will definitely make this with summer fruit. I think it would be delicious with strawberries.

If you like pound cake, this one is for you.

 

From the Road Trips section, I made the Crack Crackers. These are crackers that are mixed with olive oil and seasonings, then baked.

These are very similar to the Savory Crackers we make a lot here with a packaged mix that you put on crackers along with oil and let them soak overnight. They don’t have to be baked. They are ADDICTIVE. If you haven’t tried them, you should rectify that immediately. 🙂

I also made the Nicoise Salad. This uses farfalle pasta, fresh vegetables, feta cheese, and a homemade vinaigrette. Really refreshing.

This section also includes a recipe for Pimento Cheese, which I intend to make soon.

For some reason, my intense love of Pimento Cheese is a source of amusement for my husband and some of his friends. They love to harass me for liking it.

The ladies in my Daughters of the American Revolution chapter make the most delicious little crustless Pimento Cheese sandwiches as part of our luncheon menus, so if it’s good enough for them, I don’t care if I get made fun of for liking it. 🙂 So I plan to make myself a big batch to enjoy the next time my husband is out of town.

 

From the Weekend Getaway section, I made the Chicken Enchiladas. They have a nice amount of heat thanks to Hatch green chilis and green enchilada sauce. I really liked these. You just assemble them and bake them.

Just last week I made the Tossed Green Salad with Tequila Lime Dressing. The word my daughter and I both used to describe it was “bright.” It was really refreshing and she said it was one of the better salads she has eaten. And tequila, so how bad can that be? 🙂

 

From the Four Quarters and Food section, we made the Hangover Sliders. They were very interesting and we used the leftover filling as a dip with tortilla chips. Delish.

I also made the Sorority Pasta. Very simple to make and quite tasty.

 

From the Under the Weather Section, I made the White Bean and Kale Soup. It has a delicious broth, along with lots of healthy vegetables and pasta. Not hard to make at all and definitely comfort food.

I have the Chicken and Dumplings on my menu plan for this week and am looking forward to trying it.

And from the Moving Day section, there is a recipe calling my name for Chocolate Twinkie Cake. I don’t know why a person would have to do something so awful as move to get a Twinkie Cake. 🙂

I LOVE Twinkies. I know they are gross and have a shelf life of a hundred years. I don’t eat them very often but when I do I really enjoy the experience.

So I’m going to need to make this Chocolate Twinkie Cake for myself very soon. There are Twinkies, chocolate chips, eggs, heavy cream, and pecans involved so I don’t see how it could be anything but heavenly.

So I hope you feel as though I have tried a good sampling of recipes in this book in order to recommend it. There is nothing I hate more than reading a recipe online or a cookbook review on Amazon and all the reviews just say, “Can’t wait to make this!” “This sounds delicious!” I want to know!

I like everything I have made so far from this cookbook, and my family has really enjoyed having these new dishes in our dinner lineup. And any leftovers make great lunches to take to work the next day.

None of the recipes have been hard to make. There is a LOT of butter involved in these recipes, so stock up if you plan to try out this cookbook. 🙂

So if you’re looking to shake things up around your dinner table, I can fully recommend “What Can I Bring? Southern Food for Any Occasion Life Serves Up.”

Have you tried this cookbook? I’d love to know! Or any other cookbooks you love. I’m always open for recommendations.

And I’d love for you to follow me on Pinterest!