I’m the kind of person that always has his hands in many different pots.  I’ve always got several different “projects” (as my wife calls them) going on at one time.  For years, I’ve been fascinated by photography and it has been an undercurrent to many of my past “projects.”  For a while, I even shot weddings.  It was a lot of fun, but it was tough being gone 5 days a week at my real job and then having to spend all day Saturday gone to a wedding.  I hadn’t shot a wedding in years when I got a request from a dear friend of mine asking if I could shoot her grandmother’s wedding.  Well you can imagine that I don’t get requests like that often… a grandmother’s wedding.  The bride’s granddaughter and I went to school together and her daughter was one of my most favorite high school teachers so I agreed to help out.  Y’all!  That was the sweetest thing I have ever seen!  The bride is 75 and the groom is 83.  They both had been married for 50 years previously, but lost their spouses.  They found one another and found love again.  They were just as young, vibrant, and in-love as any twenty-something couple I had ever shot.  It was such a beautiful, heart-warming reminder that no matter who old you get, love never dies.  I can only hope that Heather and I are still as much in love when we’re that age.

This Georgia Cornbread is one of my most favorite new recipes!  It’s actually a very old recipe, but it’s new to me because one of my wife’s patients brought these into the office the other day.  She brought me home a couple and I instantly fell in love with them.  They have a flavor that is similar to my Pecan Chewies, so if you like those, I know you’ll like these.  They actually taste nothing like cornbread and are certainly a dessert.  The finely chopped pecans give the texture of cornbread though, so that where I’m guessing they get their name.  I hope you’ll give these a try adn that you love them just as much as I do.  Y’all enjoy!

I don’t have much time to do reviews, but every now and then a product comes along that captures my attention.  Heather and I had just been talking about nonstick cookware when an email came though introducing me to Swiss Diamond.  I currently have an all stainless cookware set and had been thinking about looking into some nonstick pieces.  I’ve had nonstick stuff in the past, but I’ve never been overly impressed with it and it didn’t wear very well.  For me, a nice set of cookware is an investment.  The cheap stuff doesn’t hold up to the abuse my pots and pans get.  Plus, I really like the sear you can get on things with stainless that I’ve never really been able to accomplish using nonstick.  Well,  all that changed when my box from Swiss Diamond came in.  I love coming home to packages, but this one I was especially excited about.  I put the 3.8-quart – 10.25-inch saute pan to work that very night and have been using it for several weeks since then.  I’m still just as impressed as when it came out of the box.  I especially love the size and depth of this particular pan.  I’ve used it for everything from my Asian Slaw to Sloppy Joes to my Hot Tomato and Bacon Pasta.  The amazing patented coating is reinforced with real diamond particles to provide superior even heating and a nonstick surface that really works.  In terms of nonstick cookware, this is the best piece I’ve ever had.  The nonstick finish allows you to use very little or no oil at all and is a cinch to clean.  Some warm soapy water is all it takes to get the pan sparkling like new.   In fact, they recommend that you hand wash the cookware, but it is dishwasher safe for those occasional nights when you just don’t have time to hand wash.   I love that the body of the pan sits perfectly flat and the clear glass lid has an adjustable steam vent.  As with most nonstick, the company advises you to use wooden or silicon coated utensils to protect the surface.  The pan is oven safe to 500 degrees and I love that there are no rivets in the pan to have to worry with cleaning.  It’s also not nearly as heavy as some of the other nonstick stuff I’ve had.  In a few short weeks, it has become my new favorite pan.

The best part is that the folks at Swiss Diamond are going to give one lucky Southern Bite reader the exact same pan!  One of you will get to see just what I’m talking about.  The prize has a retail value of more than $130.  To enter, simply leave a comment below.  You have until Friday, May 17, 2013, at midnight CST to enter.  Be sure to visit Swiss Diamond on their Facebook page or on their website at www.swissdiamond.us.

Details: No purchase necessary. Contest ends May17th at 11:59 pm CST. One entry per person. Winner will be chosen at random. Odds of winning depend on the total number of entries. Winner will be notified by email and must claim prize within 48 hours. US residents only. Void where prohibited. Prize  provided by Swiss Gourmet USA.

Cream Cheese Mashed Potatoes – I’m not sure why I never thought of this before, but it just hit me the other day like a ton of bricks.  J-man is going through a little bit of a picky phase right now, but I can always get him to eat mashed potatoes.  Now, mashed potatoes aren’t exactly my most favorite side dish, so I had been looking for ways to change things up a bit when this hit me.  You know I put cream cheese in my grits and my pimento cheese, so why not mashed taters?  The result is FAN-TAS-TIC!

Oh, I gotta show you something.  So, the first photo shoot for the book is this weekend.  It is going to be very family focused, so I wanted to have all my family gathered around a big old farmhouse table with a bunch of random chairs – you know like grandma knew everyone was coming over and just pulled all the different chairs she had together so everyone would have a seat.  I couldn’t find the right kind of table so I just built one!  I used this tutorial from 2 Little Hooligans on how to give wood an aged look and I think it turned out perfect – all weathered looking.  I can be a little handy sometimes but I was really pleased with how it turned out.  I think it’s going to look great.  I can’t wait for y’all to see everything when the book comes out next year.  If I can remember, I’ll try to post some photos to my Instagram this weekend to give y’all a sneak peek.

Y’all enjoy!

Well it’s official. Last week I joined the legions of chair hauling, bag toting, sports drink carrying parents and became a soccer dad.  I was a little nervous about it at first, but we’re really enjoying watching these little guys run around.  I’ve always been frustrated about the parents who take kids sports too seriously, but we don’t have that yet.  It’s great at this age because they don’t have the pressure that older kids feel to perform.  These kids are really just having a good time.  Some will be in the game and others might be picking flowers or watching a plane go by, but it’s just not a big deal.  I’ll admit that I will never be the kind of parent that thinks every kid should get a trophy (I’m afraid that it might teach kids that you don’t have to work hard for success), but it’s nice at this age for it to not be only about winning.  Sometimes it’s just nice to have fun just for the sake of having fun.  You know?

Y’all know how much I love things that are easy and use things that I already have in the pantry.  This old recipe here is no exception.  The end product is a gooey chocolate cake that has great crunchy pieces of topping throughout.  The best way to serve this is warm with a big ol’ scoop of vanilla ice cream.

If you see a Facebook group or website that posts my photos and writing onto his or her page instead of linking to SouthernBite.com directly, they are in violation of both the Federal DMCA Act and Copyright Law.

The reason why this is bad is because it costs a great deal of money to operate SouthernBite.com and other websites where content is illegally taken from, my server bill alone is more than most people’s mortgage payment each month. When people take content that others have written and developed and put it on their sites, it makes it harder for those offering the content to pay the light bill, for services that they provide free of charge to you.

Hours, sometimes days, are put into creating one post, that all the offender’s do is copy and paste in order to drive traffic to and  promote their site and/or Facebook page. Once our content is stolen, we are also penalized for having duplicate content on the internet, and our recipes receive lower priority in search engines as well.

Often when this happens, it isn’t meant as a violation of a federal law and is just someone who wants to share a recipe that they really liked. But sometimes, this is done by people and even companies who repeatedly copy and paste content from those who have worked hard to develop it, willingly and knowingly.

Often, these people say “You can’t copyright recipes”.  While you can’t copyright a random list of ingredients, our writing (descriptions, introductions, instructions, etc) and photographs are copyrighted – and each post represents hours of work that these folks steal in under a minute and use as a platform to build their sites on.

However,  just about everyone reading this who shares recipes do so with no malicious intent, and bloggers realize that. This is intended for those who willingly violate federal law despite having received complaints, and having been reported, by knowingly and repeatedly stealing content from sites to place on their own.

If you see a site or Facebook page with repeated complaints, a blogger who has to build new sites because their old ones are taken down, these are clues that such sites and pages are being run by repeat offenders who fully understand that what they are doing is illegal. A lot of people don’t realize that the websites we enjoy free of charge cost a great deal of money to operate. These sites and pages that run primarily off of stealing content from other sites take all food bloggers one step closer to not being able to afford to continue.

It’s easy for us to share a recipe. While photos are copyrighted, all of the bloggers I know welcome sharing photos as long as a link to the recipe is given to the recipe rather than the entire recipe reposted.

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See my examples of how to legally share a recipe and photo below:

I love Stacey Little’s Sweet Cornbread Muffins! Here is a link if y’all wanna check out the recipe! http://southernbite.com/2013/01/09/sweet-cornbread-muffins/

Made this Stuffed French Toast last night. You have to try it. So easy! http://www.southernplate.com/2012/02/overnight-stuffed-french-toast.html

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Thank you so much for helping all of the bloggers who provide free sites around the web for all of us to enjoy and special thanks to all of the Southern Bite Family members who have emailed and messaged me to make me aware of this growing problem. Without all of you, there wouldn’t be a Southern Bite!

*If you are a food blogger who would like to repost the above statement, changing out your url for SouthernBite.com, please feel free to do so. Let me know in the comments if you have and I’ll be happy to add a link to your blog below so that others can enjoy you recipes, too! Thank you!

I’ve got another great blogger here to share with you today.  If you’re not following Donya at A Southern Soul, you certainly should be!  She’s sharing some great food over that way.  I’ve not known her for long, but already know that she’s good people.  Y’all also jump over to her Facebook page and show her some love from the Southern Bite family and make her feel welcomed.  I am so grateful to her and her willingness to take the reigns.  Take it away, Donya…Well, I’ve got to say it straight up y’all, I am just beside myself with excitement that Stacey invited me to be a guest writer today!  As you know, he’s been so busy with his new cookbook and then had unexpected surgery.  I am honored he asked for a “stand-in” and hope you enjoy hanging out with me today.

Springtime has finally arrived along with warmer weather.  Those two things make me think of cooking outdoors and fresh salads.  With those thoughts in mind, I combined several delicious ingredients that my family loves – grilled shrimp, bacon, and spinach.  I turned these three into a wonderful salad that makes a complete meal.  Just add a little crusty bread and you are done!

I wanted to share this recipe with you today because of this – Stacey and I have never met in person. We’ve become friends via our blogs, our love of food and our love of where we’re from.  Which got me to thinking…that if we lived closer to each other, I have the feeling that we’d be sitting on my back porch, enjoying this salad, taking in the sunshine and sharing great stories of food and family. Thanks, friend…

I hope you all will give this salad a try and stop by to hang out with me at A Southern Soul.

Counting my blessings,

First up is Brandie from The Country Cook.  She’s been gracious enough to share with y’all before and I know you’ll just love what she’s brought you today.  Y’all be sure to jump over to her blog and visit her Facebook page to tell her thanks!  Here’s Brandie…

I am so excited to be over on Southern Bite today.

I feel bad that it’s because my good friend Stacey is recovering from emergency surgery but I’m happy that he is recovering so well! I was honored that he would invite me over again to share another fun recipe.

The recipe I’m sharing today is an easy weeknight meal. Now that the weather is getting nicer and kid’s activities are picking up, it’s good to have a few go-to easy weeknight meals that maybe even your kids can help you make.

And what is great about this one is you can make it lots of different ways. Instead of ground beef you can use some shredded pulled pork. Or you can use ground turkey or chicken, whatever suits your fancy.  Serve with some fresh veggies or a crisp, green salad and you have a filling and family-friendly meal.

I hope y’all will love it as much as we do.

Thank you again to Stacey for always being such a gracious host. I hope y’all will stop on over to my place sometime and say hello. I sure would love to have you visit.

Also, if you’d like full step by step photos for this recipe, you can view it here.

Enjoy!

Y’all will have to excuse my brevity today.  The manuscript for the book is due in about 2 weeks and I am madly finishing things up to get it to my editor on time.  But, I couldn’t leave you without a recipe this week.  These ooey, gooey Butterscotch Blondies don’t last very long at our house.  And put some vanilla ice cream on one of these puppies… oooo you betta shut yo mouth!  You can replace the butterscotch chips in these with chocolate or vanilla chips, if it suits your fancy, but these butterscotch ones just really make them sing – if you ask me.

I’ll be around the next few weeks, but might be scarce, so y’all bear with me.  I’ve got some great friends who will be helping me out by sharing some of their favorite recipes.  I know y’all will welcome them with open arm.  Y’all enjoy!!

This easy preparation results in a super tender, yummy roast beef that is even better the next day on a Reuben sandwich.   Sometimes the leftovers are better than the original dish.  : )  Just keep in mind that the corned beef shrinks a lot when it cooks, so make sure you grab one big enough to feed the whole family.  I usually plan on about 1 pound (precooked) per person.  Happy St. Patrick’s Day!   Y’all enjoy!

This is by far one of my most favorite pies, but I have hesitated adding it to the recipe collection here on Southern Bite for two reasons.  First, it takes a little while to make and if you don’t have a stand mixer you might end up hating me.  The other reason is that my original recipe calls for raw eggs.  And while I’ve been eating pies and ice cream with raw eggs in them for years – it hasn’t killed me yet – I realize that older folks, babies, and others with a compromised immune systems should avoid them.  Well, I’ve got some good news and bad news.  The good news is, if you’re not keen on raw eggs, you can try this new recipe that uses pasteurized eggs.  I used the store brand of Egg Beaters.  It’s pasteurized so it’s much safer to consume without them being cooked.  The bad news is that you still have to stand over the mixer for 15 to 20 minutes, but the result is the most velvety, smooth pie you’ve ever imagined.  One taste and you’ll see that the time put into it was totally worth it.  It’s great by itself, but top it with some fresh whipped cream and as my sweet great-grandmother used to say, “It’ll make your tongue slap your brains out!”  Y’all enjoy!