Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Check Off One From the Bucket List!

Tonight, I did something that I have wanted to do for months now.  If I had a bucket list, this would be one item that I could finally check off.  Being a farm girl from rural Virginia, one would think that this would not be a big deal, but for me it took a lot of courage from start to finish.  I obsessed over the time factor that this task would take to complete.  Today, I realized that I had all the necessary preliminaries in tow.  I thought I might need a second pair of hands to help me with my task since so much of it would come together simultaneously.  So I called my daughter and asked her if she would consent to be a guinea pig for her mom's project.  She said "yes" so I was committed to go forward with the plan.

So tonight for supper, I made...
 Shrimp and Cheese Grits!
They were great!  I read so many recipes that I ended up using a combination of recipes.  I could do a lot of the preparations in advance such as baking the bacon to crumble, slicing the little green onions, and grating the cheddar cheese,  Here is what I finally put together.

Cheese Grits
1 1/3 cup water
1 14 oz. can chicken broth
1 cup evaporated milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup uncooked grits
1 1/2 cup sharp cheddar cheese, grated
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
1/2 teaspoon hot sauce
1/4 teaspoon white pepper

Bring the water, chicken broth, salt, and milk to a boil.
Slowly stir in the grits.
Cover, and reduce the heat to barely simmer.
Cook for 12-14 minutes.  Stir occasionally with a whisk.
When cooked sufficiently, add the cheese, hot sauce, and pepper.
Keep warm until ready to serve.

Bacon and Shrimp Sauce

7 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled.  I bake mine in the oven, and it crumbles well.
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 pounds shrimp, peeled and deveined   
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

6 green onions, chopped
2 tablespoons fresh parsley

Cook bacon and crumble.
Reserve about 4 tablespoons of fat from the cooked bacon in a skillet.
Saute' minced garlic in the fat.  Add the shrimp and cook for about 3 minutes until the shrimp is no longer pink.
Add the lemon juice, onions, and Worcestershire sauce.
Stir in the crumbled bacon.
Spoon grits onto a plate.
Sprinkle with parsley.
Top with the bacon-shrimp mixture.

There was not a morsel left-a success!