Shrimp and Grits

One of my favorite southern dishes is shrimp and grits.  I didn't always like or even understand the concept of the dish, but I have grown to love it and have finally decided to make it.  The first time I heard of the dish was many years ago when my parents were throwing a dinner party.  As always it was craziness in the house before the guests arrived.  People were yelling, pots were clanging, and I was sitting there confused over this shrimp and grits mixture.  My step-dad, Jack, was the chef for the night, and he was such a great cook.  He was more of a throw-something-together-sort-of-using-a-recipe kind of chef, and he used his creativity to make great meals, but in return, left the kitchen a huge mess, which did NOT make my mom a happy camper.  Thank goodness kitchens have doors and none of the guests had to witness this debacle!  (I believe I learned all my cooking attributes from that smart, crazy man)  I remember hearing that we were having shrimp and grits for dinner and being so confused.  "Why would you eat grits that you eat for breakfast with shrimp?!"  I did not understand it and being the picky, stubborn child I was, I did not eat it.  Years later, though, I have learned to love this dish, and now I think of this moment every time I eat shrimp and grits and think how I missed out on one of Jack's great meals (lesson for all those picky eaters out there!)

So now here I am wanting to spread the love of this special southern meal with this recipe.


Grits
3 cups of milk
1 cup of water
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of pepper

1 tablespoon of butter

1 cup uncooked quick-cooking grits

1/3 cup of shredded Parmesan

1/3 cup of mozzarella or  any other type of cheese (I also use Gouda)

Shrimp

5 slices (or 10 whatever your preference) of bacon

1 pound of shrimp

1 cup of thinly sliced onion

2 cups of grape tomatoes halved

2 garlic cloves

1 teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes

1 tablespoon of sriracha

Start off by making your creamy, cheesy, delicious grits!  Mix the milk, water, salt, pepper, and butter and bring to a boil.  Keep an eye on the milk and stir occasionally as the milk will stick to the bottom of the pan when it starts to cook.  Once the milk has started to boil, stir in the grits slowly and turn the heat down to low.  Let the grits cook for about 5 minutes and stir in the cheese until it melts.  I like my grits super cheesy, so you can add as much cheese as you like.  Just be careful with the salt content because the more cheese you add the more salty the grits will become. 

Now comes the best part! BACON!  Cook your bacon in a big fry pan and take in that yummy smell of cooked bacon.  I like mine pretty crispy especially for this dish, so I cook mine for about 7 minutes on the first side then flip and cook for about another 3 minutes on the other side.   Once cooked, take out the bacon and crumple it all into pieces and set it aside for later.

Pour out the bacon grease (but not into your sink, duh), but leave about a tablespoon in the pan because....you will be cooking your shrimp in that heart healthy grease!  Add your shrimp to the pan and cook for about 2 minutes on each side and then set aside the shrimp.

Now add your sliced onions and halved tomatoes to the same pan and cook for about 5 minutes or until tender.  Add the garlic and cracked pepper and cook for another minute.  Now add the shrimp and bacon back to the pan and pour in the sriracha.  I like my shrimp pretty spicy, so I tend to add about 3 squeezes of the hot sauce (real technical measurements here) until I taste enough spice.  Only cook until the shrimp are warmed up because you don't want to over cook them.  Now just spoon the shrimp mixture over your yummy grits and you are ready to chow down! 

  

I hope you enjoy and maybe you too will now think of my step-dad whenever you eat this dish!  Go Jack!

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Ecco For My Birthday!

This past Saturday was my 26th birthday and because I had plans to watch football and drink and go out dancing with friends the night of my bday, my mother and I had to have my traditional bday dinner earlier in the week, and I knew exactly where I wanted to go.  I had purchased a $40 for $20 coupon to Ecco a while back and the deal expired the night before my bday, October 7th, so needless-to-say, this was a must use, and plus I just love the restaurant!  In addition (no, I'm not done yet with the deals) I have a Fifth Group frequent buyer card and coincidentally you get $20 off your bill the month of your bday.  Again, needless-to-say it was a must use! So after all this thought and consideration, I Opentabled that biatch and made us a res.

One of the things I love about this place is the atmosphere.  The bar at the front of the restaurant is huge and is always hopping, even on a Wednesday night when we attended.  The hardwood floors and the dark accents and the loud environment makes it feel very New York.  We were immediately taken to our seats and along came our waiter, Chris Brown.  Not the Hide your Wife Chris Brown obvi, but it did make for some lame jokes that I'm sure he's never heard before.  Anyway, I digress.

We first ordered the fried goat cheese, which are infamous at Ecco, and we were persuaded by CB to also order the Piquillo Peppers that were stuffed with braised beef.  I was so glad we listened to him!

If you have never had fried goat cheese, you are really missing out!  Especially these little balls of heaven!  They are fried, but the coating around the cheese isn't heavy at all.  It's more like a light wind breaker.  Then these wind breaker wrapped cheese balls are dipped in honey and topped off with some peppercorns.  It is freaking amazing!  The trick, though, is to dip them in the honey at the bottom of the bowl, and it is just such a succulent little cheese treat!  The peppers were delicious as well.  The beef had such deep flavors and was so tender while the peppers were sweet and juicy.  Very yummy!

For those of you that don't know, I love love love Italian culture and most of all Italian food.  I literally could eat pasta everyday of my life if my body would let me.  Last year for my birthday we visited Sotto Sotto in Inman Park, which if you have never been and love Italian food, you need to go NOW!  So while I branched out this year, I just could not hold myself back from getting the pasta and I was not disappointed!

For my main course I chose the Chili-braised Pork with Garlic and Pappardelle.  The pasta was delicious!  You could definitely tell the pappardelle was homemade, and it was perfectly al dente just the way I like it.  The pork was tender and juicy and I loved the fresh basil.  It was def right up there with Sotto Sotto.

My mother took a different route for her main course and ordered 2 more small plates.  She chose the squid which was grilled with capers, chives, and lemon and the winter squash fritters with chive aioli.  I had never had grilled squid before and was a little nervous to try it, but I have to say it was pretty delicious!  You could really taste the lemon, and the capers just gave it a little boost in flavor so it didn't taste as fishy as I thought it would.  You could tell the squid was fresh and with all our heavy food so far, this was a nice, light dish.

Speaking of nice and light...I think the wine had gone to our heads a little at this point because I didn't realize the squash FRITTERS we had ordered would be deep fried until they came upon our table in a nice, rich, battered, and fried form, and we both sighed in utter defeat.  Because I HAVE to try everything we order due to this little blog I run, I had a tiny/medium sized bite and that was all I could muster.  While it was surprisingly very moist on the inside (ugh I hate that word and I can't believe I just used it-the "M" word that is) and the chive aioli was a great accompaniment, I couldn't eat more than a bite.  It was just too rich for me.

Finally, it was dessert time.  Due to fullness of the bellies, I didn't think I could eat anything else, but Mr. Brown thought otherwise and brought us some more balls, but this time they were of chocolate.  Champagne truffles to be exact.

Yes, those are my teeth marks because that is all I could eat of the truffles.  Not that they aren't delish because they are, and I am a deep lover of chocolate.  I just thought one more bite and you might as well just roll me out like the purple girl in Willy Wonka.

It was such a great dinner and I always have so much fun with my mama (especially when we are eating and drinking wine).  Best 26th bday of my life!!

Food Trucks

If you have been following my blog/are friends with me, then you know how much I love the food trucks of Atl.  While my work usually hinders me from being able to venture to the food trucks for lunch in midtown and at the Stoveworks, I finally was able to find time to go to the truck stop in Virgina Highlands.  A couple months ago the trucks started gathering every Wednesdays in the parking lot right next to the CVS and across from the American Roadhouse on North Highland, and last Wednesday a few friends and I met up in said parking lot to feed our faces.

We started off at Yumbii (the old faithful) because they really are the first food truck I knew of in Atl before the fad exploded in this city.  I am such a fan that I tweeted them almost every day for a few weeks or so to try and get them to drive waaaaay OTP to John's Creek where I work, so I could get some yummy tacos, but unfortunately my witty, charming tweets was not enough to haul ass out to the JC.  So after Yumbii's brutal game of playing hard-to-get, I finally conceded and came to them and got me a pork taco. And boy was it delicious.  I honestly don't remember what all was on the taco because I was soo hungry and as you can see above the line was insanely long, so by the time I ordered, was complimented on my ring (smile), and rushed to get my taco when I heard my name called I devoured my food just slow enough to savor the tastes.  The marinade on the pork was so sweet but also spicy and I added some extra sriracha to kick it up a notch.  It was a simple pork taco but with such deep flavors that made me want 5 more tacos, however, I had other trucks to go to and only so much room in my stomach, so I powered on!

The next truck we tried was new to the lot and called Ibiza Bites.  From what I could tell by the menu and obviously the name, this place had a Spanish influence.

My eyes immediately went straight to the fried green tomatoes on the menu, but after we stood in the second long line of the night and we were 2 people away from ordering, the dreaded "Sold Out" sign was laid over the FGT, and I about cried!  So I pulled myself together and decided to order the Ibiza Signature Bite which was basically some beef brisket over some yummy, creamy stone ground cheddar grits.

I have to say the dish was much more than a "bite," which was good since I paid a whopping $7 for it, but it wasn't the best brisket ever.  Everything was cooked perfectly, but I think it could have used a little more spice and the grits could have been a little more cheesy.  I like my cheese grits super cheesy and creamy like one of my favorite restaurants in Athens, The Last Resort, which has some of the best grits I've had and these just did not cut it.  But next time I would REALLY like the try the FGT.  Let's make that happen people!

So of course the next stop was dessert and I really wanted a cupcake, but that food truck was all sold out too!! Not a good night for me, but again I sucked it up and headed over to Honeysuckle to get some gelato.  I got a scoop of the Dock of the Bay which was salted caramel and a scoop of the Chock Full which was roasted hazelnut gelato.  I liked both, but you just can't compare to the salted caramel from Morelli's.  There is simply nothing else like it.  Period.  But I still enjoyed the gelato and finally had to stop eating because I was so full.

I hope to have another food truck night out soon and next time I will have to get there early to avoid the crazy lines and to get the food that I want!