Shrimp & Grits

In an effort to make post-graduation-bar-exam-studying less painful, my friends and I have decided to start a dinner club and take turns hosting potluck dinners once a week. We call it the "Summer Supper Club," and each dinner will have a different theme. Today's inaugural dinner theme: Southern Comfort. So we feasted on pulled pork (which will be featured in a guest blog post soon), shrimp & grits, fried pickles (which I will blog about tomorrow), green bean casserole, biscuits, salad, and pecan pie. Mmm.

I've never made grits. I've never eaten grits. I've never actually worked with cornmeal. But, all the recipes online looked fairly straightforward, so I wasn't too worried. Just boil some water/stock and stir in cornmeal. Easy-peasy, right? Not exactly! Apparently when the recipe says "gradually add cornmeal to the boiling liquid," it means it. I started out by dumping in half the cornmeal in one go and panicked when it immediately began to form unappealing lumps instead of mixing smoothly into the liquid. Yikes! Fortunately, frantic whisking and less hasty incorporation of the remaining cornmeal solved the problem, and suddenly I had grits in a pot.

Now, grits by itself would be pretty boring right? I mean, it's just cornmeal and water - corn mush, really. So, lets add some cheese to kick it up a notch. Then, lets top the whole thing with shrimp! Shrimp cooked in bacon fat, of course. De-lish!