grits

1202 Shrimp and Grits

~ brixton ~ Leave a comment

Dinner tonight? Really and truly exceptional.  Shane gave it five stars.  I wish I’d taken a picture.

Instead you’ll have to imagine pan-fried corn and shallots tossed with snow peas, shrimp, and a handful of slow-roasted cherry tomatoes served over creamy and wonderful grits.  A pinch of red pepper flakes to add a bit of heat.  No cheese or other enrichment necessary.  Just simple, fresh, hearty, and delicious.  I halved the shrimp and grits and used the full portion of veg, which made plenty for the two of us for dinner plus leftovers for Shane’s lunch.  I can’t wait to eat this again – good thing we have almost everything on hand thanks to the summer’s preserving.

Recipe:
Shrimp and Grits (and then some) from Dinner: A Love Story

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1004 Stone Soup Kitchen

~ brixton ~ Leave a comment

The hardest part of my last morning in Atlanta? Deciding between Ria’s Bluebird and Stone Soup Kitchen for breakfast. Both have adorable websites. Both were about a 20 minute walk away. The former supposedly has the best pancakes on the planet, while the latter has cheese grits. Cheese grits? Done and done.

Stone Soup Kitchen

SSK is everything I could want a diner in the South to be. Colorful characters. Impeccably fried eggs. A good biscuit and a bottomless cup of coffee. Sunshine and no hurry. The cheese grits didn’t blow my mind, but they were a great excuse for a nice walk on my last morning in town. But then so were the sweet potato biscuits that I picked up to take home.

Miles walked: 3.75

If you go:
Stone Soup Kitchen
584 Woodward Ave
Atlanta, GA 30312
(404) 524-1222

0405 Shrimp and Grits

~ brixton ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been stalling on posting this because Shane took a couple of really lovely photos of this delicious dinner that I wanted to include in the post.  So blame the tardiness on him.  It’s definitely his fault.  And definitely not the fault of the post-vacation sleepies.  Nooooo, never that.

0405 Shrimp and Grits

Seriously, though, this was a recipe worth doing battle with the post-vacation sleepies.  The grits are made with milk, making them richer and creamier than your standard breakfast variety grits.  The bacon is fried then set aside (for snacking) while everything else is sauteed in the rendered fat.  Prepping everything did require some manic whisking and a lot of what’s going on in this pan? what’s going on in that pan? what’s happening over here? – but it only lasts a few minutes, and then you have a totally comforting and delicious plate of food in front of you and all is forgotten.

My friend Paul, a lifetime Southerner, was blown away by the concept of shrimp AND grits, together at last!  I was blown away that he’d lived all his years in the South without ever bumping into them.  This is one combination I hope to revisit again, and soon, especially since it’s rumored that we can get LOCAL shrimp here in the Mitten.

Recipe:
Shrimp and Grits with Spinach from Bon Appetit