My husband’s favorite food is cereal.  He could eat it for every meal and snack, with a little chocolate thrown in for good measure, and never get tired of it.  Doesn’t allow me much room for creativity, does it?

Thankfully, he is willing to change it up at dinnertime and eat what I cook.  Lucky for him, he can now get his vitamins from something other than the powdered ones sprayed on his Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

His second favorite food is shrimp, which was his only request for our wedding reception (after being told we couldn’t have a cereal bar).  He loves them in any form (except jumbo) and any flavor, but loves them the most with a big helping of creamy grits.

This is a fabulous way to cook shrimp to serve over grits, so they have a nice light sauce.  It’s delicious for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.  Sometimes I will cook some diced onions and peppers at the beginning, for a little change.  And the next day, if there are any shrimp leftover, I’ll warm them up and top a salad with them like this, using the sauce for the dressing.  Mmmm.

Charleston Shrimp

from Shortbread

serves 4-6

Ingredients

• 1 pound medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice, divided
• salt and cayenne pepper
• 4 slices bacon
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup green onion, thinly sliced
• 1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped

Directions

1. In a bowl, sprinkle shrimp with 1 tablespoon lemon juice, salt and cayenne pepper, and set aside.
2. In a skillet over medium heat, cook bacon until crisp. Remove from pan and chop.
3. Add garlic and green onion to the bacon drippings and cook for 1 minute. Toss in shrimp and stir until just pink.
4. Remove from heat and stir in parsley and chopped bacon. Sprinkle with 1 teaspoon lemon juice and serve immediately over creamy grits.

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When I used to live in the “Furniture Capital of the US”, I was invited to the premiere of Martha Stewart’s furniture line at one of the showrooms there.  I’m not really sure how I ended up on the guest list, and I thought it was a joke at first, but I RSVP’d for me and my guest and my mother and I dressed up and went.  As we sat there with all the furniture buyers and sellers, we realized listening to Martha speak that she actually has a really good sense of humor.  She is actually very funny in person, something my mom and I agreed wasn’t displayed in her television shows.

The other thing we found out was that the food was FABULOUS!  Lots of different little sandwiches and toasts and pecan tassies and cookies and brownies, oh my.  And while we were eating I saw someone I recognized but I couldn’t put a finger on where I had seen her before.  After wracking my brain for hours after we left I finally realized it was Sara Foster from Foster’s Market in Durham, NC.  I had seen her on Martha’s show and her cookbooks and she had catered this event for Martha.

So it was not surprising to me that this recipe I found over at Ezra Pound Cake was adapted from one of Sara Foster’s recipes.  It was a surprise, however, that I had never thought to top my cheese grits with roasted veggies.  That’s one of the things I love most about the food blogging community, discovering new foods and especially new ways of preparing foods you already eat.  I’ve had my grits topped with lots of things:  tomatoes, shrimp, red-eye gravy, mushrooms, bacon, but I never thought to add some mixed veggies to the top like Rebecca did.  But let me tell you, it is gooood!

Here is my way of cooking grits.  I like to use stone ground grits from a local mill, but regular grits work just as well.  And the morning after you make roasted veggies, add some leftovers to a bowl of cheese grits and even top it with a fried egg a la Karen.

Creamy Grits

from Shortbread

serves 4-6

Ingredients

• 2 cups  milk
• 2 cups water
• 1 cup stone-ground grits or regular cooking grits
• 3/4 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup half and half

Directions