Demented Ramblings

A couple of weeks ago, the birthday girl made us dinner. She served Shrimp and Grits, which was quite tasty, but made the boyfriend say “gack” because he refuses to let a grit get near him. Hates them with the fire of a hundred burning suns or some such very large amount. I decided that I must learn to make this dish, yet change it to accommodate him. The sweet girl never has remembered to send me the recipe, which I can’t fault since I am more than a little bit of a procrastinator myself. So, I took what I remembered from her dish and several recipes that I found online and combined them all together.

There is nothing healthy about this dish, but it tastes terrific. I will give you the recipe as close as possible, since I sort of made it up as I went along. Besides, I need to remember this as much as possible so that I can do it again.

Shrimp and Not Grits

• 1 medium onion, diced
• 3 cloves of garlic, chopped fine
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 8 ounces sliced mushrooms
• 6 slices of bacon
• 14 oz shrimp (that’s the size bag I found, you could go with a little more or less)
• 1 tomato, diced
• 6 green onions, thinly sliced
• fresh thyme
• white wine
• cornstarch
• butter
• olive oil
• chives
• risotto
• vegetable stock
• salt
• pepper
• parmesan cheese (1/2 cup?)
• white cheddar cheese (4 oz?)

Start off by chopping the bacon into pieces and frying it until crispy. Drain it, saving the grease, and place on a paper towel

Melt 2 T butter and 2 T olive oil in a pan, add 1 cup risotto and allow to saute/toast. Add 1 cup of veggie broth at a time, stirring constantly and allowing all broth to soak in before adding the next cup. Repeat until you’ve added 3 cups of broth total. When risotto is finished, add another T of butter, shredded white cheddar cheese, and parmesan. Add a bit more broth if necessary, salt and pepper to taste. Top with chives.

While the risotto is cooking, in bacon pan melt 1 T butter and 1 T olive oil. Saute red pepper, onion, garlic, and mushrooms. Add a few sprigs of thyme and a pinch of herbs de provence. Cook until veggies are tender. Add shrimp and continue to saute until shrimp is done. Mix reserved bacon grease with about a cup of white wine and add to mixture. When it comes to a boil, add cornstarch/water mixture to thicken. When it is almost done, stir in chopped tomatoes, green onions, and bacon.

Serve the shrimp mixture over the risotto. This kicks ass.

As a side dish I sauted up some yellow squash, zucchini, and onion with a bit of rosemary. Very tasty.

The boyfriend says that mine was better than the original, but that’s only because I didn’t use grits. I thought the original was better, but that was mainly because someone else cooked it for me. Either way, it’s a wonderful dish. If I don’t forget before then, this might be mum’s next birthday dinner.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 2nd, 2006 at 9:50 pm and is filed under Experimental Kitchenry, Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.