Lets talk about grits. What is a grit? GrIts are a food of American Indian origin. Grits are very popular In the south. Grits are coarsely ground corn. Grits are very inexpensive and they are great to serve when you are feeding a large group. They are mostly eaten for breakfast. Our family eats them for breakfast, lunch and dinner and even for an appetizer. There are a lot of different ways to prepare grits. Grits are usually prepared with one part grits to two parts water. Now if you know the Sweet and Savory Sisters you will know that we do not use water in our grits. Are you kidding me? We like to use heavy cream or chicken stock or a combination of the two. I also add butter to the grits while they are cooking. These girts are so good that they will make you want to slap your Mama. When cooking grits it is very important to salt your water/heavy cream or whatever liquid you are using. Don’t be afraid to salt them good because there ain’t nothing worse than a bland grit. It is very difficult to salt them after they have been cooked. It is also important that you slowly stir in your grits into the liquid and continue to stir the grits while they are cooking. If you don’t do this they will be lumpy and you don’t want lumpy grits.
I love grits and we have them a lot. I served them at my wedding and people loved them. That was the only thing I didn’t have any leftovers of. My friend came running in the house and said I need another pan of grits. I said are you freaking kidding me? I know they have not eaten all of those grits. Well she wasn’t kidding me. The cheapest thing I served was the most popular thing there. We had tons of shrimp and tenderloin leftover but no grits. A friend of ours from Hawaii had never had grits and he did not want to try them. His girlfriend got him to taste ours and he loves them now. Well, he loves our grits. Who wouldn’t love something that was cooked in heavy cream, butter and then finished off with cream cheese more butter and then baked with even more cheese. Shut up, this is good stuff.
Claire, a family friend sent me a message today and suggested that we have some grit talk on our blog. One question she had was, what were some recipes for left over grits? The first thing that came to mind was grit cakes. We were on the Paula Deen show not too long ago and made our plantation grits(recipe is on the blog). Jamie, her son, talked about how he loved making grit cakes with his leftover grits. We love them too. Grit cakes are great to make with leftover grits. They are very simple to make. Put your leftover grits in a greased cookie sheet or a 9×13 casserole dish and chill in the fridge for two hours. Take them out of the pan and place on a cutting board. Use a cookie cutter to make the cakes. Grease a cookie sheet and bake them in a preheated 400 degree oven for about 15 minutes on each side. Or you can pan fry them. Dust cakes in cornmeal or flour and fry until golden brown on each side. The possibilities from this point are endless. You can serve the cakes like a toast point for dip. You can serve sautéed mushrooms, shrimp or fish on top. I like to put them in the bottom of a bowl and ladle gumbo, stew or étouffée on top. They are also yummy with tomato gravy, sausage gravy, red eye gravy or any kind of gravy. I love a good gravy! Grits are great with any kind of fish, shrimp or seafood dish. In the south we always have them when we have a fish fry. We made a great casserole that are stepmother makes it has grits, sausage, cheese and rotel tomatoes.This dish was a huge hit. What are some of your favorite ways to prepare grits?
To our friend Claire, I hope this gave you some ideas so you will not have to throw out anymore grits. The Sweet and Savory Sisters love grits and gravy!