I have grown to love cheesy grits. My mom used to make a cheese grits souffle from time to time when I was little, but it wasn't one of her regular dishes. Then many years later when I was older my sister made cheese grits souffle (See Great Grits recipe in old recipe section) and it was so good! It's just cheesy comfort food. I think maybe I lived in the deep south in a former life because I am crazy about it! It is soul food for sure.
I'm always looking for a crowd pleasing casserole to serve when we have company and this is perfect for company, holidays, or brunch. It sounds like it has a lot of steps but it really is easy to make. I made a huge casserole dish and there is hardly any left. Which reminds me... this is just as good and maybe even better left-over.
The full recipe will be printed at the bottom. Preheat your oven at 350 degrees. You want to prepare your grits according to package directions. Once the temperature is lowered you can take the time to get your garlic cloves and press them. Then add hot sauce to taste. The recipe calls for a dash. I used several dashes. Once the grits are cooked and are thickened you will add your butter, garlic, and hot sauce and stir well.
Remove 1/2 cup of the cooked grits and let them cool slightly. You're going to add these to your beaten eggs. This is called "tempering". If you were to put your eggs into the hot pan of grits it would begin to cook them right away and you don't want them to cook just yet.
1. Spray your cooking pan with non-stick spray and add your cooked sausage.2. Add your cheese to the grits 3. whisk the cheese in. I think whisking helps it blend faster. 4. Add your tempered eggs tot he mix, blend well then pour the grits mixture over the sausage.
Bake at 350 for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Grits should be set. Let cool slightly before serving.
Ingredients:1 cup of quick grits4 cups of water
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups of shredded pepper jack cheese
1/2 cup of butter (1 stick) cut into pieces
2 cloves of garlic minceddash of hot sauce4 eggs, beaten1 pound of cooked sausage.
Directions:
In a large saucepan bring water to a boil, add salt, and gently add grits stirring so that they don't clump. Return to a boil then reduce heat to a simmer and let cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.Remove from heat. Whisk in butter, garlic, hot sauce. Then cheese and tempered eggs.Spray large casserole dish with cooking spray and add cooked sausage. Then pour prepared grits mixture over the sausage. Place in the oven at 350 degrees for 45 min. to 1 hour. Let cool slightly before serving.
Enjoy!!!
I pulled chicken out of the freezer yesterday not knowing what I would end up cooking for dinner. I love these thin chicken breasts that I buy at Wal-mart. They're in the organic section. They are perfect for a quick dinner. I figured none of us would be in the mood for a big meal so I decided to just do sandwiches. BJ's in Norman has a chicken, bacon, guacamole sandwich that's one of our favorites and I decided to try to duplicate it.
This sandwich really is pretty basic. You could also very well do a wrap!
mmmmmmmmmm........ bacon.............
The longest part of this whole process was making the bacon. I know I could microwave it but it just isn't the same to me. I'm a weird purist when it comes to things like that. I like to do it the traditional way.
Sometimes I'll take my cast iron skillet outside and cook bacon on the grill so my whole house won't smell like bacon for hours, but it was 104 degrees yesterday at 5 pm and I didn't want to stand out there at all much less by a grill.
I drain the bacon grease out of the skillet and then JUST before cooking the chicken I add a little bit of Dale's seasoning to the chicken. I didn't want it to marinate in it for long because it really soaks it up. Over medium-high heat I cooked the chicken breasts for about 2 minutes on each side. It really didn't take long because they're thin.
Once the chicken breasts have browned on each side I place them on a baking sheet and place them in the oven at 350. Then I start preparing my veggies, and prepare the buns, etc.. They probably weren't in there for more than 5 minutes. Add cheese to the chicken at this point.
I had hoped to find ciabatta bread but I refused to go back into Wal-mart so I just went to our smaller store. They had fresh hamburger buns but no ciabatta bread.. it was good enough for me. Anything to avoid the big store. The same goes for the lettuce. I'd hoped to find some beautiful bib lettuce but it wasn't in stock. Oh well, such is life! It's all about compromise!
Assembly was a breeze. I happened to have some cool guacamole dip left over so we used that, but I think some avocado hunks would have been yummy too.
The family all gave this big thumbs up! And lots of "mmmmm's"
All in all this was really a pretty quick recipe! Give it a try!
We order the dip sampler and usually we all end up eating just the guacamole dip. It's creamy and has a little bit of a kick to it.
I decided today that I wanted to make this. I had intended to blog about it if my recipe turned out great. But I couldn't find fresh avocados that looked very good so I opted instead for a box of Wholly Guacamole. Turns out I've happened upon one of the easiest recipes which is perfect! I love short cuts and I love short cut recipes that turn out this great!
Here's what you'll need:
A box of this stuff - Wholly Guacamole
one small bunch of green onions
1 pint of sour cream
1-2 tablespoon of hot sauce
salt and pepper.
Trim your green onions and wash well. Then blend in food processor. Add the remaining ingredients and blend until smooth. Adjust seasonings to taste. I would even say you could add cayenne pepper if you want it to have a little more kick. But my kids don't love kick like I do, so I just added the hot sauce.
If I'm not mistaken this is what they use in their avocado enchiladas too! Might need to investigate that! Enjoy!!!
This is a recipe I got from my friend Carrie. It's a perfect side dish to prepare ahead of time when you're having guests over. Then you can throw this in the oven at the last minute. Every guest has their own little bundle. It's like a gift from the asparagus gods.
To begin with, I believe the selection of asparagus is what MAKES this recipe taste so good. I prefer little skinny stalks.
I'm sure the reason I prefer the skinny stalks is because when I was little we had wild asparagus growing along our fence row by the pasture at our home. The small stalks would be as big around as my thumb and they got even bigger.. They had a funny pungent taste and I was not a fan, to say the least! Add to that the fact that mom would serve them steamed with a Hollandaise sauce globbed over it... it just wasn't appealing to a young kid.
But these little babies... oh they are crunchy and I love the way they taste. We often serve these just grilled or broiled with some olive oil, salt, & pepper.
But what makes them EVEN BETTER is adding a slice of pepper jack cheese and wrapping them in a slice of prosciutto.
The prosciutto will cook to a crisp consistency and the cheese adds yummy flavor.
Divide your asparagus into how many ever bundles you want to make. This was one bunch. For 8 people you'd need a couple of bunches.
Trim the ends off of the bottom. Wash and pat dry.
I used slices of pepper jack and used a half of a piece for each bundle, then take a slice of prosciutto and wrap it around and place it seam-side down on your baking sheet. My prosciutto was hard to work with this time around. The sheets were very thin and kept ripping apart so it wasn't the easiest to wrap with.
Brush the ends with olive oil and sprinkle the ends with salt and pepper. Bake at 400 for 10-12 minutes.
You can also cook these on a grill. When I was cooking these I ended up sticking them in the oven at 350 to let it cook with another dish. I just left them in the oven a little longer and they turned out just fine.
I love the other squash casserole recipe that I have posted on here... (it's in the old recipe section) but this one is so yummy and creamy! It seems like every squash casserole I'd ever had was a Tex-Mex type of flavor and I think part of the reason I love this one so much is that it ISN'T. It's just cheesy and yummy. mmmmm!!!
And how easy is this? It has like 6 ingredients!
I googled recipes for a long time before I could find one to settle on. This was a compromise between Paula Deen's recipe and some others that I saw.
Here's what you'll need:
6 small-med yellow crookneck squash, peeled and sliced
1 large vidalia onion, diced
1 cup of sour cream
1-2 cups of sharp cheddar cheese
1 tube of crackers (saltines, Ritz, Club..doesn't matter)
Salt and pepper
1 T. butter
In a skillet, melt butter (I also added a little olive oil) and sautee onion and squash until tender. About 10 minutes over med heat. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Then add the sour cream and cheese.
Pour into casserole dish (I sprayed mine with cooking spray).
The top with one whole tube of crushed crackers
Bake 350 until bubbly. About 25-30 mins.
Note: Paula Deen's recipe called for 1/4 cup of grated parmesan and used less sour cream and cheese.
Enjoy!! We served this will grilled burgers and brats. :) The perfect thing for a summer evening!
I can't tell you how excited I was to make these! A couple of months ago Lori had posted that the Sonic where she lives had pickle-o's and that she'd gotten some to take to Jerry. When we were growing up our Sonic in Holdenville had these and I had not had them since I moved away. So that day I went to our Sonic here in town and was really disappointed that they didn't have them. I even asked! And no, they didn't have them. Bummer.
Then when we were in Florida Lori and Jerry had taken the kids out to Fudpuckers and she mentioned later that they'd had fried pickles there too. What is with her fried pickle luck? Then our last night we all went out to eat at a place called Kenny D's beachside bar and grill. And guess what was on the menu? PICKLE-O'S!!!!!!!!! They were yummy! Lori was telling me that she'd been making them at home and they were super easy to make. So when we got home I had to make some!
Here's how she did it:
For your wash mix 2 eggs and 2 tablespoons of milk.
You have one dish with flour in it, and another dish with panko bread crumbs.
Take your pickle slices and first dredge it in the flour. Shake off the excess and then dip in the egg wash. Then dredge it in the panko crumbs. Then fry.
I asked Lori about seasonings and she said she doesn't add any. You know me! It's hard for me not to season things so I did add a little bit of creole seasoning to the flour. But honestly, she was right. These were soooooooo yummy!
I used the "ovals" instead of just the regular sliced pickles. I think they turned out great! The restaurant served them with ranch dressing but we just ate them as is! YUM!!!
So, it's the middle of July and it's HOT outside! Here's a cute little idea that is crazy simple. It can be ready by the time your sun tea is brewed. Pick your mint leaves and put a leaf in an ice cube tray, fill with water, and freeze. It will add flavor to your tea and make you feel like a southern belle.
Make these:
If you are bored to tears
If you want your guests to think your Martha Stewart
If you have mint leaves growing out the wazoo
If you are feeling fun and festive... what will the neighbors think!!!
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