FakeFancy Shrimp and Grits

I love Southern food, and spicy Southern seafood?  Even better.

I made this for Nanny the last time we went to her house, and it was SO easy and quick!

I know most shrimp and grits has peppers, onions, sausage, and a host of steps in the cooking process, but this decidedly does not.

The flavor, however, is ALL there.  You'll love this!

For this, you'll need:

• 1 ½ cups instant grits
• ½ cup heavy cream
• chopped pickled jalapenos (however much you can stand!)
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• ½ teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon butter
• ½ cup shredded sharp cheddar (optional,  not shown in these pictures)
• peeled, deveined, raw shrimp - about 6 per person is ideal
• hot sauce
• salt

For the shrimp, put it in a bowl to marinate, then sprinkle it liberally with salt and hot sauce - that's it!  You can let it marinate for awhile, or you can just toss everything all together and keep cooking - no worries!

Now, for this night I skewered the shrimp and Jay grilled them outside, which was lovely.  They only need 4 minutes or so on each side on the grill!  You can cook the shrimp inside too in a pan - just heat it up to medium-high and toss the shrimp around for about 4 minutes once the grits are done.

For the grits, grab everything you need.  I love instant grits because they're so darn easy, but if you have some sort of fancy grits that take 45 minutes to cook BY ALL MEANS use them.  I'm usually more impatient than that, though.

For the grits, follow whatever instructions are on the package - cook the grits in their water, then when they start to thicken add the other ingredients and stir them in!

Nice.  Now taste the grits and make sure you don't need to add any more salt - I usually add a few sprinkles at a time until they taste right.

Yum!  Nice and thick and spicy and creamy.  Remove the shrimp from the skewers, if you grilled them.  And....that's it!  I served these with braised collards and biscuits, and the whole thing was just delicious.  Make this soon - it's so fast and easy and DELICIOUS!