Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Channeling Paula Deen

My Southern-inspired meal

Last night, I hosted my fabulous book club at our apartment. We started it shortly after I moved to New York, and at first I'd assumed we'd serve chips and dip at book club meetings, maybe hummus and pita or even a cheese platter if we were feeling fancy. But my friend Lindsay set the bar high at the first meeting at her place. She cooked a full dinner for us, complete with a delectable from-scratch chocolate cake for dessert. For my turn to have the six girls over, hummus definitely wasn't going to cut it.

This month we read a great book, The Help by Kathryn Stockett. It takes place in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960s. I decided to go all theme-y and make something Southern-inspired. I ran with the very first thought that came into my head: shrimp and grits. It's one of my favorite Southern staples and I haven't had a single grit since I left Atlanta, where they were on the menu at just about every restaurant we entered, from dives to temples of haute cuisine. I'd never made grits myself before, so I wanted to try my hand at it.

Alright, so it wasn't a Paula Deen recipe--I wouldn't feel right doing that to everyone's arteries. Browsing the bank of recipes at Food Network, I settled on one from Tyler Florence, perhaps because I met him a couple of weeks ago and helped prep pumpkin-banana pies for a special he was doing. Tyler's "Ultimate Shrimp & Grits" seemed relatively straightforward.

I wondered at first if I could even find grits in New York, but my friend Abby (a big grits fan from Florida) informed me that they were prevalent. Sure enough, there were several different kinds on the shelves of Gristedes at 21st and 8th, and I settled on the "old-fashioned" variety. I bought a pound and a half of fresh shrimp from the Lobster Place in Chelsea Market, and was pretty much good to go. Most of the other ingredients were already in my fridge or pantry.

Shrimp and chicken sausage simmering with chicken stock, onions, garlic

Even when it's not Paula's, shrimp and grits is not a very low-cal dish. I wanted to lighten Tyler's recipe up a bit, so I used andouille chicken sausage with the shrimp and only a touch of cream in the grits. I also made braised collard greens--another item I found easily in New York, at the Manhattan Fruit Market--without any ham hocks or bacon, which some Southerners would consider a travesty. I bought some turkey stock and simmered the greens in it for about an hour, until they were tender and most of the stock had been absorbed. Then I added a little apple cider vinegar to the greens. They were so flavorful! Abby, who was opposed to collard greens at first, told me that I changed her mind about them.

The secret society i.e. book club enjoying dinner

Since I'm not much of a baker, I decided to forgo an attempt at a Southern dessert. Still on a ice cream sandwich kick (see previous post), I decided to make a riff on them instead. They are well-loved in all parts of the country, after all. As a throwback to college, I bought a box of No Pudge brownies at Whole Foods. You just add non-fat yogurt to the mix, stir, and bake--we made them weekly back at Penn. We were perfectly willing to ignore the fact that No Pudge is not quite guilt-free if you split the entire pan among 3-4 people, but I digress.

Abby's excited about the return of PB chip No Pudge

One of our favorite No Pudge additions back then was peanut butter chips, so I bought those too. I used a large baking pan to make a thin sheet of peanut butter chip brownies, let them cool, and then cut small brownie circles with a thin-rimmed glass (a cookie cutter would've worked better but I don't have any). I placed the brownie circles into the freezer for a few minutes and let the ice cream (Ciao Bella vanilla gelato again) soften a bit; then I made the sandwiches the same way as last time and left them in the freezer overnight. I'm not sure if I like the cookie or brownie ones better, but they are both definitely staying in my "easy dessert" repertoire.

I got one of the highest compliments I think I've ever received for my food when my friend Rebecca said it was "the best meal I've ever had." Exaggeration or not, totally made my day and I love you Rebecca!

2 comments:

  1. Good books and good food. What a great combo. I would love to be in that book club! The ice cream sounds so easy, and good. Would love to start a group like this, too bad I am the only foodie in my circle of friends.

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  2. That picture of the shrimp and grits looks magazine-ready! I'm salivating! Angie

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