Food Photo Purge - Shrimp and Grits

One day I'm going to do a proper post for my shrimp and grits. Not today though. LOL

I'd never heard of shrimp and grits until I moved to Texas. Man what a treat I'd been missing!  There are as many ways to make shrimp and grits as there are to make gumbo!  After much practice I finally created my recipe!  It includes cream and white wine and stock and typically three cheeses and of course bacon...so rich and delicious.

Many recipes add the cheese into the grits, I prefer mine on top of my grits. There are just layers of flavor to this dish: boiling the grits in seafood (or chicken) stock, sauteing the shrimp and vegetables in the same pan you fry the bacon in, the different cheese variations (I've used smoked Gouda)...possibilities are endless!

Cook.Eat.Repeat.

Stephanie's Pasta Soup

 

It's cold again!!!!!! That means I get to make soup!

 

My girlfriend, Stephanie, doesn't cook. That's an important fact.

Well last month she hosted a dinner party at her beautiful home. When I tell you she did the doggone thang in the kitchen! She did that! The lasagna, the bruschetta, the salad....everything was delicious.  One of the dishes she made was Pasta Fagioli Soup (without Fagioli). Everybody kept going back for more. I couldn't get enough of that soup. It was spicy and filling and just plain old good! Traditional fagioli soup has beans(fagioli) but she omitted them. The vegetables and beef and pasta more than made up for the missing beans! This soup was very filling...the kicker? All made in the crockpot...FTW!!!  I scaled it down because I was hoping no one in my house liked it but me! #Greedy

 

Note that this is a soup recipe so you can adjust the flavors and liquids and vegetables to your liking.

 

Stephanie's Pasta Soup

 

What you need:

• 1/2 pound ground beef (or turkey)
• 1 small onion, rough chopped
• 3 carrots, rough chopped
• 2 celery stalks, rough chopped
• 4 whole garlic cloves
• 1 28 ounce can of diced tomatoes, undrained
• 2 cups beef stock (or vegetable stock or chicken stock)
• Tbsp oregano
• 2 tsp pepper
• 3 tsp parsley (I used fresh)
• 1 tsp Tabasco sauce (I used the green kind cause that's what I had on hand)
• 1 cup spaghetti sauce
• 4-6 ounces uncooked pasta (elbow macaroni, shells, etc)

 What to do:

• Brown ground beef. Drain fat from beef.
• Add beef along with the other ingredients, EXCEPT the pasta, to the crock pot
• Stir the ingredients to incorporate
• Cook on low 7-8 hours or on high for 4-5 hours
• During the last 30 minutes on high or 1 hour on low, add the uncooked pasta, stir to incorporate
• Continue to cook until pasta is cooked

 

Cook.Eat.Repeat.

 

Twitter, Cocktails, TV

I LOVE a good cocktail!

So I'm going to begin a weekly segment on my Twitter feed called #CocktailHourTV.

Remember when TV went off?

I'll make a cocktail (or just have wine) post the recipe or bottle, watch ratchet TV and Tweet my commentary! Y'all should join me!!  Good times for sure!

You can follow me @ThreeFoodWords!

The Friday Five - Five Under Five!

Happy Friday!!

I visited one of my favorite crack houses this week *giddy*. Oh the clearance goodies I found.  Here are five of my favorites:

New Cereal = Cheap Price $1.50

This smells divine $2.48



I can't wait to taste this! I think it will be divine making smores $2.21



Love these chips! $1.74 per bag


Did you find anything good stuff this week while out in your favorite stores?

Alon's 7-up Cake

So if you’ve been reading me for any amount of time you know that baking is really not my thing. I mean I have some things that I can successfully bang out but a pastry chef I will never be! I’m good on that...lol.



Ninah Bee’s friend, Alon, is honing her housewifery skills by cooking more meals at home. So over the holidays when she kept bragging about this cake and even when my sister was also bragging about this cake...I KNEW I needed to make it.

This cake is junk in your trunk delicious!!! It was moist and flavorful and just downright good. Ninah created some kind of glaze to go over the cake but the cake didn't last that long! LOL

 

Now, I’ve heard Southerners talk about a 7-up cake but I can’t recall ever eating any. I mean the cakes that my grandmothers baked were so boss I never had a desire to try anyone else’s! This cake right here? This cake right here? Gangsta!!

What you need:

• 3 cups Sugar
• 2 sticks room temperature butter
• ½ cup vegetable oil
• 5 large eggs
• 3 cups cake flour
• 7 ounces of regular 7up
• 1 tsp lemon extract
• 1 tsp coconut extract

What to do:

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees
• In a large mixing bowl, cream sugar, butter and oil
• Add eggs one at a time mixing thoroughly after each addition
• Add cake flour and 7-up to cream mixture. Mix until just combined
• Add the lemon and coconut extracts to the batter and mix for about a minute
• Pour cake batter into a prepared Bundt cake pan or two prepared loaf pans
• Bake cake for 1½ hours at 325 degrees or until toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean.

Cook.Eat.Repeat.