Heading South

When it comes to food, I'm a Southern girl at heart.  There is just something about Southern food that warms you up inside and makes you feel happy.  Sadly I don't come across many recipes for Southern food that are healthy enough for me to eat them every week.  There are recipes where someone thought it was a good idea make a dish like fried chicken and then they go an bake it.  Did you REALLY enjoy that baked "fried" chicken?  Did it make you drool and crave more?  I doubt it!  As they say, everything in moderation!  Don't try to make a dish that is amazing and totally bad for you into something healthy, it won't work.  You won't be satisfied.  Just suck it up and cook the unhealthy way every once in awhile.  It's worth it!

So I was browsing one of my favorite food sites Serious Eats and came across a recipe for Sauteed Andouille,and Green with Grits.  Just looking at the picture my stomach started to growl.  I couldn't wait to go out and get the ingredients for this dish and cook it up!  This recipe required three pots/pans on my stove at once (that always freaks me out!) and only some minor prep work.

In the big pot I boiled the collard greens for about 8-10 minutes.  Yum, I love greens!

While they were cooking I started the grits.  Bring some salted milk and water to a simmer then turn the heat down so you get a low simmer and whisk in the grits.  These will cook for 20 minutes or so.  Meanwhile you should drain your greens and move on to cooking the rest of the vegetables and sausage.  Brown your sliced sausage for a few minutes on each side.  Remove the sausage from the pan and sautee the shallots (I love these things and I love that fact that I have been using them a lot lately!) and red bell pepper in the sausage fat.  My sausage didn't have a lot of fat, so I had to throw in some olive oil.

Once the peppers are cooked, add the greens and sausage to the shallot and pepper mix.  Mix them together and cook until warm. 

When the grits are cooked stir in some butter and cheddar cheese. That's it! Finished!  So while there were a lot of pots, there wasn't really a lot of work involved (there was a lot of clean up though). 

Final Product:

 
My thoughts:  Yum, yum, yum.  Comfort, comfort, comfort.  This was good!  I added some sriracha (hot sauce) to mine since I love everything as spicy as possible. The one ingredient that doesn't need to be included is the red bell pepper.  I didn't feel like it really brought anything to the dish, but it did up the vegetable quotient which is always good.  Cheesy grits are so delicious.  They just melt in your mouth.  This dish can work with shrimp or as a vegetarian dish too without losing it's comfort factor.  You can make it even more comforting by adding some cornbread to the mix.  I just made a box of Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix and added some cheese and chopped jalapenos to it.  If you are going to go the unhealthy route take it all the way to the top!

I was also curious how budget friendly this dish was:

Sausage/$4.79
Grits/$1.89
Collard Greens/$1.99
Shallots/$0.70
Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix/$0.55
Red Bell Pepper/$2.99
Block of Cheddar Cheese/$2.29

Total/$15.20

Nowhere near as economical as I have been lately! Although when you really think about it this was a dinner for two, plus enough left over for two lunches.  $15 really is cheap when thought about it in those terms!

Next up:  Mark Bittman's Lentils and Potatoes; Salsa Soup with Cheese Quesadilla's