a la kathrine!

shrimp & grits.
call me southern, call me what you will.

shrimp & grits are outrageously delicious!
i don't care where you get them... well, i do. i don't want them to suck! clearly!
but, they are a safe bet.
there is something about the creaminess of grits and the sweet luxurious taste of fresh shrimp that just pair so super well together.
so tonite! i make my own...
of course i need to "beef" it up with some veggies. so, i made some grits, they were instant. sorry, i'm no professional grits maker. i pan fried some shrimp, and i defrosted / pan fried some spinach. there is something about spinach that pairs so well with shrimp, grits, and shrimp & grits together! you will love it...
i layered my amateur-attempt at grits in the bowl, topped it with spinach, shrimp, and i made a savoury sauce to top it all off.
i put about a cup of chicken broth in a pan and added chopped roasted red peppers. yeh, they were out of a jar. i'm totally okay with that. i cooked that on super high on the stove to cook out some of the water in the broth. as it was boiling, i added about two tablespoons of weight watchers cream cheese. (what!? it's 2pts all together!) so, somehow i managed to make (what i believe to be) and creamy roasted red pepper sauce. i was pretty impressed with myself.
i topped my tower of grits, spinach, & shrimp with roasted red pepper sauce and took my fork, and dug in.
i cannot believe that i achieved a perfect balance of sauce to food, and meat to veggies.
i can't lie, i was totally blown away by myself.
yeh, i'm awesome.

my ultimate compliment was when i brought the shrimp and grits to work to share with a friend. i left a cup with the perfectly-portioned bite for her. i thought was rude to not share with with a fellow foodie, and luckily i did. what she was about to eat turned led her to give me one of my most flattering reviews.
"that was delicious" she said. "what was it?"
"shrimp, spinach, grits, and roasted red pepper cream sauce. i literally had to stop in the middle of my meal and portion you out a bite or it would've been gone"
"i've never had grits, and i don't like them. but i REALLY liked that." she replied.

as rj would say.... yesssssssssss.

yellow corn meal!

it's polenta!
i've sliced the polenta roll and baked it, but i've never made creamy polenta.
no better time than the present!

i found a recipe for creamy polenta. it was pretty basic, 4x as much water as yellow corn meal. added a little faux-butter spread, and some weight watchers cream cheese. i know the key to creamy polenta is to keep on whisking. so whisk, i did!
i was pretty impressed with myself on the polenta front.
now... what to top it with.
mushrooms! and spinach! and onions!
i mixed that up in a pan, and topped my polenta.
now, some type of sauce to finish it off. i mixed some french onion soup mix with chicken broth, cooked it down, and added a tablespoon of weight watchers cream cheese. it made a great creamy onion sauce that worked well with the polenta and the veggies.
i didn't add anything to the polenta, no salt. no pepper. i figured starting out with it as a uber-plain base would be good for my trial.
it worked out perfect.

of course it did, i'm awesome!

thanks, edna!

girl, i'm glad you cooked on sunday...
you inspired me!

edna made these delicious little egg roll wrappers that wrapped up spinach, shallots, and goat cheese. yum! luckily, she likes me enough to bring me some. they were tasty!
so i came home tonight, and i played the copycat!
i used wonton wrappers. a 16oz package of frozen chopped spinach (thawed & drained). 4oz of fat free cream cheese. two shallot bulbs. garlic. i blended all of that, sans wonton wrappers, on the pulse on the food processor. i rolled about a tablespoon in the wonton wrapper and rolled it up... just like an eggroll! sprayed that mess with cooking spray, and popped em in the oven at 400* for about fifteen minutes on each side.

now, i'm stuck on thinking of the perfect sauce to go with these delicious little spinach rolls!

cabbage casserole!

who would've thought that those two words would have worked well together?
not me!
apparently vegetarian times did.
(what an excellent resource as a publication and a website!)
they had a recipe for a cabbage strata, which naturally, i refused to follow the recipe on and had to give it the good 'ol kathrine treatment.
bow chikka bow wow.
i doctored their recipe slightly, adding my own fabulous touches to it!
i started by blanching the cabbage leaves in garlic water. (i refuse to use salt!) i also browned some finely slivered onions, cooked down two cans of diced tomatoes, and thawed a 16ox bag of spinach.
now that everything is (almost) mise en place....
i greased up a 9x9 baking dish and made a layer of cabbage leaves on the bottom of the dish. on top of the cabbage layer, i sprinkled my browned onions. yum! i love onions! after, i spread a layer of my cooked down diced tomatoes (which i cooked down with garlic and italian seasoning). on top of that i placed a mixture of spinach & fat free cream cheese. the original recipe called for ricotta, and for some reason i could not bring myself to buy dairy. i figured i would forge ahead, doing without. alas, considering the dry nature of the cabbage and the cooked down tomatoes, i dug up a bar of fat free cream cheese that had been hiding in my fridge. i mixed half a bar with the 16-ish ounces of thawed, drained spinach. so, after the cabbage. after the onions, and after the tomatoes, came 6 splotches of spinachy cream cheese, on top of my casserole, looking like a die. i re-layered, and re-layered, making (i believe) three layers in total. cabbage, onions, tomatoes, spinach. i baked my strata (how fancy!) at 350 degrees for about an hour.
mmm!
a full-on vegetable bake!
what more could you ask for?