Shrimp and Grits

I was doing a little spring cleaning this weekend, and came to realize that I have stacks and stacks upon stacks of magazines laying around.  I went through a good lot of them, mostly Food and Wine, Martha Stewart, Southern Living, and Good Housekeeping, and tore out all the pages of the things I liked or was inspired by, and recycled the rest.  Now I have stacks and stacks upon stacks of loose magazine pages laying around, waiting for organization.

I do love organization!  Oh do I!  And since we've moved into this house a year ago, it's been severely lacking.  I've been quite out of sorts with piles of stuff all over.  Hubs wants to refinish 2 closets so in the meantime, he doesn't want me to start filling them, but once they are done (??? when) I will have so much organization your head will spin!  2 things I buy all the time are notebooks and binders.  Notebooks because I'm always coming up with the next great idea and need to write it down at once, and binders to put all my favorite magazine pages in.  I have about 6 food binders, each representing a different category - appetizers, vegetarian, soups and salads, etc etc, then I have binders for home design, fashion, and travel.  Not to mention all my binders for school.  It's ridiculous really how many binders I have!

One of the recipes I pulled out, which I just so happened to have all the ingredients for, is Shrimp and Grits.  I found this in the February 2010 Southern Living.  I couldn't find the recipe online but click here for Southern Living recipes.

Shrimp and Grits

1 1/2 lb unpeeled, large raw shrimp

1 lb fresh asparagus

3 cups chicken broth

1 cup uncooked quick-cooking grits

1/2 cup half-and-half

4 Tbsp butter, divided

1 (8 oz) pkg sliced fresh mushrooms

1 bunch green onions, cut into 1/2 in pieces

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1/2 tsp salt

Peel and devein shrimp.  Snap off and discard tough ends of asparagus.  Cut asparagus into 1 inch pieces.

Bring chicken broth to a boil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat; whisk in grits and half-and-half.  Cook, whisking constantly, 7 minutes or until thickened.  Remove from heat. Stir in 2 Tbsp butter.  Truth be told, I threw in some cheese right now too.  Because I like to live on the edge. Keep warm.

Melt remaining 2 Tbsp of butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Add asparagus, mushrooms, green onions, and thyme and saute 3-4 minutes.

Is this what you meant when you said "Don't crowd the mushrooms, Julia?"

Ok, so Julia would be ashamed, I surely crowded the mushrooms.

Add shrimp, and cook 2-3 minutes.  Stir in salt, cook 3 minutes or just until shrimp turn pink.  Serve immediately over warm grits.