I do live in the south now

I've recently discovered the ease and joy of grits. Seriously. Apparently, you don't need to be a born-and-bred southerner to make them.

Shrimp and Andouille with Grits (from EveryDay Food magazine)

coarse salt and ground pepper
1 C quick-cooking grits
2 tsp vegetable oil
1/2 lb. andouille sausage, sliced into 1/4-inch rounds
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 scallions, white and green parts separated and thinly sliced
4 tsp all-purpose flour
1 1/4 C low-sodium chicken broth
1/4 C heavy cream
1 lb. medium shrimp, peeled and deveined

1. In a medium saucepan, bring 5 cups of water and 1 tsp salt to a boil over high. Whisk in grits and cook, stirring constantly, until thickened, about 2 minutes. Reduce heat and simmer 15 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, in a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high. Add sausage and cook until golden, 3 to 5 minutes. With a slotted spoon, transfer sausage to a plate and reduce heat to medium. Add garlic and scallion whites to skillet and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in flour. Whisk in broth and cream. Cook, sirring and scraping up browned bits from skillet, until thickened, about 3 minutes. Add shrimp and sausage and cook, stirring constantly, until shrimp are opaque throughout, about 5 minutes. To serve, top grits with shrimp mixture and sprinkle with scallion greens.

They recommend serving this with broiled tomato halves, but my husband would sooner chew his own foot off than eat broiled tomato halves. I made some green beans and some take-and-bake bread and, voila, y'all! (as they say in these parts), dinner is served.

This was pretty quick and very tasty. I made it with extra sausage since my little guy typically loves sausage, but this sausage he thought was too spicy. I used smoked chicken andouille sausage from Trader Joe's. Yummy. The recipe says you can use kielbasa if you can't find andouille. This makes four pretty generous servings. Make sure you dip your bread in the sauce.