Victory Over Shrimp & Grits

Okay, it doesn't take much for me to declare victory but I have to say that last weekend, I made shrimp & grits my bitch.  My husband, Big Steve, loves shrimp & grits.  It's one of his favorite dishes but, alas, is almost always disappointing wherever he orders it.  He's tried shrimp & grits at just about every place in Dallas that serves it (Grace, Screen Door, J. Blacks, Dodie's, etc...).  The only place where he had S&G that lived up to his high expectations was at Nola Restaurant in New Orleans.  Nola is one of Emeril's restaurants so we assumed it would be overhyped and mediocre in execution.  Well, we have now been to Nola at least 3x and everytime, the S&G (and all our other dishes) have been phenomenal.

Steve says that the best thing about Nola's S&G is the Spicy Abita Beer BBQ Glaze that is on the shrimp. Well, I finally found the recipe for this dish and made it last week.  It was awesome.  It did take several steps to make  but the end product was worth the time and effort.  To be honest, the glaze itself was so simple to make that it was laughable.  Basically, it's beer, ketchup, crushed red pepper, brown sugar and Abita Amber ale that you cook on the stovetop for about 10 minutes and that's it.  I found the recipe on Food Network.com of all places.  Go figure.

I also made an appetizer of some fried oysters (used Zatarain's fish fry mix) on field greens topped with a horseradish cream sauce.  I hate to toot my own horn (not really) but they pretty much rocked.

Evidence of said victories is below.

Oyster Appetizer

Shrimp & Grits with Abita Beer BBQ Glaze.  Boo.Yah.