When the weather turns from cold, gloomy & wet, and the Sun finally decides to make an appearance... Here in Mississippi that means one thing:
It’s Patio-sittin’ Time, my friends! Time to load up your rolling coolers & get on over to the Maddox household for an afternoon of food & fun with all of the regular crew. This year we called it Silly Spring Saturday. How, you may ask, is this different from Funny Fall Friday? Well, there are a few distinct differences:
1) It’s Saturday, so nobody has to play hooky from work
2) The men and kiddos are invited too (Funny Fall Friday is just the ladies)
3) The women are encouraged to shower & get dressed (F.F.F. is strictly loungewear/hair clippies/no makeup)
So, you see, there are clear differences……..
As usual, Grill Master Maddox was doing his thing outside – Smoked venison sausage, deer poppers, chicken wings, grilled veggies… and I handled all the “indoor” food – the ever-popular Chili Cheese Grits, New Orleans-style barbecue shrimp, green bean bundles and of course, the Margaritas!
I’ve done some tweaking on my grits lately and the results were Fantastic!
I used Sargento ® Chef Blends 4 State Cheddar™ and added more hot sauce. Now, I can’t necessarily say they were the hands-down favorite (those deer poppers are pretty darn fab), but I doubled the recipe – which, believe me, is a LOT of grits – and they were completely gone!
Grits get a bad rap in general, if you ask me. First of all, they don’t have to be served plain with nothing but butter, salt & pepper – personally, I don’t really care for them like that either. And secondly, they’re most certainly not just for breakfast anymore! Trust me on this one! Jazz them up & try them with grilled meats or seafood. You won’t regret it. - Just a little sage advice from this True G.R.I.T. (girl raised in the South) to you.
You can find my Chili Cheese Grits recipe and lots of other cheesy, tasty treats in Sargento's® online cookbook too. Sargento Cookbook
I am an Allrecipes Allstar Brand Ambassador (a voluntary position) and I'm not compensated for my work with Allrecipes.com. I received the products from Sargento Foods Inc. as part of my participation in this campaign. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this post are my own.
