Savannah: Shrimp and Grits

I am a South Carolina girl living in Georgia. I love the south, I love the north too. I have no clue where I belong. But I know that the south beats in my blood. I come from a line of country folk, so country even I was surprised. My parents are North Carolina folk living in South Carolina. Those old North Carolina folk, shoooweee.... anyway, I was going to talk about some Shrimp 'n Grits I made (it seems I have gotten off point). I have never made Shrimp 'n Grits before, so I thought my and bf should do it for a quickie din in Savannah. Yes, it has bacon.....

Ingredients: 

3 cups low-fat milk

2 garlic cloves, pressed, divided

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup quick-cooking grits

6 slices thick-cut applewood-smoked bacon, cut crosswise into 1/3- to 1/2-inch-wide slices

1 1/2 pounds deveined peeled uncooked large shrimp

1 cup sliced shallots (about 4 large)

1 8-ounce bottle clam juice

2 5-ounce packages baby spinach

Hot pepper sauce

1 lemon, cut into wedges

I am such a cliche. I buy books by what the covers look like and I buy wine depending on name and the prettiness of the label. So when I saw this Cupcake Wine, it was right up my alley. Nice name and nice label. 

This was some goooood clam juice too. Of course it is not "bar harbor." Its "BA HABA."

I live and breathe for Pepper Sauce. I could put it on anything. I could totally go for collards right now. 

I had my trusty glass of white wine with ice by my side and I was ready to begin!

Let me digress to the other things we bought at PUBLIX as well: My favorite pickles, a lunchable (?!), and a classy magazine. 

The pickles are da bomb (yes, I know I wrote "da bomb" but I don't care. They deserve it.)

Ok, now time to begin:

Chopped up two garlic cloves. 

Bring milk to a boil with the garlic.

Coarsely chop the bacon.

We had to shell and devein our shrimp. 

Measure out grits. 

Add bacon to hot pan. 

Chop up your four shallots

Add grits to milk and briskly stir. 

When bacon has browned, spoon out with a slotted spoon and deposit on waiting paper towels. 

Bf was in charge of deveining and shelling our shrimp and he was taking his sweeeet time.

Meanwhile, I was stirring the grits. And stirring and stirring. 

Then, we plopped the scrimps down in the pan of bacon grease .

Add your shallots to the pan right after your shrimp turn pink. 

Stir. 

After cooking your shallots and shrimp for about 2 minutes, add clam juice and bring to a boil while scraping up the brown bits from the bottom. 

Then, chuck your bag of spinach on top of the shrimp.

Let wilt.

Plop down a large dollop of grits into the bowl. Then spoon in shrimp and spinach mixture. Make sure you get some sauce!

Sprinkle with green onion.

Top with bacon. Trust me! The bacon and pepper sauce make this dish!

I added the photo below to Facebook and I thought that the responses from it were pretty funny and I was surprised it was so unrecognizable. 

So, that was my first go at Shrimp and Grits. It was very good. I want to try this other recipe soon that I found when I found this one. I'll keep you posted. 

I would love to try someone else's shrimp and grits recipe? Have one?