Bacon and Cheese Grits

I've been craving comfort food lately.  First the waffles, and now these grits.  Plus I've been eating bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches for lunch for the past few days.  Last week was absolutely wild.  In 48 hours, I had 4 interviews, an offer at a tutoring center, and 2 callbacks (one for a second interview, the other for a demo lesson).  Over the past 4 months I had sent out over 60 applications and had heard nothing for those entire 4 months.  And then, by the end of last Monday, I had those four interviews lined up.  It's amazing how your life can be turned completely upside-down in a moment.  The interviews are for places all over North/Central Jersey, so within a few months I could be living somewhere new with a new job.  Or maybe I'll still be living at home, blogging.

Either way, it's a pretty difficult thing to wrap my head around.  I feel like I'm at a turning point here, as if I'm at the brink between young-adulthood and adulthood itself.  Many of my friends my age have had to make some pretty adult decisions over the past few weeks, and it looks like I may be doing the same this summer.  Even if these interviews don't work out for the best, I'm incredibly excited to have the experience and I'm looking forward to what ever lies ahead.

The moral of the story here is that when your whole world is up in the air, it's nice to have some thick, salty, cheesy, creamy, stick-to-your-ribs grits to bring you back down.

I love polenta.  It comes together in about 4 minutes and you can do anything with it.  It can be used for any meal of the day and you can boil it, grill it, or fry it.  The only thing you need to be careful of is you must be constantly whisking while you're pouring your grits (polenta) into the boiling water.  If you don't, it's going to clump up and won't be pleasant to bite into.  Once you have poured all of your grits into the pot, you can leave it alone and let it simmer so the grains soak up all of the water.  It doesn't get much easier than that.

The addition of milk makes the grits even creamier, and you could of course use whole milk or cream (I just didn't have any on hand).  And the more bacon you put into this recipe, the better it will be.  I mean, come on, everything tastes better with more bacon.  This is a simple recipe but incredibly delicious and the perfect thing to have heated up first thing in the morning.  I highly recommend making a batch right now, it will not disappoint :)

Bacon and Cheese Grits

Serves 2

Prep time: 10 min

Cook time: 10 min

Ingredients

-     ½ c polenta

-     ½ c milk

-     2 tbsp unsalted butter

-     ½ c shredded cheddar cheese

-     5 – 6 strips bacon, cooked and chopped

-     Salt and pepper, to taste

Directions

Follow the directions on the polenta package to determine how much water should be used (I boiled about 2 cups).  Pour water into medium sized pot and bring to a boil.  Add the polenta to the boiling water and begin whisking immediately to avoid clumping.  Lower heat and bring polenta to a simmer and cover.  When all of the water has been absorbed (about 5 minutes), pour in the milk and stir, leaving to simmer until the milk has been absorbed as well.  Mix in butter and shredded cheese and stir until melted.  Remove from heat and add bacon.  Serve immediately.   

Posted by Ali B at 8:48 AM