Today I hosted a jewelry party for a close friend. I love doing food for family and friends. So for today I decided to do a brunch. We put sweet tea, unsweet tea, and orange juice in our pretty glass vases. We had hot tea and hot coffee going. (We = myself and the 5 munchkins). My favorite hot tea for company is “Constant Comment”. We made my family’s favorite holiday recipe which we call grits casserole. I would love to give credit for where I found this, but we have made this for a few decades and I have no clue except I remember finding it on a bread and breakfast website. So here goes:
1 cup raw grits
4 cups water
1 box Jiffy cornbread
1 cup milk (I was out so I made a cup with powdered milk)
1 lb sausage (used turkey breakfast sausage this morning)
2 cups shredded cheese
1 stick butter (I always use real butter)
4 eggs (from my Aunt Fran’s~farm fresh yumminess)
1 tsp salt
Add your grits to the boiling water, then add salt, and butter and let it cook for about 15-20 minutes. Let it cool and while cooling sauté your sausage and drain. Beat 4 eggs with 1 cup milk. Add all together (grits, meat, etc) with 1 box of sweet cornbread mix and 1 cup of cheese . Put in 13″x9″ casserole. Cover all with the last cup of cheese.
Bake at 325o for 30 mins.
I made fresh this morning, but at Christmas I put it together the night before (2 for our big family) and bake in the morning while opening presents.
My family’s absolute favorite breakfast casserole recipe. Delish!!!
The other thing I made was Strawberry Salad. It’s one of my favorites. I learned spinach and strawberry salad from my sister-in-love Becky. However, I had fresh delicious lettuce (red-leaf I believe) from my brother-in-love Chuck when we were visiting the mountains last weekend. So I tweaked it and made the salad like this:
In a mason jar I put the following:
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1/3 cup sugar (Lee you could use truvia or something that doesn’t effect your sugar levels)
- 1/4 cup cider vinegar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- Dash or two of pepper
Shake it up. In your bowl, put the following
- about 10-12 cups of torn romaine, red leaf lettuce, bibb and/or spinach
- 2-1/2 cups sliced fresh strawberries
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts, toasted
Okay….so I didn’t have walnuts so I put a cup of peanuts in a pan with some butter and sauteed them for a few minutes. The threw them in the bowl.
Then poured the dressing over all. Toss. It’s soooo yummy! Enjoy!
I usually make a homemade lemon blueberry bread, but today we cheated and used a box. Here’s a pretty picture.
We had a great time and finished up the party. Now Praise is making beautiful cupcakes for a party later.
Thanks for stopping by. My next fun food adventure will be for the girl’s weekend at church. Stay tuned.
michelletordoff 