Shrimp and “Grits” with Ginger BBQ Sauce

Bags of frozen shrimp are one of my favorite kitchen staples, and they often lead to last minute meals that turn out pretty great. A few weeks ago, I bought molasses, anticipating using it in brown bread. My brown bread ended up not calling for molasses, but I started thinking of other recipes for this classic ingredient.

Spicy BBQ sauce was the first thing that came to mind. I started with about a cup of organic cider vinegar and several tablespoons of tomato paste.

Fun fact: my nana drinks organic apple cider vinegar. I can’t do it because I think it tastes gross, but she is rollin’ up on 97 this November, so she must be doing something right!

Cider vinegar makes a great base for a BBQ sauce. I mixed the tomato paste and vinegar in a pot with about a cup of water. I used the vinegar bottle as a vessel for the water to get as much flavoring from the vinegar as possible.

I brought the vinegar and tomato paste to a simmer, stirring to dissolve the paste, then added two large spoonfuls of molasses, about a teaspoon of garlic powder, and two large jalapenos, chopped.

Toward the end I also added about a tablespoon of grated ginger. I am obsessed with ginger these days, ginger in food, ginger tea, ginger beer in Dark & Stormy’s. Love it!

I made the sauce the night before finishing the dish to ensure the flavors all got together. It was divinely spicy and sweet with a tang from the vinegar.

When I was ready to cook dinner, I peeled and cleaned about two dozen shrimp.

Then I popped the shrimp into the sauce and let them hang out for about half an hour.

While the shrimp marinated, I got my “grits” going. I used the Trader Joe’s version of Cream of Wheat, a hot cereal I have been loving lately. I enjoy the texture SO much more than oatmeal, and I thought, why not add it to dinner?

I cooked up a pot of the wheat cereal, and in a separate pot cooked the shrimp in BBQ sauce. To serve, I spooned the cereal into bowls and topped it with heaping ladles of BBQ sauce and shrimp. The sauce sunk down into the soft, creamy cereal, flavoring it, making it a little soupy, and just becoming a bowl of spicy comfort.

I am still cold, even though the weather has gotten nicer, so dishes like this will likely be on the blog for a few more weeks.

What are your plans to enjoy the warmer temps this weekend?