Baked Hominy and Tomatoes (Gluten Free)

This dish is actually made from hominy grits, not whole hominy as the title might lead one to expect. Hominy grits make a very tasty, versatile side dish. Dress them up with lots of cheese, and maybe canned tomatoes, and you can't go wrong. I decided to serve ham because the yms like ham, and because I needed a ham bone for a soup recipe. Hominy casseroles go well with ham, and everybody likes cheese.
The only potentially tricky element to this recipe is estimating the correct amount of uncooked grits you need to produce the three cups of cooked grits needed for the recipe. I listened to some helpful advice from a kitchen elf and made a monumental amount of grits, three times what was necessary.  Grits are like rice. You use half of the uncooked produce to make the correct amount of cooked produce. To get three cups of cooked grits, cook one and a half cups of raw grits in three cups of water.
My husband Bob and I had been at church working on the rummage sale, so we did not prepare ahead of time. This is an easy recipe, but it does take time, about 20 minutes to cook the grits, and 45 minutes to bake the casserole. We ended up eating just as the World Series came on. Like I said, grits, cheese and tomatoes--you can't go wrong.

Baked Hominy and Tomatoes

3 cups canned or homecooked hominy grits
1 tablespoon butter
2 cups canned tomatoes or tomato puree
1/4 cup grated sharp Cheddar cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. Combine the hominy, butter, tomatoes, and cheese. Add the salt and pepper and pour into an oiled baking dish or casserole.
3. Bake about forty-five minutes.
Makes eight servings.

Deep-Fried Grits Balls (Gluten Free)

On Sunday, my son and daughter-in-law came over for dinner with her father and stepmother to be and my brother . I inquired about their fondness for shellfish, and was told that they liked shrimp, but daughter-in-law didn't. Okay. Drop the shellfish recipe idea and go with side dishes and appetizers.  I figured with 7 people, we could serve a hot appetizer. Hence the deep-fried grits balls.
I also had (or thought I had) all the ingredients. I definitely had grits, although I had to dig through the closet for them. I had seen a huge block of cheddar cheese in the refrigerator just the day before, I bought a bag of gluten free breadcrumbs at Whole Foods, (and then found another bag down in the bowels of the closet after I took the vacuum cleaner out to suck up the dog hair on the rug.) I bought two dozen eggs for the dessert, so I had eggs. All set.
I even realized that this is, while not a day before recipe, a couple of hours before kind of recipe. The grits had to be cooked and cooled, which I did around 3:00. But, as usual, there's a slip between the cup and the lip, or something to that effect.
About boiling grits. Any kind of ground corn, which is what grits are, clumps up in boiling water if you just dump them in. The directions say add them slowly. What that means is, maybe add a couple of tablespoons at a time, and stir them into the water. You don't have to measure, but that is what I mean by a small amount.
Then it was time for assembly of the grits balls. I opened the refrigerator for the huge block of cheddar cheese, and found it gone! Quel horreur! I asked Bob, my husband, if we had any cheese. He said no. I hadn't told him I needed some, and he had used it all with the broccoli soufflé. At this point it was around 5:30 and the guests were coming at 6. I did not want to run off to the grocery store. Innovation took hold. I grabbed the medium block of Monterrey jack cheese and used that.
If the cook does not mind cooking while the guests are getting settled, these are not a difficult hors d"oeuvre  There is a relatively short list of ingredients which one mashes all together and forms into balls. The balls are then dipped in beaten egg and finally the gluten-free bread crumbs.
The balls are dropped in hot oil and fried until brown. The cooking takes about fifteen to twenty minutes. One easily could assemble the grits balls in the morning,  pop them into the fryer before the guests arrive and keep them warm in the oven.
How do you know when the oil is hot enough? We actually had a discussion about this while munching on the grits balls. I used my 40 year old electric frying pan, which has a thermometer on the dial. If you are lacking such a piece of equipment, here's what to do. Drop a small piece of grits ball into the hot fat. If it starts bubbling and browning right away, the fat is hot enough. If not, it's not hot enough.
These were very well received. My daughter-in-law said they tasted like deep fried macaroni and cheese. "What are these?" she inquired. "Deep fried grits balls," I replied. "Are we in the Southern section of the cookbook?" she asked. "Sure enough, honey child," said I.
The flavoring is a little off. It calls for nutmeg and cayenne pepper. If I ever make these again, which I probably won't unless my son asks me to, I will definitely use cheddar cheese, because the Monterrey Jack  was a little bland, and lose the nutmeg. Nutmeg isn't bad, it just didn't seem to belong there.

Deep Fried Grits Balls

2 cups water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup quick cooking (or non quick cooking) grits
1 cup grated cheddar cheese or Gruyere cheese
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 1/2 teaspoons peanut oil (and 3-4 cups peanut oil for frying)
1 1/2 cup breadcrumbs (I used gluten free breadcrumbs)
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1. Bring the water to a  boil and add salt.When water is boiling, add the grits slowly. Return to a boil and cook over direct heat, stirring occasionally,  two and a half to five minutes. Chill the grits.
2. Mash grits with a fork and stir in the cheese, cayenne, nutmeg and pepper, With hands, shape into approximately forty balls.  (Mine were probably too big.)  beat the eggs and oil together. Dip balls in mixture, then roll in the bread crumbs.
Fry in hot fat (375 degrees) about two minutes, or until golden brown.
Makes forty grits balls.

Cheese Grits Casserole

On Sunday, the YMs, our friend Tim, Bob's old colleague and friend Kathleen  and my brother George came to dinner. I decided to have Southern dinner, especially because the New England choices are kind of thin. Tim, who comes from Alabama, was especially pleased.
"I like to know what I'm eating," he said. Apparently, he doesn't always know what he's eating when he comes to our house.
Since the beans had to cook or set for hours, I started them around 2:00. About 5:00, it was time for the grits. I had had my eye on this recipe for several weeks, since I bought the grits for something else. I bought several iterations of sharp cheddar cheese that got eaten or made into some other dish. However, when I opened the cookbook, I couldn't find it. My eyes fell instead on a recipe for grits souffle. I started the grits with the intention of making the souffle. Immediately, I sensed a problem. The directions on the grits box tell you how to make various numbers of servings, not, how many cups of uncooked grits one needs to produce a certain number of cups of cooked grits.
Since time was passing, I winged it. I figured that if one cup of uncooked rice and two cups of water produce two cups of cooked rice, something like that would work for grits. It did. I put two cups of grits and four cups of water in the saucepan. Then I came to my senses . This dish had cheese in it, I said to myself.   I  looked in the index. I hadn't been able to find Cheese Grits Casserole because it was under main dishes at the end, with cheese concoctions.
I scraped the large amount of grits out of the sauce pan into a greased baking dish, mixed in everything but the beaten egg white and set it off to the side while I went to work on the fried chicken. I am not giving you the recipe because I made it once before, sometime in the 1980s. When the chicken was soaking in the milk, I went back to the grits. My husband Bob beat the egg white with a whisk. For some reason I had reached the state of malaise, or fatigue that made taking out the hand beater too much effort.  The whole thing went into the oven and came out onto the plates of the delighted diners.
My son pronounced grits much better as a side dish than as a breakfast food. I have to say I agree. The first time I encountered them was on a ski trip for teenagers in Vermont. I thought it was cream of wheat and put milk and sugar on them. Cheese and butter makes virtually anything downright tasty.

Cheese Grits Casserole

5 cups water
1 cup hominy grits (I used regular grits. I prefer not to use quick cooking anything.)
1/2 pound sharp cheddar cheese, grated
1/2 cup butter
1 egg separated
1 teaspoon salt

1. Bring the water to a boil and gradually stir in the grits. Simmer, covered, twenty five to thirty minutes, stirring often.
2. Stir in the cheese and butter until melted. Spoon a little of the hot mixture not the egg yolk, return to the bulk of the mixture, add the salt and mix. Cool to room temperature.
3 Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
4. Beat the egg white until stiff but not dry and fold into the cooled mixture. Spoon mixture into a greased baking dish and bake, covered, forty minutes. Remove cover, turn oven heat to 375 degrees and bake until top of casserole is slightly browned.
Makes six servings.