Ice cream and grits for dessert, anyone?
It’s been said a million times over how much we love our grits in the South. And our love for grits runs deeper than a bowl for breakfast or an entrée of shrimp and grits for dinner at a Lowcountry restaurant. Try likening your pallets to it with dessert. The traditional vanilla, chocolate and strawberry have been among favorites of ice cream
lovers for years. Inventive South Carolina chefs have created recipes that give foodies a new insight on two common foods that can be eaten together for dessert. Imagine cooling off this summer with a bowl or cone of ice cream laced with the all time Southern favorite – grits. Yes, there is such a concoction and you can make it at home. Come on, try it. Anything with ice cream has to be good, right?
Chef Bob Waggoner, former executive chef of the award-winning Charleston Grill at Charleston Place, has created a cool ice cream dessert not fit for the cone, but certainly a delight to the taste buds. Waggoner says it not often that you find desserts with grits that sweet. Impress guests who may be coming over for dinner this one.
Thin Crepes Stuffed with Praline Grits & Pistachio Ice Cream is from Waggoner’s cookbook “Charleston Grill at Charleston Place”. Waggoner says he wanted to do a "Southern dessert with my play on French, also with the crepe in there to hold the warm grits."
Matt and Ted Lee share an interesting blend of chocolate and grits in “The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook”. The idea for the
Chocolate Grits Ice Cream recipe stemmed from a dining experience in New York City when the pair ate a chocolate grits soufflé at a four-star restaurant. “We can’t say whether this will be our most popular recipe, but the speed at which this ice cream disappears from our freezer is a promising indication,” they say in the book.
Oh, don’t knock it ‘til you try it. Make some at home and see how long it stays in your freezer.
Photo from "Charleston Grill at Charleston Place" by Bob Waggoner with photographs by Bob Waggoner. Reprinted with permission of Gibbs Smith.