Housewarming

Hey, y'all

I'm Paula Deen. And today, I'm throwing myself a housewarming party. You know, Michael and I just moved into our new home

And when my friends come over, I really want to just knock the socks off of them

with these delicious recipes. I'm going to be making a traditional southern finger

food, cheesy shrimp on grits toast. And then I'm going to fry up some ravioli

and I'm going to top it with a savory marinara cream sauce

And finally, to sweeten up this little party, I'm going to bake a rich and creamy Savannah cheesecake cookie

that's going to melt in your mouth. So come on in, y'all

Leave your shoes at the door, because today you're invited to my housewarming party

Hey, y'all

Today's show is something that's very near and dear to my heart

It's housewarming. So what better house to start with than my very own

Michael and I just completed the construction of our dream home. And we wanted to make it so comfortable so that everybody enjoys it

Even my bird. You can see up there, lady birds in there enjoying her snack right now

I'm walking through a garden right now that's just chock full of herbs. It really is going to enhance any dish that I decide to make

In fact, speaking of dishes, I'd love for y'all to join me today in the kitchen because I'm going to be cooking up some yummy, yummy housewarming dishes

So y'all come on in and join me. I'm looking forward to spending a little time with you

So y'all just follow me and we're going to start cooking. I'm so glad y'all decided to come on into the kitchen with me

The first dish that we're going to make is a Savannah cheesecake cookie

And it's not a cookie at all. It's actually baked in a 13 by 9 by 2, and it's cut into squares

We're going to start by mixing one cup of all-purpose flour, a fourth of a cup of packed light brown sugar

and one cup of chopped nuts. Now, I'm using pecans. And last but not least, one stick of melted butter

I know y'all knew it was coming. Look how good that looks

All right, now I'm just going to mix this up, and I'm going to pat it into the bottom of my pan

It's just that simple. All right, so we're just going to dump that in

And if y'all should hear somebody yelling, that's Lady Bird. She's just wanting me to come get her

and take her out of the cage and play with her. All right, so we're going to put this

in a preheated 350-degree oven, and we're gonna let it bake until it's a nice, light golden brown

All right, so in about 12 minutes, we're gonna pull out that crust

and we're gonna put this cream cheese filling on that crust, and we're gonna bake it

for a little bit longer. All right, we're gonna start by beating up

two softened 8-ounce cream cheeses along with a cup of sugar. Then you might wanna sit all this out

on your counter the night before, and that way it'll be ready for you to start beating together

It'll be nice, room temperature. So that's nice and fluffy

The sugar's dissolved in the cream cheese. Now you'll want to make sure when you're cracking your eggs

that you crack and put them in a separate bowl because you never know if you may have a bad egg

So this way, you won't run the risk of spoiling the whole recipe

So that egg looks fine. And that one is as beautiful an egg as I've ever seen

And so is his brother. And we're going to add a teaspoon of vanilla

And that's all it is, too. Whoa! A little extra alcohol for the dish

Won't hurt it. And our crust is not through baking

but y'all know that I always make extras. I can never make just one thing or something

not in the Dean Groover house, because there's a bunch of us. And I've got one over here that's ready

and all we gonna do is just pour our cream cheese filling right on top of our crust And after the crust is baked you want to just sit it out on the counter and let it cool off before you put your cream cheese filling in

And I'm just going to spread this one out nice and even. Looks delicious

So our crust should be ready. And it is a beautiful, light brown crust

And now we're gonna slip the pan in with our cream cheese filling

We're gonna bake that for about 20 minutes. And I have one ready

And I don't know about y'all, but I can't hardly wait to taste it

Now to just dress it up a little bit, I'm gonna just dust the top of it with a little powdered sugar

and I'm just running it through a very, very tiny strainer. Now, for the size cookie, you just go with what you'd like to have

I think I want a bigger piece for myself, so I'm going to cut it in maybe a two-and-a-half-inch square

And look how good that does look. Now, to just dress my plate, I'm going to dust it with a little bit more powdered sugar

and I've got some beautiful fresh strawberries here and I've got a little mint from the garden

and look how pretty that looks. I can't hardly wait to taste it

Mmm. Mmm. It's so nutty

That's what I love about the crust. It's full of nuts. You're going to love it

So I'm going to finish taking a little sweet break here. And when we come back, you're not going to believe that a southerner would really like cheesy shrimp on grits toast, are you

Well, that's what I'm cooking next. So I'll see y'all back in a minute. Mmm

I'm really, really anxious to share this recipe with y'all

because it's so good. It's got two of the ingredients that we just love down here in this area

and that's grits and shrimp. Now, I'm using three cans of store-bought chicken stock

All this can be done the day before, so it really is a simple yet delicious last-minute dish

Now I'm gonna make sure that all those grits get nice and incorporated with that chicken stock

So now I'm gonna lower our temperature, and I'm gonna put the lid on them

and I'm gonna let them cook for about five minutes. And while they're cooking, I'm gonna come down here

and I'm gonna make the cheese, the shrimpy cheese sauce, that's gonna go on top of these incredible grits

Now, all I'm going to do is just coarsely chop my shrimp

and it's like one and a half pounds of shrimp that's been boiled and peeled and deveined

They look delicious. Just a nice, rough chop. All right, now I'm going to come over here

I've got an 8-ounce package of cream cheese at room temperature. You know, I don't believe we could throw a party without cream cheese

I really don't. And you can see how soft this is. Now to this, I'm going to add a blend of Italian cheeses

but you can add whatever kind of cheese you want, and that's about a half a cup

And then I'm going to add some fresh parsley, and I'm going to add a tablespoon of half and half

All right, so I'm just going to mix that up. So we're just going to add those to our cream cheese

and I'm just going to fold that in. Now let's check on our grits

So all I'm going to do is pour these into our pan

These are five-minute grits, which are going to be delicious. All right

Now I'm going to stir in a half a cup of fresh grated Parmesan cheese

Just going to kind of fold that in Oh that smells good good good Okay Now I going to put these in the refrigerator and I got some in there waiting for us right now

Look at our grits. Now these have been chilled nicely. All right

Now all we're going to do is take our chilled grits, and I'm going to spray our sheet pan

So I had some butter melting back here on the stove, so I'm going to just take our grits and slather it with this melted butter

This is just going to help them crisp up, because now we're going to cut these

and we're going to put them on a cookie sheet, and we're going to bake them

And I'm using a tin can that just works perfectly. So I hope that you're going to like these as much as Michael does

I mean, this is almost just like stupid easy. All right, so we're going to throw these in a 400-degree oven

and we're going to bake them for about 15 minutes. And then I'm going to come back and I'm going to flip them over

and I'm going to continue baking them for about 40 more minutes

Now I have a tray that's ready back here. We're going to take our grits toast, and we're going to dollop them with our cream cheese and our shrimp

To me, these are just going to be perfect for the housewarming, because I'm not actually serving a meal

I'm just serving bites of food. Now, I'm going to top them with just a little cheddar cheese, just to give them a little color

And then I'm going to run these under the broiler, and I'm going to broil them for about five minutes

until they're like melted and kind of ooey-gooey. But I love the little bit of orange cheese

All right. I'm just going to top them with a little bit of crushed black pepper

and that'll give them just a little bit more color to them. Now I'm fixing to stick these in the broiler, like I said, for about five minutes

And when we come back, we're going to taste them. But guess what else I'm fixing for our housewarming party

I'm fixing a fried ravioli with a cream marinara sauce. How yummy does that sound, Mario

Did I say it right? Ravioli marinara. I'll see y'all back in a minute

Look at these wonderful little cakes. Look at that. And see the yellow cheese just gives it a little punch

It's really crunchy and have a bite

Truly a spectacular hors d'oeuvre. I think your guest will just love it

I don't know if I'm going to be able to make these little raviolis for wanting to eat shrimp toast, but let's get started

I'm going to be using a cheese ravioli that you can buy in your frozen food section

And I'm going to cook these for about two minutes. And I've got my salted boiling water

and I'm just going to dump them down in there. Ooh! Be careful when you're doing this at home

And let's move on down here, and we're going to put together a mixture that we're going

to dredge these raviolis in. Now I've got a half a cup of milk, and I'm going to take one egg and beat up in our milk

Now I gonna add a little salt and a little pepper and then it beat that up a little bit more

And I can't wait to show off my house. Michael and I stay pretty busy

so sometimes we don't get together with our friends as often as we'd like

So we're really looking forward to this. So these are ready. Like I said, just about two minutes is all that these need

And I'm going to drain them on a paper towel. Oh, and these smell good

All right. For our marinara, we're just going to use one jar of store-bought marinara sauce

And then we're going to add a half a cup of heavy cream

How simple is that? And we're going to let this cook for about, just about two minutes, just enough to heat up

So let's come down here. I have two cups of ground pecans, and to that I'm going to add a cup of fresh grated Parmesan cheese

And I'm just going to toss those together. And then we're going to take our ravioli, and we're going to run it through our milk

and egg mixture. Your ravioli needs to be more on the dry side so that everything will stick to this, because

you have to be careful because it will kind of clump up on you

This is going to be so delicious. So I've got enough to line the bottom of my frying net

so I'm going to just lower those in there. All right, I'm going to have to stop and give my hands a rinse

A good tip for when you're dipping and frying is to use one hand for wet and the other for the dry

but sometimes I get so excited I don't do that. I'll wind up just jumping in there with both hands

I'm going to lift this out because I see them puffing, and we don't want our cheese to burst out and go everywhere

so I think those are just right. Look at those

All right, I'm going to take our marinara and pour it into our bowl

I'm just going to place these around on the platter, and I'm going to have more folks around this dish

than you can shake a stick at. Oh, wowee. I don't know if I can even taste this, y'all

I mean, everything is so steamy. Look. I don't think I can taste this right now, y'all

I think I'd even burn my mouth, which everybody says I got the toughest mouth in town

But when we come back, I've got a tip for you that's going to make that housewarming

just a little bit warmer. So I'll see you back in a minute

I just have to say, I really don't want anybody to bring me any gifts tonight

nor do I expect any. But I'd like to share with y'all what I do

when I go to a housewarming. You know, I just love little things that are useful

and that are from my heart and from my kitchen. I've got a basket and I've lined it with a dish rag

along with some really, really useful kitchen gadgets and a nice bag of pasta, beverage napkins

dinner napkins, beeswax candles, potpourri, and a couple of jars of my homemade jams

So I hope this will help you out. And if I do get a gift tonight, I hope it's homemade

Well, believe it or not, y'all, I've gotten everything done. My house is pretty clean

But more important than that, I've got all the food done. And even though it's enough to get started

you may find that when you serve these recipes that you're going to be in the kitchen making more

I think that y'all are just going to love the Savannah cheesecake cookies. I can't hardly wait for y'all to taste this one

The cheesy shrimp on grits toast. It's out of this world. And the fried ravioli with the cream marinara sauce is going to have your guests just raving

So if y'all have got a house to warm up, I hope that y'all will enjoy using these recipes

because they're truly delicious and easy. So as always, y'all, I send you love and best dishes from my home to yours