Low Country Shrimp and Bacon Bog with Bacon Cornbread

We were trying to find something new and different to eat for dinner, so I grabbed my Bacon Cookbook and started flipping.

I was calling out some of the dishes that I thought sounded good and would grade on the loudness of the wifey's "mmmmm" whether that meant we would be making it or not. Lets just say the "mmmm" I got when I read "Low Country Shrimp and Bacon Bog" was far bigger than any of the others.

It has a lot of ingredients, but is fairly simple to make.

You'll need bacon, onion, long-grain rice (we used brown rice), chicken broth, medium tomato, lemon, worcestershire sauce, salt, ground black pepper (we used smoked salt and pepper), cayenne pepper, nutmeg, shrimp, and parsley leaves.

Get your frying pan and cook 1/2lb of bacon. (pictured with black pepper bacon for cornbread below)

Once the bacon is finished, removed all but about 3 tablespoons of the fat from the pan (or more, or less) add 1 diced onion and stir for 3 minutes.

Add 1 1/2 cups of your rice and stir till it's mixed well.

Then add 2 1/4 cups of chicken broth, a medium tomato and it's juices, chopped, 2 teaspoons of fresh lemon juice, 1 1/2 teaspoons of worcestershire sauce, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1/4 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper, 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne, 1/4 teaspoon of grated nutmeg and bring to a low simmer.

Cover that and let it cook for 20 minutes.

Uncover and add your precooked bacon and 2 lbs of shrimp, and let cook, uncovered, for 10 minutes. If the rice appears to start drying out, you can add more chicken broth.

To go with it, I also found a recipe for Bacon Cornbread.

For this you'll need, bacon, cornmeal, baking powder, salt, eggs, milk, and vegetable oil (or EVOO).

As I mentioned above, I did the black pepper bacon first, because we needed it for this, but then I did the regular thick cut bacon in that grease, and cooked everything for the bog in the black pepper bacon fat (just to give it a little more flavor).

Preheat the over to 425 degrees and grease a 12x8x2 baking pan. Mix 4 cups of cornmeal, 4 teaspoons of baking powder, and 1 teaspoon of salt. Add 4 large beaten eggs, 4 cups of milk, and 1/4 cup of vegetable oil or EVOO and stir with a wooden spoon until it's blended and smooth. Once that's ready, add the delicious bacon, and stir again to make sure it's evenly distributed. Scrap that into your pan and let bake for 25-30 minutes, or until you can put a knife in the center and it comes out clean.

Once everything is ready and you make your portions, sprinkle a little minced parsley leaves on top and serve.

I prefer sweet cornbread over "regular" cornbread, so it was a little on the dryer side for me. Dawn loved it, so if it sounds good to you, take her opinion over mine here. As for the bog part, honestly, we under cooked the rice a hair, and by a hair I mean a good bit. Apparently brown rice takes a good bit longer to cook than long-grain rice does ... or either we suck as cooks.

Either way, it was absolutely delicious, and we will be making this again.