LaDonna Burt

LaDonna Burt never uses the first recipe she sees for anything. She always looks at several, and usually uses a combination of them for her final one.
The Shrimp and Grits recipe is one of those. She looked at several recipes and then said she made several tries to get it like she wanted. It is a favorite of husband, Jody. And the stone ground grits are a key ingredient, she thinks.
Pinterest is her favorite place for looking at recipes and it is where she found the one for Southern Pecan Praline Cake. Kim McCammon Pettit “threw a fit” over it, so now LaDonna calls it “Kim’s.” Burt describes it as “so good!”

LaDonna likes to grow her own tomatoes and herbs, so she came up with the creamy tomato sauce that she can either pour over pasta or add milk to it to make a creamy tomato soup. Because she had a lot of tomatoes this year, she made and froze a good bit of the sauce. For the past three years her herb garden has consisted of cilantro, parsley and thyme.
Her favorite food is probably her potato soup, to which she adds cheese, butter and bacon bits.
She cooks all the time and says she has always cooked a lot. Her grandmother, the late Bernice Embry, taught her how, and the first thing was cornbread, when she was very young. She has all of her grandmother’s old cookbooks.

She wants to learn to make her grandmother Embry’s red velvet cake and she hasn’t tried yet. She would also like to master her mother, Donna Embry, and grandmother the late Lola Logan’s peach nectar cake, also something she has not tried to do.
Her dad, Larry, likes her homemade pimento and cheese. Son Braiden’s favorite is chess pie, and he can sit down and eat a whole one. This is what he wants instead of a birthday cake, she said. Daughter Aubrey, the breakfast eater, prefers her biscuits and gravy.
LaDonna made crab cakes for the first time this summer with homemade remoulade sauce and said they turned out good. Homemade sugar cookies and white trash are two things she makes a lot of for the holidays, which she has promised to BHS staff member Heather Nix.

Shrimp & Grits
2 cups water
2 cups heavy cream
Salt and pepper
1 cup stone ground grits
3 Tbsp. butter
2 cups Gouda cheese
1 lb. shrimp, peeled and deveined
6 slices bacon, chopped
4 tsp. lemon juice
2 Tbsp. chopped parsley
1 cup sliced green onions
1 clove minced garlic
Bring water and heavy cream to boil. Add salt and pepper. Add stone ground grits and cook until water and heavy cream are absorbed, about 20-25 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in butter and cheese. Rinse shrimp and pat dry. Fry bacon in a skillet until browned. Drain well. In grease, add shrimp. Cook shrimp until they turn pink. Add lemon juice, chopped bacon, parsley, green onions and garlic. Saute three minutes. Spoon grits into serving bowl. Add shrimp mixture. Serve and eat.

Homemade Creamy Tomato Sauce
10 ripe fresh tomatoes
1/2 cup chopped thyme
1/4 cup minced garlic
2 cups heavy cream
1/2 stick butter
1/2 small onion
1 can tomato paste
Salt and pepper
Peel and cut tomatoes. Saute onion, garlic, thyme, salt and pepper in butter. Add tomatoes, tomato paste and heavy cream. Let simmer about 10 minutes. Serve over favorite pasta. (This also good to make large amounts and freeze for easy meals.)

Kim’s Favorite Southern Pecan Praline Cake
For the cake:
1-15 oz. box butter pecan cake mix
1-16 oz. tub coconut pecan frosting
4 eggs
3/4 cup oil
1/2 cup chopped pecans
For the sauce:
1-14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
2 Tbsp. butter
1/2 cup chopped pecans
Preheat oven to 350°. Spray a 9×13 baking dish with non-stick cooking spray. In bowl, combine all cake ingredients except for chopped pecans. (Also add tub of coconut pecan frosting.) Once all are combined, stir in half cup chopped pecans. Pour batter into dish and bake about 40 minutes. In small pot over medium heat, melt 2 Tbsp. butter. Pour in condensed milk and stir. Continue to stir until heated thoroughly, then add half cup chopped pecans. Stir and take off heat. Poke holes in cake and pour sauce over cake. Let stand about 10 minutes.

BLT Dip
5 Roma tomatoes
1 pack real bacon pieces
2 cups mayonnaise
1 cup sour cream
Cut up tomatoes into small pieces. Add remaining ingredients. Stir together and refrigerate one hour. Serve with corn chips.