OYMST Day #10: Sweet Grits?

I'm totally addicted to Food Network's hit show Chopped. Pure genius watching chefs get stumped with a basket of obscure-(and often gross!) ingredients. If only they'd come up with a vegan version. Imagine the hilarity of chefs being stumped by what to do with tempeh, Speculoos, and durian. I'd totally be the host. I'm funnier and much better looking.

So in the dessert round of one of the episodes, a chef from Senegal made sweet grits with carrots and cream. I felt a little happy on the inside because I like my grits sweet as well. I don't know why, I just do. To some people that just spells D-U-M-B, or C-R-A-Z-Y, but I like to call it G-O-O-D.

Pictured above is my experiment from yesterday: I cooked my instant grits with 1T of dark chocolate, 1t agave, 1.5 brown rice syrup, chopped up banana, and pecans. It reminded me of cocoa wheats. Very warm and filling.

I've also made them with a little Earth Balance and brown sugar. On day 2 of this experiment, I was hungry for my usual cookie meal, but replaced it with grits with chopped figs, dates, cinnamon, ginger, and a little soy milk. Wow. One of these days, I'll have them as intended--plain or with some cheeze and hot peppers.