July 2008 - GRILLED FRUIT DESSERTS

Yeah, GRILLED FRUIT DESSERTS! Fresh fruits are in abundance and we're all spending more time outside, so why not fire up the grill and see what we can create?

For this event:

1. You can pick whatever FRESH fruit(s) that's in season in your area.
2. You may use a propane or charcoal outdoor grill OR a grill pan to create your delicious dessert.
3. If you've prepared and written a grilled fruit dessert post on your homeblog for July already, you may use it again here. Otherwise, LET'S KEEP IT FRESH ALL THE WAY AROUND.

This event starts right now and the DEADLINE for recipe entries is JULY 22, 2008.

NOW GO FIRE UP THOSE GRILLS!

Voting Results Are In!

Tags: desserts, fruits, grilled-fruit-desserts, grilling

Replies are closed for this discussion.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by kindageeky on July 8, 2008 at 11:06pm: Grilled Rum-Macerated Bananas w/ Maytag Blue Cheese & Guava Gelee

I decided on a semi-savory but very fruity and sweet approach. I had already been researching some unusual flavor pairings with Guava and then ran across the announcement of the challenge, so decided to jump in with something that might take people back a bit.

The logic behind this dish is that banana, rum, guava, and (believe it or not) blue cheese share several common volatile flavor components that make them blend together somewhat magically. Certainly there is precedent for guava and banana pairing, but I decided to push the envelope a bit with the rum and blue cheese. The rum didn't seem like too far of a stretch from bananas foster, so I added a bridge element of brown sugar (which I use in my bananas foster preparation anyway). The blue cheese I knew would be austere, so I decided to sandwich that between the banana and the guava, with the idea that you'd spear these from the top and eat banana first, then blue cheese, then finish with the guava.

Here is the preparation (per person):

1 ripe banana, cut into 4 scallops (ok a little taller than a scallop), discarding the tips
¼ cup guava gelee
4 1”x1” slices of Maytag blue cheese (avoid stilton, fourme d'Ambert, etc, these are too musty for this)
½ cup spiced rum
brown sugar to barely coat the banana

For the guava gelee, use a non-concentrated pasteurized guava juice (which will be slightly blended with pear or apple juice), along with a ~0.9% mix of gelatin by weight: I used 300 ml guava juice & 3g of gelatin. Bring the juice to 180-200F then whisk in the gelatin. Let sit overnight in the fridge. Agitate before serving, you're going for a consistency that is thinner than jello, slightly thicker than jelly (though the heat of the bananas will melt this a bit, so work quickly and carefully when plating).

Macerate the banana scallop in the rum in a little bowl for about 2-4 minutes, you don't need much time to impart flavor, and too much time with leave the bananas as mush. Pull the scallops from the rum and coat gently with brown sugar, no clumps just a nice even coat that melds with the rum on the surface. On a 500F grill that is coated with a high temperature cooking spray (like PAM with Palm oil), place the bananas on their ends, then rotate 90 degrees every 30 seconds, and finally rotate to the back and front (leaving the grill open the whole time). We're going for a quick caramelization here that leaves some pretty grill marks. Remove from the heat after no more than 3-4 minutes.

I have to say that I love this, and I'm not a big dessert guy, mostly because I avoid the cloyingly sweet stuff. This experiment has me thinking there might be something to this food science business with flavors, please let me know what you think if you're bold enough to try it!

Permalink Reply by Psychgrad on July 14, 2008 at 10:38pm: Hi Everyone. This is my first time participating in a Great Cooks County Fair event. Thanks for the inspiration!

Grilled Pineapple with Curried Chicken

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/4 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp sweet paprika
1/2 fresh pineapple
3 plum tomatoes
1 red pepper
approx. 10 cremini mushrooms
olive oil
salt and paper, to taste

Cut up the chicken breasts to your preferred size. Marinate the chicken in turmeric, chili power, cumin, coriander and olive oil. Cut up your fruit and vegetables for grilling.
I seasoned my red pepper and and mushrooms with salt, pepper and sweet paprika.
I also coated my fruit with olive oil. When the chicken is about 1/2 finished, start vegetables on the bbq. About 8 minutes before the chicken is complete, I added the pineapple and tomato. It should only take about 3-4 minutes for each side to get nice grill marks. Serve with rice.

The dish was delicious! Really, the pineapple was the star of the dish. The tomato is a nice addition, but not a deal breaker.

To see the full post with more pictures and a longer write up, click here.

Permalink Reply by Vani on July 20, 2008 at 7:27am: Chicken with pineapple sounds great:)

All the best for the event!

Permalink Reply by Vani on July 20, 2008 at 7:26am: Thats creative ;)
Different way to eat bananas:) All the best for the event!

Permalink Reply by Vani on July 20, 2008 at 10:52pm: Okay.... I am back with my entry ;)

Grilled Apple & Mango with Strawberry Jelly

This is first time I am grilling fruits. Thanks to Jill ("Grilling Queen") - he he he..... for initiating this event.... Grilled apples were tasting great, but I cannot accept grilled mangoes ;), .....

.... since I love to eat them, as it is:)

But they were melting in the mouth with jelly ;) , try this out!

Checkout ingredients and preparation @
http://illatharasi.blogspot.com/2008/07/grilled-apple-mango-with-st...

Permalink Reply by Psychgrad on July 21, 2008 at 9:42am: Grilled apple and mango sound delicious.

Permalink Reply by Jill McKeever on July 22, 2008 at 8:40pm: Dear Great Cooks County Fair Participants and supporting Members,

Charles & I have created the Great Cooks County Fair Voters Booth. This is a closed group for community members only.

Every member that wants to cast their vote for their favorite GCCF recipe must join this group.

The final results of the poll will be made public to the community and as the close of this discussion.

See you on the other side!

If you have questions, just hollar for me.
Jill McKeever
GCC Administrator

Permalink Reply by Ivy on July 23, 2008 at 7:55am

Fruit, fuel for our body

If your luxury car needed high octane fuel, would you fill the tank with alternative cheaper fuel? I am sure the answer is no, even if fuel prices are rising day by day.

God created us and gave us a mouth where we should put high quality fuel in it so that we can live a healthy life and instead of eating healthy we fill our body with junk and then have to ran to the doctors to see what is wrong with us. We get diabetes, high blood pressure or cholesterol and with other substance it can form plaque, a thick, hard deposit that can clog those arteries. This condition is known as atherosclerosis. A clot (thrombus) that forms near this plaque can block the blood flow to part of the heart muscle and cause a hear attack. If a clog blocks the blood flow to part of the brain, a stroke will result.

I don't want to scare you but eating fruit and vegetables is absolutely necessary and as my children are not really fans of fruit, I try at least with a certain disguise to trick them into eating some.

When I saw this month's challenge in the Great Cooks Community I was thrilled that I discovered a new way to make fruit recipes. The challenge was grilled fruit and as I had never thought of grilling fruit before I was more than happy to give it a try. The only cooked fruit I made up to now is apples, pears or quince, baked in the microwave for a few minutes with sugar and cinnamon and many kinds of preserved fruit, which we call spoon sweets in Greece and fruit compote.

When Jill McKeever announced this event I thought I would give it a try and although I avoided grilling them on charcoal, as it's a bit fuzzy, I decided to grill them on the electric griller and the result was very good.

I used the fruit I had at home that particular day and served them with Watermelon Jelly with whipped cream and Ice Cream.

In the days that followed the grilled fruit, I prepared a fruit salad with sweet dessert wine and a fruit salad compote which will also be included in this posts.

Grilled Fruit

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Grilling time: 20 minutes

Makes 10 skewers

Ingredients

2 peaches
2 apples
1 banana
2 spoonfuls of brown sugar
½ teaspoon of cinnamon

Directions

Wash and peel fruit. Cut into bite sizes and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.

Thread fruit onto metal skewers, alternating types of fruit for a colorful presentation; fill the skewer just enough to fit in your griller.

Place skewers in the hot grill pan and grill each side for 10 minutes. Turn only once and let them cool a little before serving.

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Last Tuesday I went to the farmers' market and as usual I bought a lot of fruit.

Cherries, pears, apricots, peaches, nectarines and melons. Imagine all this fruit had to be consumed quickly as not all of them can last for many days. The cherries, apart from a handful I used for the salad, the rest two kilos were made into a spoon sweet, which I will post soon. Perfect on top of desserts. The pears and the melons will be the last to be consumed as they can be kept for a week in the refrigerator.

Healthy Fruit Salad

A handful of pitted cherries
2 - 3 slices of melon, depending on the size of the melon, cut into bite sizes
2 nectarines
2 peaches
2 bananas
6 apricots
2 - 3 spoonfuls of Greek Thyme Honey
1/2 cup of Commandaria Wine or red sweet dessert wine of your preference
cinnamon to sprinkle on top if they are served without the yoghurt (optional)
Greek strained yoghurt

Directions
Before peeling and cutting fruit make sure that they are cold and cut them into bite sizes. Mix all ingredients, and serve with Greek low fat strained Yoghurt.

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Fruit Compote

Although I bought the fruit on Tuesday and today is only Thursday I needed to used these fruit immediately as they would not last any longer.

Last week I made watermelon spoon sweet and there was more syrup that I needed to fill in the jars, so I stored it in the refrigerator thinking that I could wet my sponge cakes with it. I also had some leftover syrup from sour cherries spoon sweet, so I emptied two jars (about 2 - 3 glasses) of the syrup in a sauce pan and put it on the heat.

Simultaneously I peeled the fruit and cut it into sized bites.

When the syrup started to boil, I lowered the heat and crashed the seeds of 6 cardamom pods and added them to the syrup as well as 1 piece of a cinnamon stick about an inch long.