Goin' to the Country, Gonna Eat A Lot of Peaches...

And we're back!!! Thank goodness, I was going crazy without my biweekly dosage of Giada's wonderful recipes. Tonight, I made Grilled Peaches with Mascarpone Cheese which was my second dessert out of Everyday Italian. Thanks to our well-stocked and...I guess furnished?...kitchen, it went off without a hitch.

There is no supplementary picture to accompany this recipe in the cookbook, so ever since seeing it in there, I had a specific idea of what I thought it was supposed to look like. I've mentioned before that I sometimes look the recipes up on foodnetwork.com in order to see how long it takes to make the recipe, and that is what I did today. The recipe on there did come with a picture, and it was completely different from my idea. I had this picture of peaches topped with the cheese just open on a plate. The real recipe puts the peaches in glasses of wine. Needless to say, I decided these would be peaches with my own spin and stuck to my original idea.

To start, you mix some sugar with some lemon juice and set it aside. You're also supposed to add brandy to the mixture, but seeing as I live on a dry campus and am not legally able to consume alcohol myself, this just wasn't going to happen. I didn't think it would really take anything away from the recipe anyway.

Next, I had to fire up the grill! Mr. Foreman's innovation came in handy once again and this time, I even remembered to position to drip tray beneath the slanted grill (of course, this time time there were maybe two drops in the entire tray by the time I was finished). As the grill heated, I had to pit and quarter my peach. Sounds easy, right? Oh no, of course not. I cut the peach all the way around to the pit and then desperately tried to rip the two halves apart. After much effort and my hands being thoroughly covered in juice, I decided to cut it in half again to finish the quarters. It was just as difficult to pull apart. I then decided to try to maneuver the knife against the pit and sort of pry each piece off of it. This was actually successful, though bits of peach were still left on the pit. I'm sure Giada doesn't do it perfectly either. Or maybe she does. It really doesn't matter, these are peaches done my way.

After the peach ordeal I sprayed the grill with some EVOO spray (whoever thought to make this spray is a fat-free genius. I save so much by spraying food and cooking surfaces lightly with this rather than tossing it or covering it in oil). I then placed each peach quarter on the grill. Since it is slanted to "grill" the fat off of food (yes, it is the "lean, mean, fat grillin' machine"), the peaches slid right to the edge of the grill. This didn't bother me since they were secure and not falling off. The peaches are supposed to be cooked for about five minutes or until they're heated through and just brown. Well, mine weren't getting quite warm enough for me, so I decided that they needed to be in the center of the grill where most of the heat probably was. This took some skill with my tongs in order to place the peach quarters just right so they wouldn't slid down to the bottom. I was able to do this, but then was scared to even breathe for fear of the slightest change in atmosphere making them fall.

I unplugged the grill when the peaches were just brown and nice and warm, then transferred them to a small plate. The recipe tells you to put them in the bowl with the sugar and lemon juice mixture, but I drizzled that on top of the peaches instead. I should also mention that I did use some of the wine necessary for the recipe, cooking wine that is. I put it in the sugar lemon mixture just to get the full taste of the recipe, but not enough to get drunk off my peaches. I then let the peaches sit and absorb the mixture.

While this was happening, I combined the mascarpone cheese with some vanilla extract. I've seen this cheese used numerous times on Food Network, but had never tried it and had no idea what it was supposed to taste like. Well, it is an extremely mild cheese that has the slightest hint of that tell tale cheese taste. It takes on the flavor of whatever you add to it and gives it that nice, creamy texture. The vanilla cheese that I created was money.

I then dolloped some of the cheese onto each peach quarter and sprinkled some cinnamon on top (my own personal touch, not Giada's). I absolutely LOVE any type of grilled or roasted fruit so the peaches were great. The cheese was really good with it and was the perfect accent since the natural flavors of the grilled peaches still stood out. I'm guessing that this would be even better if I had used a REAL grill, but not only is one not available to me, but it was far too cold out today to be grilling (unless you were tailgating at a Bills game like my family probably was without me today. It's fine. I'm over it).

So I have officially gone through each chapter of the cookbook TWICE now and feel I'm really starting to improve my cooking! I'm picking up tips and tricks each time I try a new recipe and have made some delicious creations. I had Shrimp Scampi while out to dinner the other night (since I am an official shrimp eater now) and I think mine was actually better! I thought moments like that only happened when I tried things while out that my mom made better. I start back at Chapter One again on Thursday with some White Bean Dip with Pita Chips. Delish!

P.S. Happy One Year Anniversary Steph & Doug!

An Open Letter to Shrimp:

Dear Shrimp,

Where have you been all my life, and why hasn't anyone forced me to try you sooner?? Yes, what you see above is some Grilled Shrimp on top of a pile of Roasted Vegetables. After 20 years of hating the smell of shrimp in a frying pan or cringing at the sight of those little question mark bodies curled over the edge of a cocktail glass, I can now say I am a shrimp fan.

Now, allow me to explain this endeavor. We are now on the chapter of Everyday Entrees, with the first section being "Everyday Grills and Sautes." The first recipe is Grilled Jumbo Shrimp. I had every intention of following this recipe completely seeing as it's shrimp, olive oil, salt, and a grill, but me being me, I had to vary quite a few elements. Most of them unintentionally.

It all started on Labor Day. Leslie was so kind as to give me a lift to Aldi so I could buy my frozen shrimp for today's recipe. Well, Aldi is not open on Labor Day (we still had classes on this holiday so we were outraged to see anyone else taking a day off) so we headed down to Hannaford. Leslie was pressed for time so I quickly ran to the freezer to pick out the shrimp. I didn't feel like spending much on the jumbo shrimp, and then my eyes met the tiny little package for a mere $2.99. Without examining the package I grabbed it, checked out, and went on my merry way. Fast forward to this morning. For once, I defrosted my food by placing it in the fridge before heading off to class. I looked at the package and realized that I had bought salad shrimp (hence their tiny size) and that they were already shelled and deveined...and cooked. Fantastic, right?

I called my mom to make sure I could still at least heat these over the grill. She assured me that I could, it just wouldn't be the same as grilling some raw shrimp. I figured I could deal with that.

Moving on, I knew I couldn't eat just shrimp for dinner (especially if I ended up not liking it. We wouldn't want another tuna incident). So I decided to roast up some veggies on the side. Note to self: if you're going to cook, pay attention to what you're doing and HOW MUCH you're making. I was talking with the various people that were in my room as I chopped the veggies before heading up to the oven. In the process, since I wasn't paying attention to how much food was in the bowl, I chopped an entire onion, and entire zucchini, and an entire eggplant. I looked down finally and noticed how full my bowl was, and then figured I was hungry enough to eat it all and that veggies in mass quantities are guilt-free.

As the veggies roasted, I talked to my dad on the phone as I do every night. I realized that everything was piled on top of each other on the tray, but figured it would be OK and that it would still roast just fine. Well, it did roast, but not nearly as much as I had hoped (and this is after my father and I went through all 500 songs on his iPod and I guessed all the artists. Did I mention I lead an extremely exciting life?). I got over it and brought everything downstairs to start the shrimp.

I thought the veggies would stay nice and warm on the screaming hot tray as I cooked the shrimp (they were tiny so I knew it wouldn't take long) and didn't think to maybe cover them with tin foil or anything. Great thinking. My veggies were a bit cold once I started eating them. Anyhow, I put the shrimp into a bowl with two tablespoons of olive oil and then, for a little kick, added some chili powder. I mixed it all up and put them on the now hot George Foreman Grill.

A note on Foreman grills: Remember when these things first came out and Mr. Foreman urged you to try his "Lean, Mean, FAT GRILLIN' MACHINE!" Well, the machine doesn't actually "grill" the fat off of anything. Instead, the bottom tray is slanted downward so all the excess oil and grease just trickles right off. This would explain why a drip tray is included with the grill. I didn't think I needed that...until I covered the counter in olive oil. Nice. Lesson learned: if something comes with attachments, there's probably a logical explanation and function for them.

The shrimp didn't take long to cook (or should I say heat through) and I placed them on top of my now cold veggies once they were done. I sat down, didn't think twice about what I was about to do, and ate a shrimp. I will say, my fears of its consistency were not far-fetched, but the consistency was nothing worse than eating clams (and a lot less chewy). I'm sure if I had grilled RAW shrimp rather than already cooked shrimp, it wouldn't have been as tough. Long story short (is it too late for that?), I liked it a lot. I'm not sure I could handle cold shrimp, but I'm now willing to dive head-first into this unexplored world of shellfish.

As I've said before, success is so delicious :) My next cooking day is Sunday when I take on Everyday Contorni and some Stuffed Mushrooms (one of my favorites!)! Keep your eyes out for a possible update tomorrow. It's our first home game which means some delicious food at our tailgate!!