FANDANGO Catering Offers 4 Summer Grilling and Dessert Ideas

FANDANGO Catering offers 4 summer grilling and dessert ideas in its continuing 2010 blog series, "Summer Food and Entertaining Ideas."

A type of meat that we particularly like for grilling and that always impresses guests is pork tenderloin. It's much easier to season, cook, slice, serve, and eat than fajitas, brisket, ribs, or chicken and, because it has no bone, there's less waste than with bone-in types of meat.

Here is a great pork tenderloin grilling recipe that our Executive Chef has adapted from Southern Living:

Bacon-Wrapped Pork Tenderloin on the Grill

Serves 8

3 (3/4 lb.) pork tenderloins

2 tbsp. olive oil

1 tbsp. white balsamic vinegar or tarragon vinegar (you can throw in a dash of Spanish sherry or marsala to really make this outstanding)

1 1/2 tsp. ancho chile powder or a combination of 1/2 tsp. ancho chile powder, 1/2 tsp smoked paprika, and 1/2 tsp. Penzey's BBQ 3000 (we prefer the latter combination but if you're in a hurry or don't want to shop for the other ingredients ancho chile powder gives great results too)

1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

8 thick-cut bacon or pancetta slices

Cut pork into 8 slices. Place meat between 2 sheets of heavy duty plastic or wax paper and pound it to a 2-inch thickness with a rolling pin, meat mallet, or plate. Whisk together olive oil, vinegar, and seasonings. Rub mixture over pork, cover and chill 2 hours or as long as overnight.

Microwave bacon or pancetta on high 2 minutes. Drain marinade from pork, then wrap each pork slice with bacon and secure with a small skewer or a toothpick.

Grill meat, covered with grill lid, over lit side of grill (leave other side of grill unlit) 5 minutes on each side. Move pork to unlit side of grill, cover with grill lid, and grill 30-35 minutes or until a meat thermometer registers 160 degrees.

Another of our favorite grilling techniques is for vegetable packets. These are really easy to prepare and make for easy cleanup because you throw away the foil when you're finished eating. You can make one large packet to serve a group or individual packets. If you're using vegetables that tend to be crunchy, par-boil them first for about 5 minutes and then put them in the packets to finish on the grill--most vegetables in foil packets take 12-20 minutes on the grill (the vegetables will be tender, not crunchy).

About the easiest of all ways to do these vegetables packets is to season them with Italian dressing and a few chopped fresh herbs (salt and pepper optional). Easy, and everybody likes these.

For this menu we suggest a dessert of grilled pineapple with ice cream or, even easier, ice cream with fold-ins. Ice cream fold-ins are a wonderfully easy dessert for summer and take advantage of the delicious fresh fruit of the season.

Here's how: buy vanilla ice cream and blend in a blender or food processor any of the following combinations, then fold fruit mixture into the ice cream:

Mixed Berry Ice Cream Fold-In:

4 cups fresh strawberries

2 cups fresh raspberries or 1 cup each fresh raspberries and blueberries

1 cup sugar

Optional: 1 tsp. heavy cream

Process 30-45 seconds. Cover and chill at least 2 hours. Soften ice cream and fold in berry mixture with a rubber spatula

Peach Ice Cream Fold-In:

6 cups fresh sliced peaches

1 cup sugar (or to taste)

Optional:1 tsp. heavy cream

Procedure: Same as for Mixed Berry Ice Cream Fold-In

If it's too hot to cook but you still would like to invite people over and serve them a little something, why not invite people over for dessert only and serve ice cream with a fold-in, with perhaps some shortbread or Bonne Maman or other deluxe cookies? You can serve the ice cream in pretty goblets or, if you have them, dessert dishes, and impress people! Ask your wine store for suggestions on libations to serve with this type of dessert or do as our grandparents did--serve iced tea.

Enjoy!

Next time: Spanish Summer Food

Kristina

Kristina Ríos de Lumbreras, Ph.D.

Partner, Director of Sales & Operations

FANDANGO Catering

(281) 796-9841