Monday, July 21, 2008

Grilled Cantaloupe


Grilled Cantaloupe, originally uploaded by chrisfreeland2002.

I had folks over for dinner on Friday and banged out a pretty good meal (if I do, ever so humbly, say so myself). I'll blog a bit later about the Chicken with Tarragon Vinegar Grilling Marinade I fixed, but for now I'll start where I finished - grilled cantaloupe for dessert.

I've grilled pineapple & peaches before, to raves, but had never tried a melon. It seems to be all the rage this summer, and I'm never one to let a bandwagon pass me by, so I hopped on. I tried grilled watermelon and grilled cantaloupe. In fact, I paired them on the plate with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream. Sounds fun, looked great, but to be honest the pairing was off. I did not care for the texture or flavor of the grilled watermelon; to me the smokiness of the grill just turned the normally bright, crisp watermelon into a warm mush.

However, the silver lining here is that the grilled cantaloupe was fantastic! Cantaloupe has a meatier flesh than a watermelon, so I guess it should have been no surprise that it held up well to grilling.

This one is really easy - I just slapped 1/2" slices of cantaloupe across a hot grill, 2-3 minutes each side, until grill marks started to form. I served it drizzled with local wildflower honey and some chopped mint from our herb garden, and a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream. From slicing to plating this dessert took less than 15 minutes to prepare and was a fun way to play with a summertime favorite.

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