Mrs. Bentley's Best

Polynesian Grilled Shrimp With Peppers And Pineapple

The grill was calling my name but I hadn’t been shopping in over a week.

I scrounged around and came up with a bag of frozen shrimp, a red bell pepper and half of a fresh pineapple.  I had a little bit of left over barbeque sauce, but not enough for what I had in mind.  So, I added a bit of this and dash of that and I added the juice from the pineapple.   It came out great!  A little sweet, a little sour and a little bit more spicy.

I threaded everything on metal skewers and poured on some of the barbeque sauce.  I let the skewers marinate for a bit before I put them on a hot grill.  I turned them every few minutes and mopped them with more sauce each time I turned them.  I took them off after about ten minutes, all nice and glossy and charred.

Here’s the hot tip on grilling shrimp – leave them in their shells!  The frozen shrimp I had, was still in the shell, but had been deveined – perfect.  By leaving the shrimp in the shell, you can grill them long enough to get plenty of sauce to glaze up and long enough to get a nice char.  The sauce permeates the shrimp through the slit made in the back of the shell during the deveining process.  Also, the shells add more flavor.  It’s kind of a pain to peel them with your knife and fork at the table, but it’s worth it.  So, actually, the bigger the shrimp the better in this case.  The bigger shrimp are much easier to shell with a knife and fork.  I wish I had found larger shrimp in my freezer, but scroungers can’t be choosers.

What luck, I also found a bag of pre-cooked frozen brown rice in the freezer.  This is a great staple to keep on hand.  It’s super inexpensive and what could be easier at the last minute.  It takes me an hour and a half to make good brown rice.  The frozen stuff takes 7 minutes.  And, believe me, it’s good!

So, take a scrounge around the back of your fridge, your freezer and pantry and see what amazing dinner you can come up with.