"Glorious Food and Wine" news and stories

Last week, I wrote about Andreea's fabulous grilled chocolate-stuffed bananas. I haven't had a chance to try them out yet (I spent all my weekend dessert energy on a batch of oatmeal pecan chocolate chip cookies) but Flickr user/blogger Another Pint Please... (aka Mike), the most prolific griller in the Slashfood Flickr pool, saw the post and took on the challenge of grilling up some chocolate-stuffed bananas.

Judging from Mike's results, it looks like this recipe/technique is a true winner. He served his with a side of vanilla ice cream and says that it was very much like an inside out banana split. He's got plans for fancying it up the next time around, using better chocolate and topping it with a sprinkle of toasted nuts. The picture above is the before shot, click here to see the banana after it's been on the grill for a while.

Anyone else try these out yet?

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I've grilled all varieties of peaches, plums, nectarines and apricots. I've also exposed slabs of pineapple to the dying heat of a barbecue. But never, in all my grilling life, have I stuffed bananas with chocolate and put them over the coals. And now, having been shown that it's a possibility, I am kicking myself that this ingenious idea never occurred to me.

This recipe comes from Andreea of Glorious Food and Wine. She got the idea during a recent trip to Champagne, when she was served a similar dessert and now she's played with it and made it her own. The instructions are simple. Just slice open a fairly firm banana length-wise, making sure not to open it at either end. Then stuff it with chocolate (Andreea alternates between dark and milk, but you can do whatever you like). Place it on the grill as the coals die down. You'll know they're ready to be eaten when the peel is black, the banana is soft and the chocolate is all melty. I imagine that you could do this in the oven, at a low temperature, if you don't have a grill.

Andreea, thanks for sharing such a wonderful idea!

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Andreea and Mark over at Glorious Food and Wine sure managed to capture the essence of roasted potatoes with this picture. The potatoes look tender and flavorful (little spots of caramelization always imbue me with great confidence that the item in question is going to taste wonderful). I love that a bit of the craggy pan edge is included in the shot. Its patina of age and use gives you the feeling that their recipes are to be trusted, as anyone who has a pan like that has spent many hours in the kitchen. It doesn't hurt at all that they confess that they used Nigel Slater's recipe for Anchovy Potatoes. He is a food god and his advice rarely disappoints.