Eat'em and Beat'em, 2

If it's good, then there's likely to be a sequel.  Same is the case with my quest to Eat'em and Beat'em as a tailgater at Met Life Stadium.

The Giants played two teams where I hadn't made something before: the Atlanta Falcons and the San Francisco 49ers.

Let's start with Atlanta.  What's unique to Atlanta?  Well, there's grits, but that seemed to be a generic Southern US food.  With it being mid-September, I remembered that Atlanta resides in Georgia, and, as their license plates show, the peach is king.  But, what to do? 

I started by quartering the peaches, about 10 of them, and placing them all into a Ziploc bag.  In that bag, I added a liberal amount of brown sugar, cinnamon and kosher salt.  I mixed it all together and threw it in the cooler for game-day.

Once at the stadium, I had a pan that I could put directly over a grill.  I coated the pan with an olive-oil non-stick spray, and started cooking the peaches, moving them around a bit as to keep them from burning.  When I realized that they were almost soft I took about 8oz of Coca-Cola and poured that in, allowing the peaches to simmer in the Coke.  Why Coke?  Because Atlanta is the national headquarters for the company and it seemed fitting.

When they were soft to the touch (but still firm enough to stick a fork into (about 15 min total in the pan), I took them off the heat to let them cool.  Then, I took a small scoop of a "honey" chevre, and laid it where the pit would have been in each of the quarters...finishing off the peach with crumbled (and previously cooked/cooled) bacon.

This shit was goddam tasty.

For San Francisco, I wanted to incorporate both sourdough and Rice-a-Roni.  Taking a pound of shrimp, I used the seasoning packed for the pilaf box, and coated them evenly, adding about 2 tablespoons of dried thyme.  I wanted to keep them moist and so, again, I turned to a pan with olive oil over the grill to cook them...about 10 minutes, and until they were opaque and pink.  Then, I plated them by taking a half a sourdough roll (thanks Trader Joes), adding a tangy honey mustard, and putting between 2 and 3 shrimp on them.  Toothpicks are necessary for this as the rolls tend to pop open.  What would have made this perfect would have been a couple of cucumber slices...but, when eating it, you could really taste the pilaf mix and the delicious sourdough.  A perfect finger food in early October in the parking lot.

Next home-game will be against Dallas...so, there will definitely be meat involved.  As the [injured] quarterback is of Mexican descent, that may factor into it.  Yum.