Iron Chef Nectarines

Nectarines - sweet, succulent, slightly tart, and in season! What a great choice for a secret ingredient.
I made:

1. Grilled nectarines. This was a twist on grilled peaches. However I did not add enough sweetness to the grilled nectarines as they are more tart than peaches. The dish needed a little more sweetness.
2. Fruit salsa with cinnamon crisps. This salsa was yummy and was filled with nectarines, strawberries, mangoes, pears, coconut, and chopped pecans. I drizzled fresh lime juice and honey on this fruit salsa. It had a good balance of sweet and tart.
3. Cheddar cheese and nectarine stuffed chicken. I wanted to pair nectarines with sharp cheddar cheese and see how the combination would work (I thought it would work well). It was incredible. I stuffed a chicken breast with a combination of cheddar cheese, cream cheese, and chopped nectarines. Then I breaded it with bread crumbs mixed with apple pie spice for a sweet breading (not sweetbreads like they always use on real iron chef). This was my favorite dish.
4. Vanilla bean and nectarine pastry with vanilla bean pudding. Erik's mom brought back vanilla bean paste from New Zealand. This stuff is AMAZING! So I definitely wanted to pair nectarines with vanilla bean. I made a vanilla bean cream cheese, pecan, and nectarine mixture that I put in the middle of some phyllo dough. Then I rolled up the phyllo dough to make a pastry and baked it with cinnamon and nuts on top. Finally I made some vanilla pudding with the vanilla bean paste. This dessert was superb and was Erik's favorite.

Our ratings were: 15.75 from Erik and 15.125 from me (20 points would be a perfect score).

In other news - my friend Jon just finished his 75 mile trek on the Appalachian Trail. I followed his tweets and was happy to hear it went well. I'll be looking forward to hear how the week went!

57 points today on Quiddler - that was dismal!