Bacon Wrapped Shrimp and Pineapple

Summer is coming and you may want a new appetizer for your first BBQ of the season. I have to give my husband credit for this recipe. Some of our readers know by know that he loves to BBQ and while on holidays in April he filled our shopping carts with a few ingredients and surprised me with these tasty appetizers. 

Ingredients: (I'd suggest 3-4 per person)

• 1 fresh pineapple
• uncooked large shrimp, shelled and deveined
• 1/2 piece bacon per number of shrimp
• raspberry chipotle sauce (available in specialty shops and some grocery stores)
• toothpicks

Ingredients for shrimp marinade: (this would be enough to marinade approximately 12 shrimp)

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper (or a bit more if you like heat)

Method:

1. Cut rind off pineapple. Cut down centre making two halves. Cut out core and discard. Slice pineapple into 1/2" slices. Cut each slice into 2-3 chunks. Set aside.
2. Pre cook bacon until half cooked.
3. Clean and rinse shrimp. 
4. Stir cayenne into olive oil and add clean shrimp. Cover and allow to marinade in the refrigerator for at least one hour. 
5. Once bacon is half cooked and cool enough to handle, lay half a strip of bacon down and lay a piece of pineapple and one marinaded shrimp on top. Wrap bacon around shrimp and pineapple and secure with tooth picks. 
6. Place wrapped bundles onto preheated grill at 350º. A little BBQ tip here. Make sure your grill is raised a wee bit and you cook over indirect heat so they don't burn and cook slowly. Slower cooking is better. 
7. During the last 5-10 minutes glaze with the raspberry chipotle sauce.
8. They are done once the bacon is cooked. This should take a total of about 30-45 minutes. This may seem like a long time, but you will have to adjust according to your BBQ and how hot it gets. We cook over a Big Green Egg ceramic cooker so it's very easy to regulate the heat and food does not dry out. These will turn out really nice on any BBQ.....just watch 'em. 
9. Serve hot off the grill. You may want to have extra sauce on the side for dipping.

NOTE: I found Roasted Raspberry Chipotle Sauce in a  specialty shop, but if you can't find it you could easily just use some raspberry jam and add a bit of chipotle sauce to it until you get the flavour you like. I tried this and pureed it in my mini food processor. It was quite tasty. Apricot jam mixed with some red pepper jelly makes a nice sauce as well. 

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