Bacon Wrapped BBQ Shrimp - Celebrating Charcoal Grillin and Summertime!

So everyone loves some a good grilled meal, but this one is quick, easy, and super tasty! But before I begin, I have to start a short rant--can anyone please tell me why you think a gas grill is better than charcoal. If you're grilling on a gas grill, why not just cook inside? You miss out on the nice, smokey charcoal flavor and literally 3 minutes, you can get sooo much more out of your meal. I've heard the argument "a gas grill is just so much easier," but seriously, people. I had never started a grill myself until 3 days ago and the first time I tried, it took me 3 minutes at the very most. All you do is pile your charcoal, pour on the lighter fluid, and ignite...easy as pie! Just let the coals turn mostly gray and let the flame calm down and you're ready to grill. So tell me your thoughts on the gas vs. charcoal summer battle. I'm curious.

So here's my recipe for bacon-wrapped bbq shrimp. It was adapted from a recipe by Sunny Anderson of the Food Network show Cooking for Real. The difference is that I did a homemade BBQ sauce that was totally different from what she had and, of course, the fact that I grilled mine on the charcoal grill as opposed to indoors.

Ingredients:

hickory flavored bacon

extra jumbo shrimp

bamboo skewers (soaked in water for a couple hours to avoid burning and sticking)

homemade BBQ sauce

Preparation:

Remove shell from shrimp and devein. No need to salt or flavor in any way; the bacon and bbq covers that. Puncture the shrimp through the thicker end with the pointed end of a skewer and slide skewer through while straightening the natural bend of the shrimp. Once on the skewer, the shrimp should be straight. Place two shrimp to each skewer and wrap each one in half a slice of bacon. Slather with bbq and place on a hot grill over punctured foil to allow heat through. Let cook about 10 minutes on one side or until bacon is crispy (the shrimp will not be rubbery at this point, despite what you might think). Slather both sides with more BBQ and let cook 10 more minutes or until bacon is crispy on other side. ENJOY!