Sugar Cane

We grow sugar cane, yes we do! In our small garden and it's very invasive and a lot of work to contain. There is not much else to say about it besides that it's a nice ornamental grass and great for cooking. Sugarcane is a giant, tropical, perennial grass that grows up to 12' high. Its stalk contains sweet juice from which sugar can be extracted.
Wrap it around a nice steak, use it with stir fry, stick it in hot or cold tea or give it to your kids to chew on.
It's imortant to use fresh stalks to make twizzle sticks. Cut sugar cane stalks into 6"-8" pieces, avoiding the nods and then lengthwise into 1/4" sticks, remove outer (hard) coat.


Here is one of my favorite grill recipes with sugar cane.

Rum Glazed Shrimp on Sugarcane

Ingredients
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 garlic clove, minced
24 jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined (about 1 1/2 pounds)
8 sugarcane swizzle sticks, each cut into 3 pieces
1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup dark rum (or 2 tsp alcohol free "rum aroma", in the baking isle)
1/4 cup corn syrup
3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Cooking spray

Preparation
Prepare grill to high heat.

Combine first 5 ingredients in a large bowl. Add shrimp; toss to coat. Cover and chill 15 minutes.
Cut swizzle sticks at a sharp angle. Thread 4 shrimp on each skewer.

Combine brown sugar and next 8 ingredients (brown sugar through pepper) in a saucepan; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer 5 minutes or until syrupy.

Place shrimp on grill rack coated with cooking spray. Grill 3 minutes on each side or until done, basting generously with glaze.

Yield
6 servings (serving size: 4 shrimp)

Nutritional Information
CALORIES 273(22% from fat); FAT 6.8g (sat 1.9g,mono 1.6g,poly 2.3g); PROTEIN 23.6g; CHOLESTEROL 177mg; CALCIUM 83mg; SODIUM 541mg; FIBER 0.2g; IRON 3.5mg; CARBOHYDRATE 23.3g

Steven Raichlen , Cooking Light, AUGUST 2003 Recipes adapted from Steven Raichlen's books How to Grill (Workman, 2001) and BBQ USA (Workman, 2003)