Pineapple Reeta Shirtdress

Is it still the case that #pineapplesaresohotrightnow, or am I five years too late? I'm not sure I care either way. Because I am going to wear the heck out of them no matter the answer.

Sambal Chicken Skewers with Pineapple Jicama Salsa

I know, I know... another sambal-centric dish.  But, in my defense, these dishes were eaten a month apart, only blogged right in a row. Furthermore, this Bon Appetit recipe made the cover of the July issue, so the juicy chicken was just staring at me constantly from the coffee table, tempting me.  It had to be made.

A simple, tasty marinade/sauce for BBQ chicken, for sure.  However, for me, like in the case of the sambal/banana/shrimp dish, my Indonesian sambal (labeled "EXTRA PEDAS") was a bit too spicy... I think the heat from the stuff I buy here is several notches higher than the sambal oelek you get in the U.S.   Tim and I had a couple coughing fits while eating this (which may also be partially due to the fact that I cooked this chicken on the cast iron grill pan inside, being too lazy to wait for the charcoal to heat up outside). We did think the flavor was nice despite the excessive heat, though.

I served the chicken with a side of cooling pineapple-jicama salsa and some lime and cilantro couscous.  I think the salsa was the big hit of the night: crunchy, fresh, a little sweet, super healthy... give this recipe a try for sure!

Pineapple Upside-down Puffy Pancake

Tim's out of town this week, in Vietnam, no doubt noshing on beefy delicious pho and the crispy, herb-filled banh xeo.  Meanwhile, I'm chilling at home in Jakarta, doing some networking, doing some crafting and tearing it up buying batik at the American Women's Association shopping bazaar like the kept woman I am. 

For dinner tonight I made myself an old favorite with a twist: a puffy pancake (or Dutch Baby, which I find to be a bizarre name) made like a pineapple upside-down cake..   The Real Martha used to make these for us occasionally back in the day, although she typically made hers with apples.

I followed this recipe from the other Martha, but switched it up by using thinly sliced baby pineapple (which Tim and I have taken to buying pre-peeled at the store out of pure laziness) plus some brown sugar in place of the honey and cardamom.  Quite good!   I love how the pancake puffs up so much and is simultaneously custardy and yet still crispy on top.

Low Brow Know How

This week saw some pretty low-brow, but quite tasty recipes grace our kitchen.  Sorry for the terrible low-light photos!

1. Pineapple BBQ pulled chicken:

This recipe is embarrassingly easy, so easy that it almost doesn't require a recipe (but I got the idea from this website): pulled chicken made with pre-made BBQ sauce jazzed up with hot sauce, pineapple and onion, all melded together care of the slow cooker. I'm not normally a jarred BBQ sauce person, but we were the recipients of a bottle of Jack Daniels Spicy Original when Ben and Erin moved, and it's that bottle of sauce that sparked this idea.

Place boneless (or bone-in if you're feeling sassy and don't mind picking out bones later) chicken breasts (would probably be even better with thighs) in slow cooker, cover with a roughly chopped onion and pineapple (you could use drained canned pineapple, but I used fresh because I live in the tropics and that's how we roll), top with BBQ sauce and hot sauce (I used Sriracha, tentu saja) to taste.  Turn on cooker, cook for 3-4 hours, shred chicken with 2 forks, cook for a little while longer so chicken soaks up sauce, eat.

We served the chicken in wraps with a little bit of lettuce and cheese, but you could put it in buns, too.  

We also served it with a side of crunchy jicama and carrot slaw:  matchstick jicama and carrot mixed with raisins that had been soaking in lime juice, a squirt of hot sauce, a teeny bit of oil, chopped cilantro, salt and pepper... I also added matchstick yellow pepper, but would leave that out next time as it was too watery and its flavor was overpowering.

2. Chipotle egg salad:

Egg salad made with a little bit of mayo, some Dijon mustard, adobo sauce (from a can of chipotle in adobo), minced green onions, minced dill pickles, chopped parsley and S&P.   Served on slices of homemade 100% whole wheat sandwich bread a la Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.

Pineapple Vodka Cocktail

I promised you (and Tim) a pineapple cocktail, and here it is!

I think we may turn this spate of elaborate cocktails into a weekly thing, inspired by some colleagues of Tim's who live in Bangkok and have new cocktail Friday each week.  Anyone want to join in?

Dubbed "Teenage Dream" by its creator, this fresh pineapple juice cocktail is a relative of the mojito, but made with vodka instead of rum.  Lime and mint are muddled with sugar, pineapple juice and vodka are stirred in, and then the whole thing is poured over ice, topped with a spritz of soda water and enjoyed.

We liked this, but blending and straining the fresh pineapple may have taken this cocktail into the category of too much work (or at least too many dishes for us, as we are dishwasher-less).  In the flavor category, it's a winner, though!

Cilantro-Lime Chicken and Pineapple Skewers

This recipe for cilantro-lime chicken pineapple skewers in last week's Washington Post Food Section caught my eye, and conveniently, I happened to have all of the ingredients on hand.  

Tim and I have been trying to take better advantage of all of the tasty tropical fruit here in Jakarta, and so we had purchased some mangosteens, pineapple and bananas and were able to use about half the pineapple for this recipe and still have half left over for snacking.  

Super easy and quite a tasty recipe... grilled pineapple is so good.  I used bird's eye chilis instead of the serranos called for, and it was a little spicy.  "A little too spicy" seems to be a running theme here, eh? 

Served with couscous cooked with garlic, green onion, a little butter and chicken stock. 

Rice with Pineapple and Beans

Tim and I bought a fresh pineapple last week, and after eating most of it straight, my tongue was going a little numb from the acid.  I decided I needed to cook the remaining fruit a little to tone it down, and thought I might mix it with some beans and rice.  (As an aside, I thought I was buying black beans, but somehow ended up with red kidney beans... oh well.)

  I sorta made the dish up, loosely based on some recipes I found online:

-In a small pot, saute a couple cloves of garlic (minced) and some chopped onion in a pan, add 1 cup of rice and then 1.5 cups of chicken stock- cook until rice is done

- Meanwhile, in a frying pan, saute a couple cloves of minced garlic, 2 or 3 chopped green onions, a couple minced hot peppers (I think I used 3 or 4 birds' eye chilis) and about a teaspoon each of cumin and coriander until fragrant.  

- Throw 1.5 cups of chopped pineapple (and any juices that accumulated) and a 15 ounce can of rinsed beans into the frying pan heat up and carmelize a little bit.

-  Mix the rice and bean mixture, add salt and pepper to taste

- Top with lime juice to taste and lots of coarsely chopped cilantro.

- Eat!

Pretty good!  Tangy, sweet, spicy, earthy.  You could probably make it healthier with brown rice, but that's hard to find here. 

New Favorite Thanksgiving Dish: Pineapple Ritz Casserole

Erin cooked my new favorite, shamefully delicious Thanksgiving dish this year: pineapple Ritz cracker casserole.  

It's a total throwback, Americana dish in the same vein as, say, green bean casserole with crispy onions on top: butter, cheese, crushed Ritz cracker, canned pineapple.   It's sooooooo good- salty, sweet, buttery, crunchy.  I couldn't get enough (and my stomach is not happy about that).  

My new favorite dish... just above the turkey.  Not much to look at, but tastes so good.

I'm not sure exactly which recipe she used, but there are a million out there and they all seem to use the same basic ingredients.  Give it a try!

Pineapple, Cilantro, Lime Rice with Black Beans

We made some jerk-esque chicken drumsticks and needed an easy side dish we could make from stuff we had in the fridge, freezer, and pantry... this pineapple rice dish fit the bill! I know it's not authentic Jamaican, but neither was the chicken. Plus, who's keeping track?
I tricked the recipe out a little bit: cooked the rice with chicken broth instead of water, and heated up a mix of about 1-1.5 cups of minced frozen pineapple and a can of rinsed black beans. Threw it all together at the last minute with lime juice, some lime zest and a bunch of chopped cilantro. Sweet, salty, tangy and a perfect side for the spicy chicken.

Pineapple Empanadas

Amy left us with a bevy of hand-me-down food when she departed for sunnny Sydney, including some freshly cut pineapple. Chuck doesn't really care for pineapple, so I tried to find a way to use up the pineapple that she could tolerate. Some empanada-like pastries sounded good...
These empanadas use a cream cheese crust, which was simple and pretty good. For the filling, I mixed the diced pineapple with a little bit of brown sugar... in retrospect, I think it could have used some additional spice- cinnamon? cardamom? I drizzled a basic powdered sugar and milk glaze on them after they came out of the oven.