Tag: pineapple

  • Bliss balls with walnuts and honey

    Bliss balls with walnuts and honey

    An easy way to serve something special: bliss balls! These are nutrient rich, filling little snacks and they look wonderful.

    You can vary them endlessly. I happened to have pineapple juice and decided to boil that down to a syrup, but you could just as easily use honey, agave, rice syrup, apple juice etc. As long as it’s sweet and sticky it’ll do the job ?.

    Here’s the recipe for the ones I made today:

    Boil one cup of pineapple juice down to a syrup. Turn off the heat when the syrup is light golden; it is starting to caramelize.

    Add nut granola (crunchy muesli with nuts, leave big chunks out) and dried shredded coconut and mix well. Everything should be thickly coated with sticky stuff.

    Now part the whole bunch in halves and to one half add sesame seeds and to the other, add cacao. Bring to taste with salt if needed (I didn’t). Play with the ingredients (add dry or wet) so that you can form balls that stick together easily.

    Now roll the chocolate balls in coconut and the sesame balls in sesame.

    Serve with walnuts and if you have a sweet tooth, drip with honey or agave syrup.

  • Caramelized Pineapple with Rosemary

    Caramelized Pineapple with Rosemary

    This mouthwatering, super-simple, delicious dish is also secretly known as: piña puta madre. Now I am not going to translate that, but it’s a compliment.

    I made it yesterday as a side dish for two Spanish cousins living here in Costa Rica and they obviously loved it.

    I, in turn, have to thank my dear friend Sander van Haasteren (formerly Gaia Catering, now chef de cuisine at YogaFest Studio Amsterdam) for teaching me how to do this.

    It’s amazingly simple and yet I had not seen anyone do it before.

    When I first had it, served to me on a spoon by a glowing and shining Sander, it just blew me away. The deep sweet taste and fragrance, if prepared well, are really amazing.

    This is my own, improvised, deeply satisfying version.

    There is only one ‘downside’ and that it you have to heat the pineapple through and through. This is not a raw dish. We take away some of the qualities of fresh, raw pineapple.. but then again we are bringing out other qualities all the more!

    Now this starts with choosing the right pineapple.

    Use your eyes: bright yellow, all the way from the bottom to the top, is best for this dish because it is the sweetest.

    And nose: smell the butt of the pineapple. The more fragrant, the better. Unless you smell rott or ferment, of course.

    Pick the right one from your garden, market or store, because I’ve read that pineapples hardly ripen after they have been harvested. So the state it’s in when you obtain it, that’s more or less as ripe as it’s gonna be.

    Recipe for Caramelized Pineapple with Rosemary (Piña Puta Madre)

    1. Cut the fresh pineapple in small bite-sized chunks. If you’re wondering how, I may add a post on that some time but for now I suggest you google it.

    This also works with canned pineapple but I suggest you use fresh, if possible :).

    2. Gently heat about 4 tablespoons of olive oil, coconut oil, butter or ghee in a heavy pan.

    3. Add the pineapple pieces and turn the heat low.

    4. Add two sprigs of rosemary, just the leaves.

    5. SLOWLY cook everything. SLOWLY is key here, because that will allow for the sweet juices to emerge from the pineapple and gradually caramelize.

    If you go too fast, the pineapple will brown or burn before the juices emerge or the juices, once come out, will caramelize too fast and burn into very unhealthy carbons.

    So, as with so many good things: take your time, go slow, and carefully watch as the pineapple color turns a deep gold and the juices caramelize into beautiful light brown. About half an hour would probably be perfect.

  • Sweet & sour curry rice

    Sweet & sour curry rice

    This was one of those moments when all leftovers matched up to a perfect dish. Should work with a variety of veg and curry pastes, but be sure to add the pineapple (for sweetness) and tomatoes (for tartiness).

    In our case, we had a piece of courgette, some canned pineapple, a few tomatoes, some sliced pieces of fennel and a handful of nuts & raisins.

    We added 5 spoonfuls of penang curry from Thailand, tasted it and took out 3 again for it would have been way to hot otherwise :D. The real stuff from Thailand is definitely different from the ‘real stuff’ in our tokos here in Europe..

    Anyway, you can’t really go wrong with this dish.. just fry the fruit & veg in the curry paste until they have a nice bite. This is one of those creations that taste even better the next day, so it doesn’t hurt to make a bit more than you need.

    The fluid from the tomatoes and pineapple will make it nice and saucy. Add small cups of water if it dries out too fast. The curry should be shiny when you serve, not dry.

    Even better if you can add some onion, garlic and ginger. That will spice it up bigtime, and I’m a big lover of spice.

    As always… enjoy!

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