Tropical Tango Fruit Smoothie

Yield: approximately 6  8-ounce servings

Ingredients

½ C pineapple juice

2 C watermelon (cubed)

2 C frozen mango

½ C very ripe banana

Directions

Place all ingredients in blender -- frozen fruit on top. Blend until smooth; stop blender as necessary to stir fruits and push solids toward the bottom.

Caribbean Jerk Marinade

I've made it often before and taken it to family dinners. So, at my brother's request, I'm posting it now. I could give you a 'from scratch' recipe (sugar, salt, onion, red pepper flakes, allspice, thyme, turmeric...) but there are good, premixed jerk seasonings available in the spice aisle at most supermarkets. There are also prepared jerk marinades (liquid, in jars/bottles). My favorite--and what I've brought to family dinners--is McCormick brand dry spice, but others will work too.  I mix it up like this:

Ingredients:

2 Tbls McCormick Caribbean Jerk Seasoning
1 Tbls oil
2 Tbls vinegar
2 Tbls brown sugar
1 Tbls soy sauce

1 to 2  lbs of chicken, pork, beef or seafood

1 or 2 15-oz cans of Dole Tropical Mixed Fruit

     (or fresh, diced tropical fruits of your choice)

Directions:

The meat can be diced or left to cook in whole portions. Place meat in a single layer in a 9x13 casserole dish. Combine all of the ingredients for the marinade. Pour over meat. This can be cooked immediately, but ideally it should marinate 2-4 hours before cooking.

Just before cooking, add tropical fruits. Adding the juice (optional) stretches the marinade, and dilutes and sweetens it. To include flavor without thinning, add 1 tablespoon of corn starch to the cold juice from each can of tropical fruit before pouring it over the meat.

Cover with foil; cook (350°) until the meat is cooked through. (45 min to an hour? depends on thickness of the meat). If marinade/juice is too thin – or there’s too much liquid – uncover for all or part of the cooking time.

My Culinary Arts students cooked up a Caribbean feast (for my World Literature students, when we were in our Caribbean Literature unit)...including jerk chicken with tropical fruit. We diced the chicken -- it can serve more people in small pieces -- but I often leave the chicken as whole breasts, thighs, or tenders.

Pineapple Rosemary Ice Cream

This recipe makes me crave a buttery cookie crunch of some kind to compliment the ice cream...

Ingredients: 

1 C milk
2 C heavy cream 

¾ C sugar
3 egg yolks
1 - 1½ Tbls fresh rosemary, roughly chopped (adjust to taste, if desired)
1  15.5-ounce can crushed pineapple with juice, puréed 

½ C dried pineapple, chopped (optional)

Directions: Put 1 C heavy cream in large bowl with fine mesh sieve over top; set aside. In saucepan over medium high heat, warm milk, 1 C cream, and sugar. Stir frequently until the sugar dissolves; bring mixture almost to boiling point.

In medium bowl, whisk egg yolks. Temper eggs by slowly whisking part of hot cream mixture with yolks, then pouring yolk mixture back into saucepan, again whisking constantly. Add chopped rosemary. Over medium high heat, bring mixture to a simmer; cook until thickened enough to coat spatula. Pour the egg mixture through sieve into remaining cream. (It's okay if small pieces of the chopped rosemary passes through.) Stir in pineapple purée. Cool to room temperature; cover and chill for 2-3 hours (or overnight).

Pour chilled mixture into ice cream maker; process according to manufacturer's instructions. Optional: Stir in the dried pineapple during final minutes in ice cream maker; this distributes it evenly by preventing the chopped pineapple from sinking to the bottom.

Sweet & Sour Stuffed Peppers

This recipe -- my own combination/adaptation of about three other stuffed pepper recipes -- calls for 3 medium bell peppers. I had a bag of sweet mini-peppers (on sale recently at Safeway), so I used them instead; the recipe filled about a dozen mini-peppers, halved.

Ingredients:
1 medium carrot, small diced
1 C broccoli, small diced
1 lg shallot, small diced
2 Tbls olive oil 
¹/₃ lb ground pork sausage
3 Tbls tomato paste 
¼ C mix of chopped fresh parsley, dill and mint
¹/₃ C crushed pineapple, with juice
2 Tbls red wine vinegar
2 Tbls mirin 
½ tsp salt 
½ C prepared couscous
3 medium sweet bell peppers (any color) 
½ C grated asiago cheese

Directions:
Preheat oven to 450°.

Heat 1 Tbls olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat; add chopped vegetables and cook, stirring frequently until tender (about 5 minutes). Add sausage and 2 Tbls tomato paste; break up sausage with a wooden spatula and cook until well browned. Add pineapple with juice, 1 Tbls vinegar, 1 Tbls mirin and salt. Bring to a simmer for about 2 minutes, stirring until mixture is well combined and becomes slightly saucy. Remove from heat. Add couscous and herbs, stirring to combine.

Halve the peppers lengthwise and remove seeds. Toss peppers with remaining olive oil to coat lightly. Whisk together remaining tomato paste, vinegar and mirin with ¼ cup water; pour into bottom of baking dish. Set halved peppers into baking dish cut-side up; fill each pepper with vegetable-sausage-couscous mixture. Sprinkle with cheese. Cover loosely with foil and bake until peppers are tender, about 25 minutes.

Serve peppers drizzled with tomato cooking liquid from bottom of baking dish.

Meatballs with Sweet & Sour Sauce

Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef *
½ C bread crumbs
1 egg 
¼ C pineapple juice (or broth)
2 Tbls minced onion
½ tsp Worcestershire sauce
salt & pepper

Sauce Ingredients:
½ C brown sugar 
^_1/3 C apple cider vinegar
1 Tbls soy sauce
2 Tbls corn starch
 1 15-oz can pineapple chunks or tidbits
½ green pepper, diced
1-2 cloves garlic, minced

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°. Thoroughly combine ground beef, bread crumbs, egg, pineapple juice, minced onion and Worcestershire. Season with salt & pepper. Roll into 1-1½" balls. Bake 20-25 minutes.While meatballs bake...

In a saucepan, combine brown sugar, vinegar, soy sauce. Stir in corn starch. Place over medium heat and bring to boil. Remove from heat; stir in pineapple and green pepper.

Pour sauce over baked meatballs; bake an additional 15 minutes. ...or... place in slow-cooker/crock-pot on low heat to hot-hold for hours.
* These are  also delicious with ground turkey.

Pineapple-Orange Gelato

Ice cream, sorbet, gelato...what's the difference?*

Ingredients:
1 C water
½ C sugar
½ C orange juice
1 C milk
1 Tbls lemon juice
1  20 oz can crushed pineapple 

Directions:
In medium saucepan, bring water and sugar to a simmer, stirring occasionally until sugar is completely dissolved. Purée pineapple in it's juice in a food processors until smooth (a few chunks are fine). :)

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and refrigerate an hour or two, until well chilled. Pour into ice cream maker and process according to manufacturer's instructions. Serve immediately or transfer to an air tight container and place in freezer if a firmer consistency is desired. 

* You can easily turn this recipe into a pure sorbet...using more orange juice and omitting the milk.

Pineapple Gelato

3/4 C sugar

1 C milk
3 large egg yolks

15 oz can of crushed pineapple, puréed with juice
pinch salt

3 Tbls lemon juice

Purée pineapple with its juice, set aside in medium bowl.

(Obviously, if you’ve got fresh pineapple – Yes! Use that!)

Lightly beat egg yolks in a small bowl, set aside.

Combine the milk and sugar in a saucepan; heat, stirring frequently, until sugar is completely dissolved. Temper in the egg yolks:  Add half the hot milk mixture to the egg yolks, whisking constantly. Return the mixture with yolks to sauce pan and bring just to boiling point, stirring constantly.

Pour custard through a sieve into the bowl with puréed pineapple. Add salt and lemon juice; mix thoroughly. Cool in refrigerator for a couple hours. Place mixture in ice cream maker for 20-25 minutes. If desired, transfer to an air-tight container to freeze for a firmer consistency.

Chicken with Spicy Fruit

1¼ C pineapple juice
½ C pineapple
¼ C dried cranberries
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/8 tsp crushed pepper flakes
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
¼ C strawberry jelly
1 tsp cornstarch
2 green onions, chopped

In a large skillet, combine pineapple juice, pineapple, cranberries, garlic and red pepper flakes; bring to a boil. Add chicken. (I had chicken tenders, rather than breasts.) Reduce heat, cover and simmer 10 minutes. Remove chicken (keep warm).

Bring liquid to a boil and cook 5-7 minutes until reduced to 3/4 cup. Combine jelly and cornstarch; add to skillet. Boil and stir for 1 minute until thickened. Spoon over chicken; garnish with green onions.

Sandwich Spread/Wrap Filler

A couple versions here...I used ham and rolled this onto (into?) whole wheat tortillas and took it to my folks place for the Superbowl. This last week I made a similar spread using salmon (canned salmon) and put it on some butter croissants. Same basic idea for both, though to go in a wrap it needs to be a little thicker...

Ham, Pineaple & Cream Cheese
12 oz cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 lb ham, finely diced or shredded
1 can (14 oz?) crushed pineapple (WELL drained)
1 small apple, very finely diced

Mix all the ingredients...spread on whole wheat tortillas, roll...eat!
I used a honeycrisp apple (sweet and crisp -- as the name suggests -- for a little bit of texture when you bite into the wrap; and smoked honey ham. :)







Smoked Salmon & Cream Cheese
8 oz cream cheese, softened
7 oz canned salmon
1/2 tsp liquid smoke
1 large granny smith apple, very finely diced

Mix all ingredients...spread on butter croissants...eat!