Pineapple...hmmm, what to do?

During the storm our friend who needed the pump gave us a very nice size fresh pineapple. He grows them himself and this one was golden when he sent it to me. I'm allergic to citrus, but I do adore fresh pineapple and can hardly wait until my own produces. Its one I started earlier this year from one of his. But, I digress...

Once its peeled and cut, what to do with it before it goes bad? It was a bit tart, but very nice and sweet. Since I know if I eat it I will regret it, I limited myself to just one chunk...but still the question remains as to what to do with it? Hubby likes it, but not that much...hmmmm, I know I have a blender around here somewhere....I'll make it juice!! So after a few minutes rummaging around the bottom kitchen cabinet I find the old Oster blender...get it cleaned up....ewww, its been there since we moved in...washed it well and began chunking the pineapple into the blender...of course the lid is nowhere to be found...ok, here's another lid that will work...on she goes!! After several minutes, I have a beautiful frothy stuff in the blender...still a bit on the tart side, so I added a couple spoons of sugar....a few more minutes and yep! that's what I'm talking about...poured a glass and it was fairly tasty...a bit pulpy, like orange juice, but tasty nonetheless.

Now I have a two quart pitcher of this stuff about two thirds full...I decide to let it set and see how much juice I actually have. After two days, it doesn't look like it has de-foamed...so I pop the lid to check it out...holy shades of pineapplesauce !! Yep, all the 'foam' was actually a pulpy substance with the texture of applesauce....cool...ok, I know what I'm cooking now!! CAKE!
The cookbook has been open for the past two days to the cake recipes...just made one tonight...finally...lol.

Before the cake though, I was trying to think of something for supper...something besides leftovers. I made meatloaf last night and potato and broccoli soup the night before from potato soup I'd made on Saturday....we've eaten leftovers of some type since last week and I was looking for somethng different. As I'm thinking about this I envision chicken with a pineapple glaze...just got supper...chicken with brown sugar, pineapple, and sweet red peppers...I put the sugar, cinnamon, peppers and pineapplesauce in a sauce pan and began to heat it over low heat. After the mixture began to look smooth, I poured it over two salted chicken breasts in a baking dish and popped it in the oven. Cooked it at 350 for about an hour. It sure came out nice...the two of us didn't stop til it was gone.

Once the cake was done, I whipped up a butter cream type frosting, substituting Crisco for the butter...added cinnamon and then thought I was adding vanilla extract...oops, picked up the Lemon extract by mistake...didn't notice it until it was poured. Wasn't measuring, just eyeballing the amount...but it sure tastes good! The first piece was still warm...hmmm, tastes a bit doughy...might have needed a few more minutes, but the toothpick pulled clean. The frosting is yummy...will have to try another piece once its cooled...I dropped one cup of flour from the recipe, the original Applesauce cake recipe called for three cups flour and two cups thick applesauce. Since the pineapplesauce was not super thick, I went ahead and left out one cup of flour...the batter was really thick...light and fluffy, but thick. Its been awhile since I've made a cake from scratch...hmmm