Pineapples seem to be pretty consistently $4.50 each here. Except when the green grocer has ones that have gotten a bit overripe. Then they get put in a separate bin and marked down to $2. It means you probably need to make sure to eat it within the next day or two, but they're very good as long as you can be quick about it.

I did not manage to eat my pineapple within a day or two. It was still fine, but I had to trim it a little more aggressively than I might otherwise have done. And it seemed like this might be a good time to enjoy a cooked pineapple recipe, rather than just devouring it raw like I often would other times.

I have a bunch of cooked pineapple recipes, but many of them either took ingredients that I didn't have readily to hand or time that I didn't want to put in on a day when I was already tired. That left me settling on this grilled pineapple recipe. Which I then cooked under the broiler in the oven because I didn't want to fire up the barbecue for a few pieces of pineapple. Reiver then kindly hit it with the kitchen torch to give it a bit of colour and char to finish it off. A good compromise on a lazy day.

Grilled Pineapple with Rum & Molasses

Slightly adapted from Dessert of the Day by Kim Laidlaw

Ingredients

• 1 Tbsp. molasses¹
• 1 Tbsp. honey
• 1 Tbsp. rum
• 1 pineapple
• 1-2 Tbsp. sugar

Directions

1. Combine the molasses, honey, and rum and bring to a boil.
2. Reduce heat and simmer until thickened slightly (~4 minutes).
3. Trim the top and bottom off of the pineapple and cut it into 6-8 wedges. Trim off the skin and core.
4. Cut each wedge/spear crosswise into bite-sized pieces and thread one row each onto wooden skewers.
5. Prepare barbecue/grill for direct heat cooking.
6. Brush pineapple pieces with a bit of oil and sprinkle with the sugar.
7. Cook over direct heat until grill marks appear (~4 minutes per side).
8. Transfer to plate and drizzle with molasses sauce.

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¹ The original recipe called for 2 Tbsp. each of molasses, honey, and rum and 3 Tbsp. of sugar. Since I had to trim away so much of my pineapple, I only used 1 Tbsp. of each of the sauce ingredients and 1 Tbsp. of sugar. Having tried it, I think you might want more sugar if you're working with more pineapple, but I honestly feel like we had plenty of sauce, so I decided to write it up with the half quantity that I used. Feel free to double it if you'd like your pineapple extra saucy though! ^Back

Apparently mustard sauce is a favourite with corned beef here. I'd never had it before, but it's quite nice. You can make it as mild or punchy as you like. And I appreciate the use of the corned beef cooking water in the sauce.

Mustard Sauce

Slightly adapted from NZ Women's Weekly

Ingredients

• 40g butter
• 2 Tbsp. flour
• 150mL milk
• 1 c. corned beef cooking water
• 1-2 Tbsp. grainy or Roman mustard
• 1 Tbsp. chopped fresh parsley (optional)

Directions

1. Melt the butter over medium heat.
2. Add the flour and cook, stirring, for 1-2 minutes.
3. Mix in the milk, followed by the cooking water, and cook until thickened.
4. Stir in the mustard and parsley (if using).
5. Serve over corned beef and veggies.

I think this was meant to be a take on Sicilian apple cake. Which is an extremely apple-heavy cake flavoured with lemon that normally includes pine nuts and often dried fruit as well. My version had the apples, the lemon, and the pine nuts, but not the dried fruit. Looking at the recipe, it also seemed like it would be quite sweet and not apple-y enough -- unless they were expecting you to use very large apples indeed!¹ -- so I adjusted it a bit. I also tossed in a few sultanas, since a lot of other recipes seemed to include them. And I tried to mimic the dusting of crushed walnuts around the outside of the cake that I'd seen elsewhere.

I'm quite happy with all of my changes. Even the ones that seemed at first like they hadn't worked out.

I decided to be lazy and "crush" my walnuts in the spice grinder. But, it turns out that even using quick pulses to try to break the walnuts down gently gets half of the mixture most of the way to walnut butter by the time most of the biggest chunks have been broken down. I couldn't really press the walnut paste I'd made onto the sides of the pan as planned, so I ended up mixing a little flour in to try to help things a bit. This still didn't seem to work very well and I decided it was a lesson to do it "properly" next time and crush the walnuts by hand. Until I tasted the cake... The wanuts and flour had made a delicious crust! Almost like the graham cracker crust you might expect on a cheesecake. But thinner and crispier. I loved it! So, I think I will be doing this on purpose from now on! Just need to dial in the amounts.

Oh, and while the pine nuts in this certainly weren't unpleasant, I didn't really feel like they added much. And they are quite expensive, so I might just omit them in future.

Italian Apple Torte

Adapted from Dessert of the Day by Kim Laidlaw

Ingredients

Crust

• 1/2 c. walnuts
• 1/4 c. flour
• 2 Tbsp. sugar

Cake

• 500g apples, peeled and sliced
• 2 Tbsp. lemon juice
• 1/2 c. sultanas
• 1/4 c. pine nuts, toasted (optional)
• 3 large eggs
• 1 c. sugar
• 100g butter, melted
• 1/2 c. milk
• 1 tsp. lemon zest
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 140g (~1 c.) flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 190°C (375°F).
2. Working in batches, finely grind the walnuts in a spice grinder or similar.
3. Mix the flour and sugar into the ground walnuts to form a crumbly mixture.
4. Press the crust into the bottom and halfway up the sides of a 23cm (9") round springform pan.
5. Toss the apples with the lemon juice and mix in the sultanas and pine nuts (if using).
6. Beat the eggs with the sugar until lightened.
7. Beat in the butter, followed by the milk, lemon zest, and vanilla.
8. Sift in the flour and baking powder and mix it into the batter.
9. Pour a little batter into the bottom of the prepared pan.
10. Add the apple mixture in to top. Try to spread it as evenly as possible.
11. Pour the remaining batter over the apples.
12. Bake at 190°C (375°F) for ~50 minutes.
13. Allow to cool in tin.
14. Run a knife around the edge of the pan and carefully remove the sides.
15. If you're brave, carefully lift the cake off of the bottom of the tin and transfer to a plate. Otherwise, serve directly from the tin bottom.

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¹ The recipe called for 2 large apples. I used ~500g of apples. For me this was actually six apples. But then, my apples were quite small. ^Back

I loved these pancakes. My only complaint is that they use a partial tin of cocont milk. Partial, but more than half, so you can't get around it by simply doubling the recipe. The easiest way to solve this would be to double the recipe and fill in the missing coconut milk with cow's milk (or whatever milk you happen to have in the fridge). The way that I'm most excited to try is replacing both the missing coconut milk and the lemon juice with pineapple juice. Just to lean into the tropical vibe even more.

Tropical Pancakes

Adapted from CakeLove in the Morning by Warren Brown

Ingredients

• 4 bananas, mashed
• 1 (400mL) can coconut milk
• 6 Tbsp. milk¹
• 1/4 c. lemon juice
• 2 large eggs
• 2 Tbsp. honey
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 280g (~2 c.) whole wheat flour
• 1/2 c. instant (creamy) oats
• 1/4 c. buckwheat flour
• 1 Tbsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda

Directions

1. Combine the bananas, coconut milk, milk, lemon juice, eggs, honey, and vanilla and set aside.
2. Combine the whole wheat flour, oats, and buckweat flour.
3. Sift in the baking powder and baking soda and mix well.
4. Por the wet ingredients into the dry and stir to combine.
5. Heat a pan over medium heat.
6. Add a little butter or oil to the pan and cookoff your pancakes, using ~1/4 c. of batter each.
7. Serve with butter, yogurt, chopped pineapple, shredded coconut, maple syrup, and/or yogurt with an optional dusting of ground allspice.

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¹ Or replace both the milk and lemon juice with pineapple juice. ^Back

Pork ribs were still on sale at the grocery store, so I got another rack and decided to try a different recipe with them. This is a more traditional BBQ ribs preparation. But I wanted to try the initial low-and-slow wet cooking followed by the direct heat this time around to see how it compared to Iyer's method that cooks them entirely over direct heat.

These ribs did come out moister than Iyer's, but I think I preferred the flavour of his.

Classic BBQ Ribs

Slightly adapted from The Pioneer Woman

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp. brown sugar
• 1 Tbsp. smoked paprika
• 1 tsp. onion powder
• 1 tsp. garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 1/2 tsp. black peppercorns, ground
• 1/4 tsp. ground cayenne (optional)
• 1-1.5kg pork ribs
• 1 Tbsp. oil
• 1/4 c. chicken stock
• 2 Tbsp. cider vinegar
• ~3/4 c. barbecue sauce

Directions

1. Combine the sugar, paprika, onion powder, grlic powder, salt, pepper, and cayenne (if using) and mix well.
2. Coat the ribs in the oil and then sprinkle on the spice rub, coating as evenly as possible.
3. Set grill up for indirect heat and preheat to 150°C (300°F).
4. Place the ribs meat side down on a baking sheet.
5. Add the chicken stock and cider vinegar to the baking sheet and cover with foil.
6. Cook over indirect heat at 150°C (300°F) for 2 hours.
7. Now oil the grates and set the grill up for direct heat cooking at 190°C (375°F).
8. Brush the ribs with some of the barbecue sauce on one side and place sauce side up over direct heat.
9. Cook for 5 minutes, then flip and put some sauce on the other side.
10. Repeat the process of flipping and basting with barbecue sauce, cooking for five minutes after each iteration, another once or twice on each side.
11. Cut ribs apart and serve with additional sauce.

I never would have thought of this combination on my own, but it really works! I went with the smaller amount of ginger both because I didn't want the flavour to be overpowering and because I wanted to try to keep the cost down. Surprisingly, I think I like this even better than the classic apple-cinnamon-raisin combo!

Banana-Ginger Oatmeal

Slightly adapted from CakeLove in the Morning by Warren Brown

Ingredients

• 1/4-1/2 c. crystallized ginger, minced
• 1 c. rolled oats
• 1 c. milk
• 1 1/4 c. water
• 1-2 bananas, sliced
• 1 Tbsp. flax seeds
• 1 Tbsp. honey

Directions

1. Combine all of the ingredients in a pot and bring to a simmer.
2. Simmer for 10-15 minutes.
3. Serve as is or with a splash of milk or cream and/or fresh berries.

Tép Rang Ba Roi (School Prawns Wok-Tossed with Pork Belly)

This was a result of finding steeply discounted pork belly at the grocery store and wanting to do something new with it. I ended up making a triple batch, due to the amount of pork belly; this writeup is for the original amounts.

It also recommends serving it with a side of chopped birds-eye chili in fish sauce for dipping, although I just had it as is over rice and was quite pleased with the results.

As written it calls for "small school prawns", saying that they are "very small and are best eaten with the shells still intact". This, I think, marks them as smaller than the shrimp readily available in the grocery store here, and I ended up making the recipe with de-shelled small shrimp instead; that said, I would like to try it with even smaller crustacea at some point.

Tép Rang Ba Roi

From The Songs of Sapa by Luke Nguyen (p.124)

Ingredients

• Pork Belly Marinade
  • 2 tsp minced garlic
  • 1 tbsp fish sauce
  • 2 tsp finely chopped lemongrass, white parts only
  • 2 tsp sugar
  • ⅛ tsp salt
  • ⅛ tsp ground black pepper
• Prawn Marinade
  • 2 tsp minced garlic
  • 1 tbsp fish sauce
  • 1 tsp finely chopped lemongrass, white parts only
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • ⅛ tsp salt
  • ⅛ tsp ground black pepper
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp shaoxing wine
• 200g small shrimp or prawns, legs and heads trimmed, optionally peeled
• 200g lean, boneless pork belly, skin on, thinly sliced
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 2 shallots, finely chopped
• 2 tsp minced garlic
• 2 tbsp sliced green onion

Directions

1. Combine salt, rice wine, and 1 C water in a bowl.
2. Add prawns, wash thoroughly in the rice wine mix, then strain and discard washing liquid.
3. Combine all ingredients for the prawn marinade. Toss with prawns and let stand 15 minutes.
4. Combine all ingredients for the pork belly marinade. Toss with pork belly and let stand 15 minutes.
5. Heat a wok.
6. Add oil, shallots, and pork (with marinade). Stir-fry until browned.
7. Add prawns (with marinade) and continue stir-frying until prawns change colour.
8. Add remaining garlic and green onion, stir-fry for another minute, then serve over rice.