Randomness

First, this pineapple. Oh my goodness what deliciousness in a can. Mr. Maricucu spotted it at Costco during a family shopping trip but I'll admit I wasn't paying too much attention when he stuck it in the cart. Once we were home, he popped open a can and the sweet fruity aroma just about knocked me over across the room. Apparently this Tropical Gold variety is ripened a bit more and there is none of the acidity you normally get with canned pineapple. I tend to keep some canned fruit in juice, some dried fruit and some frozen fruit to augment supplies at the end of the week when the fresh fruit is gone and I have't had a chance to do the shopping. This stuff is wonderful and we've gone through the box of cans pretty quickly.




Now, a little random tip. I have no idea of the why or how but my mom always told me to ripen pineapple upside down. So if you come to my house and see I have an upside down, almost crownless pineapple in my fruit basket don't fear I've gone into some weird voodo stuff. It's just the ripening process. Even Mr. Maricucu is sold on the method. For some reason allowing the pineapple to ripen right side up just doesn't produce the same results. We let it go for a couple of days upside down until you can smell the sweet pineapple across the counter. Then we cut. Mr. Maricucu was not a pineapple lover until he had the sweet stuff and the boys stand in front of me as I cut the pineapple and pretty much consume the whole thing in a sitting.

A little baking session today. Just the traditional Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chip cookie recipe, doubled and I used half white whole wheat flour. If there's ever a recipe to add whole wheat flour, this one is it. All that brown sugar is a wonderful foil for the golden color of the white wheat flour. I just measure scant cups, missing about a tablespoon or so of the whole wheat flour to compensate for the extra liquid that the whole grain flour absorbs. I baked an initial batch and these little soldiers go in the freezer, then are packaged in zip top gallon bags to bake whenever we have the craving for some hot homemade cookies. Instead of the 8-10 minutes of a fresh batch, these bake in 10-12 minutes from frozen.




Finally, sometime this week I'll introduce you to Not- Mr. Maricucu's-Chili. Long story but it involves drawing lines on what is a proper chili.