Maya Angelou's delicious chicken-and-pineapple-salad

Great food all day long, eat joyfully, eat healthily, Maya Angelou 2011 London

Chicken-and-pineapple-salad

2 cooked, skinned chicken breasts; 4 slices ripe pineapple; 120ml/4floz rice vinegar or white wine vinegar; 2 tblsp sugar; 115g/4oz mayonnaise; fresh mint, chopped; lettuce leaves, crisped by soaking in ice water; 65g/2 1/2oz cashew nuts, broken, toasted (optional)

1. Dice the chicken and pineapple into large pieces.

2. Stir the vinegar, sugar, and mayonnaise together in a large bowl until the sugar is dissolved. Add the chicken and pineapple.

3. Add the mint to taste and stir well. Serve atop lettuce leaves and sprinkle cashews over the salad, if desired.

Serves 4 or 5

Ann's pineapple, tuna and baby spinach Rice a Riso

Here is a blast from the past.  A reminder of my student days.  Delicious.  (Truly), Ann

Ingredients:

1 pkt chicken Rice a Riso; 1T oil; 1 onion, chopped; 3 stalks celery, finely chopped; 1 can tuna; ½ can pineapple pieces or rings, cut into pieces (no juice); 50 gm baby spinach

Method:

Sauté onion in oil until softened.

Stir in Rice a Riso and flavouring sachet.

Add 2 ½ cups water. Bring to the boil and simmer 10 minutes.

Stir in celery and tuna, heat 1 min.

Add pineapple and spinach, cook until spinach wilts and pineapple is heated.

Serve.

Warhol and Pineapple

Wild Raspberries by Andy Warhol and Suzie Frankfurt, 1997 USA

“Wild Raspberries is first and foremost a work of art, and the ‘recipes’ contained herein are not for ingestion and should be read in the humorous spirit in which they were created" The authors. 

This is my interpretation of Warhol and Frankfurt's Torte, I thought I'd give it a go using cake  for the layers as this recipe didn't sound too inedible! And it was great fun. Such a gorgeous book! Anne

Torte a la Dobosch

“Run down to Dick Camp’s and buy an old wire wisk. Beat 6 eggs and ½ cup sugar until thick and then a ½ cup flower sifted 7 tablespoons strong black coffee. Add 5 egg whites stiffly beaten and bake in 12 spring form molds, on the top layer spread an orange form molds, and orange glaze and slices of fresh pineapple. Decorate with a red sweetheart rose made from spun sugar and Dr Martins dye. Set the cake for at least 14 hours before serving and hang the wire wisk above the rotisserie”

Pineapple Prawns

 Doyle’s Fish Cookbook, Alice Doyle, 1989 Sydney

Pineapple Prawns

Serves 3-4

2 tblspn vegetable oil; 1 brown onion, finely chopped; 1 tspn salt; freshly ground pepper; 2 large stalks celery, strings removed and chopped finely; ½ capsicum (green pepper), chopped finely; 1 cup tomato sauce; 1 cup canned crushed pineapple; 1-1.5kg (2-3lb) cooked prawns, shelled

Heat oil in a large pan, add onion and cook until tender, being careful not to burn the oil. Add the salt and pepper, celery, capsicum, tomato sauce and pineapple, stir well. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about 5 minutes.

Add the prawns, mix well, and heat through, remembering that the prawns are already cooked.

Serve over a bed of rice.

Mrs Doyle’s recipe was quite delicious. I followed the recipe exactly but I did add some chili for a bit of a kick. It was close to an old fashioned Australian sweet and sour except the vegetables were cut smaller. I left the capsicum a bit larger because I was afraid the whole thing would look like mush otherwise. It actually was very sweet with the pineapple and so much tomato sauce but the sauce was vinegary so that counteracted the sweetness. Steamed jasmine rice was a good foil, Ann

Pineapple and caramel cakes

http://www.foodiful.com.au/recipes/118216/pineapple-caramel-cakes?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Social&utm_content=pineapple-caramel-cakes&utm_campaign=editorial

Thanks for the link Robyn, they were delicious!

Pineapple and caramel cakes

Makes 4

Enjoy a sweet treat with the unique combination of pineapple and caramel flavours. Your guests will be begging for the recipe!

Ingredients: melted butter for greasing; 125 g unsalted butter, chopped, at room temperature; ½ cup brown sugar, firmly packed; 2 eggs; 1 cup self-raising flour; ¾ cup fresh breadcrumbs; ½ cup milk; 440 g canned pineapple chunks in juice; double cream, to serve

Caramel sauce: 300 ml tub thickened cream; ½ cup brown sugar firmly packed

Method:

Grease four ovenproof dishes (1¼-cup capacity) with melted butter. Line bases with baking paper. Place on an oven tray.

Beat chopped butter and sugar in a small bowl of an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs until just combined. Transfer to a large bowl. Stir in flour, breadcrumbs, milk and pineapple. Divide among dishes.

Cook in a moderate oven (180°C) for 30 minutes, or until cooked when tested. Remove. Stand cakes for 20 minutes. Run a knife around the inside of each dish to loosen cakes.

Meanwhile, make sauce. Stir cream and sugar in a saucepan over a medium heat until sugar dissolves. Gently boil, stirring, for about 8 minutes, or until slightly thickened.

Turn out cakes. Serve with warm sauce and cream

Pineapple on Show

Congratulations to Annie for winning the new 2018 Dungog Agricultural and Horticultural Show  Pineapple Upside Down Cake category!

And if you'd like to make your own . . . 

Pineapple upside down cake

Ingredients:

For the topping: 50g softened butter; 50g light soft brown sugar; 7 pineapple rings in syrup, drained and syrup reserved; 7 glacé cherries

For the cake: 100g softened butter; 100g golden caster sugar; 100g self-raising flour; 1 tsp baking powder; 1 tsp vanilla extract; 2 eggs

Method:

Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4.

For the topping, beat 50g softened butter and 50g light soft brown sugar together until creamy. Spread over the base and a quarter of the way up the sides of a 20cm round cake tin. Arrange 7 pineapple rings on top (reserving the syrup for later), then place 7 glacé cherries in the centres of the rings.

For the cake, Place 100g softened butter, 100g golden caster sugar, 100g self-raising flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp vanilla extract and 2 eggs in a bowl along with 2 tbsp of the reserved pineapple syrup. Using an electric whisk, beat to a soft consistency.

Spoon into the tin on top of the pineapple and smooth it out so it’s level. Bake for 35 mins. Leave to stand for 5 mins, then turn out onto a plate. 

This year was the Dungog Show's 125th Anniversary!

Wow! Friends, Sue and Paul have just presented me with this marvelous bespoke (not sure if that's the correct usage of "bespoke" but I've always wanted to use that word ... so I did) Pineapple Upside Down Cake tin. Thanks so much, can't wait to start baking! 

Sue and Paul also found these great salt and pepper shakers in their fave op shop! Anne

Golden fruit cake with pineapple

The Jean Bowring Cookbook 1970 Sydney

Cakes: Golden Fruit Cake

1 tblsp butter; ¼ cup golden syrup; ¼ cup brandy; 220g glacé pineapple; 110g glacé apricots; 220g sultanas; 110g mixed peel; 110g glacé cherries; 220g butter; 1 1/3 cup (firmly packed) light brown sugar; grated rind of 1 orange and 1 lemon; 4 eggs; 110g ground almonds; 2 ½ cups plain flour; ½ level tspn baking powder; a good pinch of salt; 1 level tspn cinnamon; 1 level tspn ginger

Combine the tablespoon of butter with the golden syrup and brandy in a saucepan and stir over medium heat until the butter has melted and the syrup softened. Bring to the boil and simmer for 3 minutes. Cool.

Cut the fruit into uniform-sized pieces. Line a 20 cm cake tin with two thicknesses of brown and two of white paper.

Beat the 220 g butter and the brown sugar to a soft cream and add the orange and lemon rind. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in the ground almonds. Add half the fruit and half the brandy syrup to the mixture.

Sift the flour with the baking powder, salt, cinnamon and ginger and add half to the mixture. Add the remaining fruit and syrup, then the reminder of the flour. Blend thoroughly.

Place in the prepared tin and bake in a slow oven, 135°C for 3 to 3 ½ hours.