At some point this past summer or early fall, we had a rare day at home that we could actively prepare a meal before we ate it. This may not sound like a big deal, but many days of the week finds us away from home at meal time. We can’t really afford to be dining out all these times, and really, health-wise, we wouldn’t want to anyway. But most days I prepare dinner in the early afternoon and then either put it in a crock pot to hold, or we reheat upon our arrival back at home in the late evening.
The days when we can just stay home are golden. They are few and far between right now, but when the do come along, we like to make the most of them. That’s what I was doing the night I decided to grill a pineapple. I’d decided that it had been far too long since we grilled pizza, and that was the proposed menu for the day. The kids are huge fans of Hawaiian style pizza- with ham and pineapple- so that was what I was making for the whole family- only I was tossing it on the grill to get that delicious smoky-char flavor.
I bought a fresh pineapple to chunk up for the pizza, only as I thought more about it, I thought about how grilling the pineapple might lend a great layer of flavor to this pizza. So instead of chunking it up, I set about removing the rind and the slicing the pineapple. I took an apple corer to remove the tough insides, and then carried my slices to the gas grill- which had been on and waiting.
This part was certainly easy enough. Lay the slices on, give them a minute or two, and then flip them over. I didn’t grease them or spray them or anything. Just pineapple rings on the grill. After a few minutes I kind of had to babysit them, as I wanted some good caramelization, but I didn’t want char.
They turned out perfect. I took these slices inside, where I began to chop them up for pizza. It didn’t take me long to realize that I really had quite the pile of grilled pineapple- way more than what I needed for a trio of grilled pizzas.
The pizza was spectacular. Even if these had been cooked in the oven instead of on the grill, I can’t tell you how much amazing flavor was delivered by the grilled pineapple. Grilling the pizza itself was definitely delicious, but it really was the grilled pineapple that made this one amazing pizza.
But what to do with the extra pineapple? I thought about how they might be chopped up and tossed in a quick caramel and then poured over ice cream, and I quickly headed to the freezers to see if any of them was hiding a bounty of ice cream. I scored with a bucket of Cookies-N-Cream, and so I set about making a dessert with these pineapple pieces.
A little butter and brown sugar went into a saute pan, followed by the chopped pineapple. Just a minute or so later, when the juices and sugars had all melded together and this amazing aroma was drifting from the pan, I pulled it from the heat and generously topped some scoops of ice cream with it.
Oh my. This was dessert heaven! I’m a huge, huge fan of bananas foster. It’s one of my absolute favorite desserts, but this twist with the grilled pineapple was company worthy.
Get thee a pineapple and slap it on the grill. I’m sure you could grill pineapple slices that you can buy, but the fresh pineapple was so amazing. The only thing that would have made this dinner better would been to have been eating it on the beach in Hawaii with my sister and her family. But for a few moments, we could close our eyes and imagine that we were in the tropics, all thanks to a simple pineapple, and a little cooking on the grill.