Key West Grilled Chicken Pineapple

Here is one of those tasty and quick meals you can fix during the week. It was good to fire up the gas grill and shake off the recent cold temperatures. We got this recipe from a bag of cane sugar, Florida Crystals. Check out their web site for additional recipes. Just for the heck of it, I added a slice of cheese too.

Key West Grilled Chicken & PineappleServes 3 to 4
1 cup lime juice
¼ cup vegetable oil
6 tablespoons of sugar* 1 teaspoon of salt
½ teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon ground ginger
2 tablespoons for fresh chopped cilantro
4 boneless chicken breasts
1 small fresh pineapple or can of slices


Using a portion of the marinade, marinate 8 pineapple wedges.
Using the rest of the marinade, marinate the chicken. I use zip-lock bags for each.
Marinate each for 6 hours or so.
Grill the chicken breasts and grill the pineapple so they are ready with the chicken

*Recipe is from Florida Crystals Demerara Cane Sugar package so they would prefer you use demerara cane sugar, but not necessary!

Bon Appétit Julia

Finally, we (Barb mostly) made Julia Child's Beef Bourguignon (Recipe). We cooked this the night before and let the flavors mingle overnight. Oh it was tasty! We used a chuck roast from Costco, trimming it up pretty good and cutting it into 2 inch chunks.

Jordan joined us and I told him when he arrived he'd better have on his eating shoes! To ensure my appetite was fully ready, I managed to ride 22 miles on the bike and with the air temparure around 34 degrees, I was really in the mood for some comfort food.

I made a loaf of "no knead" bread, Barb made her chop-chop sald, and steamed green beans to round out the meal. For the wine, we went with Windmill 2006 Old Vine Zinfandel.

This meal capped off a great weekend and you could sure taste the love that went into this dish.

Winter Thaw in Florida

Kansas City has seen more snow and cold temperature than it has in a very long time. Needless to say, Barb and I were ready for our trip to Florida to visit our friends Shelley and John. Fortunately the cold snap that had turned the Florida oranges into popsicles had passed by the time we arrived on the scene. The primary focus of the trip was golf, but of course we had some great eats as well.

John and I started the weekend off right with some pizza and cold Labatt’s from Pizza Di Casa. It’s great to have a little slice of Buffalo right there in Florida.

Grouper, grouper, grouper! I love grouper. I had it two nights in a row. My first grouper dish was at the Riverhouse Reef & Grill. It was grilled with their Lemon Dill Aioli sauce on the side.

Next up was Grouper Oscar at the Beachhouse Restaurant. It’s grouper stuffed with jumbo lump crab & baked, and topped with béarnaise sauce & asparagus. Besides watching the sunset as we dined outside, the highlight of the meal was watching John take a stone crab shower. Perhaps he should have requested a bib! Sorry John, it was hysterical!

Custard, custard, custard! I love custard. The one stop we had to make (okay twice) was to Sweet Berries. All four us agree that our favorite flavor is the Black MacBerry, vanilla custard with blackberries and macadamia nuts. On our second visit, I branched out and tried the Caramel Crunch, vanilla custard, caramel, and heath bar. It was tasty but not in the same league as Black MacBerry. As a bonus a barbershop vocal harmony group gave us an impromptu song on their way out the door, making Sweet Berries all the more sweeter.

Kicking off the New Year with Pasta and Bread.

Homemade bread and pasta to start off the New Year? Carb overload? No problem here, I’ll just jump on the bicycle and burn it off. Last year I pedaled 3,300 miles so I don’t think a little carb overdose is going to hurt anyone.



I have been doing a lot with no knead dough recipes, but I am going to cover those recipes in a later post. Making homemade pasta is so easy and good.


Jordan and Karly joined us to watch the KU VS Temple game. For an appetizer, we made our new favorite bacon-wrapped shrimp recipe. We made these for our New Year’s Eve progressive dinner and everyone loved them:


Ingredients:
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil or Canola Oil
4 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon each salt, pepper, curry powder, ground cumin and ground coriander
1/2 to 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
18 uncooked jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined
9 bacon strips, halved lengthwise


Directions:
In a small bowl, combine the sugar, lemon juice, oil and seasonings. Pour 1/4 cup marinade into a large re-sealable plastic bag; add the shrimp. Seal bag and turn to coat; refrigerate for 30-60 minutes. Cover and refrigerate remaining marinade for basting.

In a large skillet, cook bacon over medium heat until cooked but not crisp. Drain on paper towels. Remove shrimp from marinade; discard marinade. Wrap each shrimp with a piece of bacon and secure with a toothpick.


Coat grill rack with cooking spray before starting the grill. Grill bacon-wrapped shrimp, covered, over medium heat for 5-10 minutes or until shrimp turn pink, turning and basting with reserved marinade. Yield: 1-1/2 dozen.


For my pasta, I refered to Beard on Pasta, by James Beard. Here is his basic egg pasta recipe (serves 3):
1 ½ cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
2 large eggs

1 tablespoon oil (if using food processor or mixer)

I mixed it by hand and let it rest on the counter for a couple of hours and then let it rest in the refrigerator until I was ready to roll out the noodles. I have a hand crank, Atlas pasta machine, which makes rolling and cutting the pasta a breeze.

Barb made two sauces to go with the pasta, one red and one white – we all went for the 50-50 topping. Yummy!