Last post showed how to ripen and cut a fresh pineapple as easily as possible. Here’s a fully flavorful, very easy-to-make way to enjoy cut pineapple for breakfast, lunch, dessert or as a refuel snack after pushing yourself physically. As always, the ingredients you see below are only suggestions. Use your imagination to make your pineapple, yogurt, jam, and dried fruit all yours!
Click this link or any picture on this page for an easy-to-follow step-by-step picture book recipe.
Next post: an example of how to improvise on this recipe.
April 8th, 2022 Blog, Breakfast, Fruit, How To & TipsComments Off on How to Ripen and Cut Fresh Pineapple Picture Book Directions
The sweet, tropical flavor and soft crunch and pop texture of fresh pineapple is just as fully satisfying on its own as it is mixed with other flavors. More about that later.
First, the picture book directions you can get by clicking this link or any picture on this page…
…show how to ripen a pineapple (that almost always comes to market underripe),…
…how to make a ripened pineapple take up less space in your refrigerator and…
…how to cut a pineapple as easy as possible.
Next blog: some easy-to-make pineapple recipes. All fun and full-on flavorful!
This mix of flaxseeds,chia seeds and nutritional yeast is an excellent fiber and vitamin B boost to any meal
Last post talked about fiber and why we need it in our diet. This post shows how to make a practical mix of high fiber flaxseeds and chia seeds with the added optional benefit of nutritional yeast.
As I mention in the “Tips” section of the picture book directions you can get here, the mix of ground flax and chia seeds with nutritional yeast you see here is no “magic bullet”, but it sure helped improve both my gut health and vitamin B12 levels. My gut was in bad shape years ago due to poor stress management and a long history of prescribed antibiotic use, mostly for frequent middle ear infections. My vitamin B12 level was low due to not eating much animal protein.
I’ve since learned – and continue to learn – a lot about what goes on in our gut, how to manage stress much better and have changed my eating habits. More about both gut health and stress management soon. Regarding food, once I got “clued in” to the very new science of gut health 10-15 years ago, I’ve been eating a varied, well-balanced high-fiber whole food diet that is mostly plant based but is also strong in fish, poultry and meat. And I still use the mix of seeds and nutritional yeast you see here everyday as a fiber and vitamin B complex boost. Here’s how I had it this morning for breakfast with fresh fruit and yogurt.
Here’s how I’ve used it recently with both sweeter or more savory meals – all fully flavorful.
Sweet and savory meals topped with a mix of flaxseeds, chia seeds and nutritional yeast
Click this link or any picture on this page for picture book directions that show how to make this flaxseed, chia seed and nutritional yeast boost.
What you see here sure works great as is but is really intended to inspire your fully flavorful imagination.
When I put together the last few posts that showed how to make quickly cooked fresh fruit toppings, I’ve said that they go great on pancakes, waffles, French toast, over warm or cold cereal – and much more. This post is about providing a concrete example that works with warm pineapple coconut topping on a leftover pancake.
Now, though the recipe you can get here works great as is – I’m sure a big fan – the real purpose here is to inspire your imagination to use this or any fruit topping in a way that satisfies your own personal taste.
For more details, click this link or either picture on this page for a complete pineapple coconut topping on pancake picture book recipe. Then use what you see in that recipe to fire your imagination!
This warm pineapple coconut topping is just an example of how you can easily improvise on the warm fruit topping theme.
Last two posts showed how to make warm fruit toppings that go great over hot or cold cereal, with yogurt, on pancakes, waffles or French toast. Your imagination is your only limit.
This post is about a variation on the fruit topping theme I’d never tried before but put together on-the-fly for breakfast with my good Hickory, NC, buds a little before Thanksgiving. The key to this warm pineapple coconut topping recipe is using a fully ripened pineapple, and the picture book recipe you can get here shows exactly how to check a pineapple for ripeness and ripen a pineapple that will most likely be under-ripe when you buy it at the store.
Here’s what you need to to make a warm pineapple coconut topping.
Click this link or any picture on this page for this warm pineapple coconut topping picture book recipe.
Next post will show an example of how I use this topping and toppings like it to power me through a morning that almost always includes a good rip on the bike.
3 easy-to-make variations on the warm apple cranberry fruit topping recipe theme
Last post showed how to make a warm apple cranberry fruit topping that goes great on warm or cold cereal, pancakes, French toast, waffles and much more. I mentioned in that post that the recipe is a base or building block recipe that can be easily varied by using different ingredients to meet your personal taste. This post shows three specific examples that work great as is and can also be used to fire your imagination.
The first two recipes are direct riffs on warm apple cranberry fruit topping. The third is berry based.
Apple, Kiwi, Cranberry Topping: This recipe just adds kiwi to the topping, which you can substitute with any other fruit: pear, grapes, berries and more. Click this link or the picture to get the recipe.
Here are 3 easy-to-make variations on the warm apple cranberry fruit topping recipe theme
2. Apple and Papaya Topping: Quickly cooking papaya is my favorite, most flavorful way of eating this tropical fruit. The recipe for this topping that you can get by clicking this link again is just an example of exchanging one ingredient for another either for the fun of it (I mean that) or to suit your personal taste.
3. Warm Berry and Kiwi Fruit Topping: This is an example of a more dramatic variation on the apple, cranberry topping theme. Again, you can substitute the berries or any fruit in this recipe to suit your specific taste. Click this link or the picture below for a picture book recipe.
Next post: Pineapple Coconut Topping. Made it recently. Friends asked for the recipe. I’ll get that out later this week.
What doesn’t go great with fresh whipped cream? I often have the vat-sized measuring cup you see below in the fridge good to go whenever I need it: in coffee, on pancakes, French toast or with fresh fruit – and it’s incredibly easy to make!
The secret to whipping cream as quickly as possible is using cold ingredients: fresh heavy whipped cream straight from the refrigerator and, if you have time, even using a freezer-chilled mixing bowl or measuring cup, as shown below.
Here are the only 3 ingredients and pieces of kitchen equipment you need.
Click this link or any picture on this page for a complete step-by-step picture book recipe.
Steel cut oats: great stuff – for lots of reasons!
First, taste – and tastes always rules! Steel cut oats have a rich, nutty flavor and taste great in both sweet and savory dishes – I’ll show examples in future posts.
At the same time, they are both a complete protein source and a complex carbohydrate, which makes them ideal for sustained, not spike and drop, energy, like the kind of energy you need for a good run, bike ride, hike or just to get through a long work day. They’re also rich in fiber and anti-inflammatory (next post will show how to cook steel cut oats to accommodate people on the first phase of a diet intended to relieve IBD).
Here’s how rolled oats (left) look compared to steel cut oats (right).
The big difference between the two is pre-processing. Unlike rolled oats, which are hulled, pre-cooked and then flattened by heavy rollers to allow for quicker home cooking, steel cut oats are not hulled or precooked, which allows the same oat grain to retain more of its nutrition and flavor.
To learn more about steel cut oats and how to cook them as easily as possible – just 25 minutes on the stove almost all hands-free, just click this link or any picture on this page for complete, easy-to-follow step-by-step picture book directions.
Last post showed how to make scrambled pancakes, which are really just modified scrambled eggs with pumped up flavor (flavor rules!) and nutrition.
This post shows how to take those scrambled pancakes from simple to exciting…
…using only “commonly” found ingredients, like those shown below. I put commonly in parentheses because ingredients that might be common to me – or anyone else in particular – might not be common to you. As always, what you see below are only suggestions to stir up your imagination and give you a sense of technique. Use any added ingredients you want to take your scrambled pancakes from simple to exciting.
With your portion of scrambled pancakes in a bowl either fresh off the stove or warmed in the microwave oven, start topping with a good spoonful of peanut, almond or any nut butter (to make your own in advance, click this link), a good spoon of jam (honey or maple syrup), and 1-2 tablespoons of yogurt (I like non-fat Greek yogurt for its flavor and potent protein content).
Add your choice of quickly rinsed fresh fruit. I’m using pitted fresh cherries (in the winter, from Chile – killer flavor and crisp crunch!) and blueberries.
Add any dried fruit – optional but something I always do. I’m using chopped dried dates, but you can substitute with raisins, dried cranberries, dried prunes – you get the idea.
Finish off with a good shot of kefir, whipped cream or anything you like.
And that is all there is to taking easy, completely improvised scrambled pancakes from simple to exciting, also by improvising to satisfy your drive for full on flavor.
As I mentioned in the last post, that you see above just as is powered me through the 40 mile bike ride shown below at a decent pace – no problem at all, except for keeping up with Josh, Greg and hammer-fast Juan.
The other day I wanted something a little different for breakfast with flavor and substance to power me through a good late winter Hickory, NC, group bike ride. Here’s what I came up with. I call it scrambled pancake because I used most of the ingredients I use to make a fruit pancake but scrambled the batter like scrambled eggs.
These are the ingredients that I mixed in the bowl you see at the bottom of the picture below.
Those ingredients and rough proportions are (no need to measure precisely: with these ingredients, your result will turn out great): 2 eggs, dash of salt, good shake of ground cinnamon, about 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, 1 big tablespoon of each: ground flaxseed, cooked quinoa (the red grains in the square container above the butter), cooked steel cut oats (the white grains in the square container between the vanilla extract), and a handful of raisins.
Of course, as an improvised recipe, which is just a guide, and I was using what I already had in the fridge, specifically regarding the quinoa and steel cut oats. I can imagine you don’t have those – and possibly not ground flaxseed also – ready to grab and go. No problem: just substitute any or all the grains above with any favorite cooked or ready to eat grain, like cold oat cereal, granola or wheat germ. Your imagination is your only limit.
Here’s how to cook what you’ve mixed.
Add about as much butter as you see above to a frying pan warmed to the same temperature needed to make scrambled or fried eggs. Add and spread the batter, and give the pan a good back and forth shuffle like you see in the last picture above to “encourage” the batter not to stick to the pan surface.
After a 1-3 minutes, when the bottom of the cooked batter looks lightly browned like the top photo above, use a spatula to turn the batter. Don’t worry about trying to turn it all in one piece. (I tried doing that myself – and failed with a smile). Then use the spatula to break and turn the batter, like you would do to make scrambled eggs, until it is cooked through as shown below.
You can then scoop what you’ve cooked into a bowl and add whatever you want want: maple syrup, honey, jam, peanut or any nut butter, yogurt, whipped cream – anything. Next post, I’ll show what I added to make what you see below that easily sustained me for 40 miles on the bike, no problem.
April 11th, 2022 
Click this link or any picture on this page for an easy-to-follow step-by-step picture book recipe.
