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.
This easy to make fruit topping tastes great and can be made with different fruit combinations to your taste.
Winter’s coming – or maybe for you, it’s already here.
Like I’ve mentioned before, there’s nothing much more comforting on a dark, cold morning than the smell of apples and cinnamon cooking fragrantly on the stove.
The easy-to-make fully flavorful warm apple cranberry fruit topping recipe you see here that goes great over pancakes, French toast, waffles, hot or cold cereal, with yogurt and jam, and much more is what I call a base or building block recipe. As a base recipe, you can use the prep and cooking techniques shown here and then use your choice of ingredients to make the topping just the way you want to suit your taste. Next couple posts will show examples that do exactly that.
Here’s what you need to make this recipe:
Here’s how I used it this morning to power a 25+ mile bike ride with good Hickory, NC, buds. I scooped a big spoon of the topping in a bowl and topped it off with yogurt, fig jam, some ground seeds (flaxseed and chia seeds), kefir and dried fruit – along with a pancake topped with nut butter, jam, yogurt and more dried fruit. That and a coffee/hot chocolate mix. Killer!
Click this link or any picture on this page for a complete warm apple cranberry fruit topping picture book recipe.
Next post: a couple easy variations on this apple cranberry fruit topping theme. All easy, all flavorful!
Apples are the iconic fall fruit, and there’s not much more comforting and inspiring on a chilly morning than to wake up to the warm smell of cooked apples and cinnamon!
The hardest part about making this fresh, full-on flavorful apple pancake – that’s nothing like a syrup soaking, sugar spike & crash inducing flapjack – is turning the pancake from fruit side up to fruit side down and then back to fruit side up to serve on a plate.
No problem.
The step-by-step directions you can get here show how to make those turns as easily and safely as possible using either a pan top (as shown below) or large plate (shown in the recipe).
Here’s what you need for ingredients and…
…equipment.
Click this link or any picture on this page for a complete, easy to follow step-by-step picture book recipe.
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.
More very soon!
February 15th, 2021 BlogComments Off on Food Brings People Together: Apple Cherry Pancake
Food sure does bring people together, and I’ve had a lot of fun sharing what you can find on this site with new friends I’ve made since moving to Hickory, NC, last summer.
Yesterday, I made the apple cherry pancake you see below for a terrifically outgoing, warm and welcoming husband and wife who both have introduced me to Hickory’s richly grounded spiritual life and have become good friends.
Improvised apple cherry pancake – that you can make easily!
You won’t find the exact recipe for the pancake you see above because I improvised it on the fly based on fresh fruits I had on hand: fresh opal apples from Trader Joe’s and fantastically flavorful fresh Chilean dark cherries from Aldi’s shown on the cutting board below.
Improvised apple cherry pancake ingredients ready for the warm frying pan
I can very well understand that you might think tackling an improvised recipe might be a stretch after having seen the preceding two very quick & easy Instant Hot Cereal recipes, but that is not the case at all – and I’ll help you with picture book guidance every step of the way. Just click this link or any picture on this page for the Fresh Apple Pancake recipe and substitute or complement the apples with your favorite fruit.
Fresh Apple Pancake picture book recipe
Most importantly, think only of making it turn out successfully – and it will -and then enjoy the terrifically satisfying warm flavor you create either for yourself or to share with friends!
February 12th, 2021 BlogComments Off on Frigid Weather Remedy: Instant Cereal from Simple to Exciting!
The weather guess for Valentine’s weekend and into next week is hardly heart warming.
Though we can’t change the cold outside, we sure can make the most of what we eat to keep us warm inside and do it quickly, easily – and flavorfully.
Last post showed how to make instant hot cereal from your favorite cold cereal.
For added flavor, just click this link or the picture below for picture book directions that show how to ramp up the flavor and take that instant hot cereal from simple to exciting.
Of course, the ingredients you see in the above recipe are only suggestions. As always, make any substitutions to suit your taste.
Pre-cold weather ride “goose fat” (homemade oil combo) on face & warm fruit topping for breakfast
Yes, it’s February, but any day cycling the road sure beats a day on the living room trainer, especially when there are sights like those below before the snow blew in last night.
Bottom line: Weather’s a state of mind. Just be prepared.
For me that means, step one, “goose fat” (homemade mix of avocado oil, coconut butter, shea butter, and a shot of honey) on the face and something warm to fuel me up for a good hop in the saddle.
Click this link or the picture above or below for a complete, easy to follow step-by-step picture book recipe that shows how to make a fruit topping that goes great on warm cereal, French toast, pancakes – your imagination is your only limit! As always, a quick nod and smile to Bicycles Battling Cancer and Springfield Police, Fire, and new this year, military vets, Ride to Remember.
Last post showed how to make the best of a cooking fail as I tried to develop a whole grain pancake recipe that I’d forgotten I’d already developed last year. Memory’s great – when it works.
Here’s how that chewy whole grain pancake turned out last year.
Then, I topped a piece of that pancake with nut butter and a pre-cooked fruit topping along with…
…fresh and dried fruit, and then…
…kefir, ground flaxseed, and a good shot of honey.
Click any picture on this page for a complete step-by-step picture book recipe – and then lay whatever you want on that finished pancake to make it all yours.
Memory’s a great thing, especially when you forget.
I’ve been posting a series of cycling training foods for the Bicycles Battling Cancer ride coming up June 10th out of Marlborough, MA, and thought it’d be great to put together a whole grain pancake made with some leftover brown rice, steel cut oats, and bulgur wheat I’d made recently.
And that’s exactly what I did yesterday morning, combining an egg, vanilla extract, the whole grains I just mentioned, ground cinnamon, and raisins. – all to come up with this -…
…not quite a cohesive pancake. No problem. Next time, I told myself, “Just add some flour and maybe some nut butter”. Should work great.
And then I checked my notes while putting this post together and saw I’d actually made and shot a pancake exactly like that with all parts in place called “Improvised Chewy Whole Grain Pancakes” last August. Excellent!
So, why show what I did today here? Because even fails can taste great. I just put what I had in the pan in a bowl and topped that with a spoon of almond-peanut butter, some quickly cooked apple-mango-cranberry topping, dried fruit, kefir, ground flaxseed, and a shot of honey.
All good and plenty of fuel to keep me going for a 30+ mile good-paced training ride on the bike. Next time: the recipe I forgot to remember – all in pictures.
December 11th, 2021 
