Pineapple Happiness

I bought a pineapple *does a happy dance*

My boyfriend Roy and I went to the Farmer's Market this weekend because I wanted some veggies. I wanted to look at some kale, maybe some spinach and cucumbers to make salads, and honey of course (they always had someone selling those sticks of flavored honey, like blueberry and watermelon, but unfortunately the only available one this weekend was clover honey.)

So while walking through the lanes, I noticed someone had pineapples available, and they were only charging $3! Now, I've been eyeing the pineapples at Publix for some time now, and they're always either $4 or $5, so I jumped on the home-grown pineapple from the market. I just bought some coconut water and was already thinking about the tropical kale and spinach shakes I could make during the work week. Post 5 p.m., I might even add some rum and make it a party! It's not like you can taste the greens anyway. I could make a green piña colada, why not?

I wish I'd taken a photo of the pineapple, but I only thought of it after I had sliced it up and removed the rind. You can see the utter fail of my pineapple cleaning. I'm not even going to pretend that I'm good at this stuff. There was pineapple juice all over my table, I was cutting the pineapple on a too-small bamboo cutting board, my knife is probably all wrong, and DULL, and I piled on the chunks of pineapple on a paper plate that was 1) too small and 2) too flimsy. But you live, and you learn.

Right before I started chopping up that bad boy, I watched a YouTube video about regrowing your pineapple by chopping off the green leaves and planting it. I was only too proud to plop the top off, without having to cut it, like the video shows. Once I cleaned the pineapple "nub" and put it in a vase to soak though, I heard the guy on the video talking about it taking 12-18 months to harvest a pineapple fruit and I mayyyy have tossed that idea straight out the window. With our potential move coming in the next few months, I already know I will not be carefully transporting my pina-baby over to the new home. But, it did look super cute!! And if you have a garden, and a year and a half to wait for one damn pineapple, by all means.

Once I got over that little bit of sadness and laid to rest my pineapple fetus, I got around to cutting the rest of the pineapple up. What I usually do when we buy fruit for shakes is wash it, cut it up, and freeze it at its ripest. Our freezer doesn't have Tombstone pizzas, frozen eggrolls, or Hot Pockets like it used to. It's actually full of gallon sized Ziploc bags of spinach, strawberries, blackberries, bananas, kale, mangoes, cantaloupes, honeydews, etc etc. We buy kale from Publix by the case (but that’s a whole ‘nother blog entry).

Oh, I forgot the most important aspect of cutting up the fruit: taste testing. You wanna make sure your fruit is ripe and juicy. (Most of the fruit I buy are for shakes, so I don’t eat a lot of it while it’s still ripe and sweet and there’s juice running down your face and your hands are all sticky with its sugary syrup and… wow I got a little carried away there. Two more seconds and I was fixin’ to start reciting sonnets to strawberries!)

Once all the fruit is cut up, I bag it up in gallon sized Ziploc bags and place them in the freezer all spread out, so the pieces can freeze individually. Otherwise, you go to make a shake, and you’re trying to throw in fruit cubes that have been solidified into a solid brick. I’ve been there. I’ve done that. I’ve broken spoons trying to break apart solidified fruit. I’ve gotten frostbite on my fingertips too. (Ok that last bit was a little melodramatic, but it was freezing!)

Within an hour or two, if you need the space in the freezer, you can go ahead and just place the bag anywhere, all jammed up between other bags and frozen chicken. So long as the pieces are already frozen up, you’re fine.

Viola! You now have frozen chunks for your blender happiness. I'll share my tropical kale and spinach shake tomorrow. Wish me luck!

-Kale Queen