104. Pineapple Fruit Bowls

Hello Darlings. I hope that you all had a lovely Easter and enjoyed some ham, lamb, or whatever it is that is your tradition. I know that Ruth over at The Mid Century Menu ate 1000 lamb cakes.

I decided to prepare not 1–but 2! meals for Easter. Granted, this was because pineapples happened to be on sale for $1.99 and they are typically about $5, but still. It was Easter, dammit.

I guess I would consider this a brunch since that’s when I served it–in that brunch window between 11am and 2pm. I can’t tell you the exact time. I wasn’t paying attention. I made this, cleaned the dishes, and then did more kitchen rearranging and cleaning (if you weren’t aware, I am in the process of finally making the weird little extra square to the left of the stove into a eat-in-kitchen. Fingers crossed that the damn table and chairs fit!). It was an exhausting day.

Anyway, first things first. I made the Creamy Orange-Lemon Dressing. Pretty simple. But labor intensive. I was stirring that egg/sugar/juice mixture for an eternity. Ok, it was probably under 10 minutes. But when you have carpal tunnel that is an eternity.

So I folded the 2 together, and put the dressing in the fridge. I then turned my attention to the pineapple.

Cutting the pineapple in half was surprisingly easy. I used my giant Chinese butchers knife. I just had Cleve help me with the leafy top. I couldn’t get the knife through that. Oh! Also, my friendly neighborhood Safeway produce guy told me that the way to find out if a pineapple is ripe is if, when pulled gently, a leaf comes off. Who knew!

The removal of the pineapple insides would be quite tricky if I were really trying to make nice pineapple cubes and make a smooth bowl. But since it was just me and Cleve I kinda half-assed it. I just used a paring knife to cut out the good stuff from the core and got enough pineapple out that I could fit other fruit in. I used oranges, bananas, grapes, blueberries, strawberries and (duh!) pineapple.

So, here it is.

Brunch is served!

I did not have assorted cheeses, nutbread, sliced ham, turkey nor cheesebread so we ate these puppies on their lonesome.

But don’t you love the pineapple-shaped wooden bowl which is gingerly holding my Orange-Lemon Dressing? Too bad it had a giant crack in it (hence the lovely saran wrap) and had to go to the trash heap.

Damn, that’s a lot of fruit.

This was good, but I used some frozen strawberries and blueberries in lieu of fresh, which wasn’t the best choice. But all the other fruits were good. I mean, why wouldn’t it be? It’s fruit.

Cleve was all excited–“so this is all zero points?” Yeah, no. The dressing is full of whipping cream. Speaking of the dressing, it was weird. It tasted and smelled very eggy to me. Which isn’t odd considering that there were 2 eggs in it. Even with the whipped cream in it and the juice there was still the essence of omelet in the air. But overall the Orange-Lemon dressing was good and fluffy. Although, I think it could have been made egg and whipping cream-free with Cool Whip and some lemon and orange rind. Or some cream cheese. And maybe some Marshmallow Fluff.

Or not. Crap. I’m salivating just thinking about the fluff. It is my smack.