Pineapple Teriyaki Chicken

I came home from a spouses' club event with a pineapple. It was one of the prizes from our Luau themed event. I love pineapple and have no problems eating it by itself, but I wanted to make something with it. I considered making a crockpot recipe, but my last batch of crockpot chicken came out super dry. Plus, the crockpot is a pain to clean in our tiny sink. 

After searching Pinterest, I decided to try my hand at making teriyaki sauce for chicken and throwing in the pineapple. 

I loosely followed a recipe from Build Your Bite for the sauce, but because I did not have all the ingredients I had to go off-book a little bit. I was a little nervous that it would come out gross, but I was pleasantly surprised by how tasty it was! 

Pineapple Rum Cake

Wow! Has it really been since June that I last posted? Well, I am still alive and have been busy, busy, busy.

Recently I had to purchase some rum for a fondue recipe. While at the store I saw pineapple rum and on an impulse bought a bottle. Fast forward a couple weeks, I attended a murder mystery party and we were asked to bring either an appetizer or dessert. I thought, what can I make with that pineapple rum? I searched Pinterest for inspiration and came across a recipe for Rum Cake. I wanted to punch up the pineapple flavor, so I experimented a little with the recipe. It turned out pretty tasty, so I thought I'd share the recipe on here.

I hope you enjoy!

Pineapple Painting

Have you ever been to one of those painting/wine parties? They are a lot of fun! You can learn a lot about painting techniques and it is always interesting to see how different everyone's paintings end up.

I went to one a while ago, but I wasn't a fan of the painting they were going to be doing. I brought my own supplies and created my own art while enjoying the company of the group.

I had seen a watercolor pineapple piece on Etsy and fell in love. I wanted to recreate it. I did not have any watercolor paints and experimented with acrylic.

Before the party, I searched for a pineapple pattern. I chose the one below (from Google) and made a stencil out of it. 

I love how it turned out! The colors are fun and bright. It is very different from the piece I found on Pinterest, but that is totally fine. I have it in the downstairs half bath next to a pineapple scented candle. It goes well with my You are my Sunshine painting.

 

Homemade pizza

One of my all-time favorites pizzas is the Hula Hula at Spinoza's near Dayton, OH. The thing I love the best about that pizza is the crunchy macadamia nuts on top. I decided to try my hand at re-creating it (kind of).

I used a bread machine pizza dough recipe from Mom on Timeout. Her recipe gives both a one pizza and two pizza option. Below I am just sharing the recipe for the one pizza option.

 

Bread Machine Pizza Dough

Ingredients
2 cups flour
1 T butter, softened
1 T sugar
1 t yeast
1 t salt
1/2 cup plus 2 T water (105 to 110 degrees)

Directions
Add all ingredients into your bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Make sure the water is warm enough to proof the yeast.

Turn your bread machine to the dough setting and let it do its thing. After a couple of minutes check on your dough to make sure it is not too wet or too dry. You can add water or flour a teaspoon at a time if your dough is too dry or too wet.

After the bread machine is done, dump the dough onto a lightly floured surface and work it until you have your desired shape. It was hard for me to make it perfectly circular and that's OK!

If using a pizza stone, dust with cornmeal. If using a another type of pan, you make want to grease it a little, too. Make up your pizza and bake at 425 degrees for 18 to 25 minutes. 

 

For my pizza, I started with Newman's Own marinara sauce. For the cheese, I used mozzarella and cheddar; I'm not exactly sure how much of each I ended up with. Just eyeball it to your desired cheese level. Then I spread freshly cut pineapple and freshly cut tomatoes (that we grew in our backyard!) and slightly chopped macadamia nuts. It was so delicious!

Aloha! Dole Plantation

Who doesn't love pineapples? I have to admit that I used to not like them. I cannot remember how I was finally converted, but I am thankful that I was. My roommate in college loved pineapples. I remember her referencing a Pineapple Princess song. Random memory, but I cannot talk about pineapples without thinking of her.

One stop on our Hawaii vacation was the Dole Plantation to see some pineapples up close!

The Dole Plantation has a great garden you can walk around. It has a ton of signs that tell you about the local plants. It was very informative!

Enjoying that Dole Whip!

We had to return a second day to finish our Dole Plantation activities. On the first day, we were able to do the Garden Tour and a Train Ride. When we boarded the little train, it started to rain. The rain did not stop for the rest of the day.

On the second day, we completed the maze. The maze is gigantic! There is a bit of a hunt to find the various signs which each have a little image to trace on your map. Luckily Charles is an excellent navigator and we were able to find all the signs. If it were just me, I think I would still be lost in the maze.

Pineapple Princess

I love being a military wife! We make up all kinds of excuses to get together for girl time. Our latest social was a painting party. The group painted an American flag. Since I did that last year at another painting party, I decided to bring my own project. I painted a pineapple!

I printed this pineapple out on cardstock and cut out the black parts to make a stencil

Everyone did such a great job. See my tiny pineapple in the background?

My and my peeps