It’s been a while since I put up
a blog, I know shame on me. But in
defense, well, I’ve been busy since becoming official Self Employed as a
Personal Chef.
Not just the work itself, but the
paperwork, the tracking, the billing, the research and my own personal think
drain! It’s been fun. But now I must keep my promise of a blog a
week. It might not always be on
Sunday’s, I just might keep that my day of rest – not sure quite yet!
This weekend I am back at
Frederick Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids, MI – if you’ve never been to the
Gardens, it needs to go on your bucket list! It’s a beautiful setting,
children’s garden, botanical garden, green houses, learning centers and more.
We are celebrating honey, and
I’ve been in love with honey since I was a little girl – my mom would put honey
in our tea, give us spoonfuls, and we never knew what sugar was, until we went
to school. Whenever I’m on the road and
see honey advertised, I check my wallet and see how much I have! It’s a good thing I don’t carry lots of cash,
because local honey, farmers markets, and kitchen stores are my downfall!
I am in the barn for my honey
demonstration, and it can be warm and dusty, but a friendly atmosphere. This is a replica of Lena Meijer’s home, and
the entire area is lovely (well except for all of “the bell ringing”– come to
the gardens when there are children, young and old, and you’ll understand!)
Doing food demonstrations can be
an interesting challenge. It’s not like
the Food Network, where multiple people help you out, you have all of your
prep, backups, and the finished product waiting to pull out of an oven. Live demo’s can be tricky! Always a challenge, Always Fun! We had to put on our imaginary thinking caps
and pretend my butane burner was a grill, complete with my “whooshing” sound
effect t hat are always good for a laugh!!
Saturday my wonderful husband Jeffery and our good friend Wayne came to
surprise me, along with good friend Sue Osgood and her husband Ron! That's Jeffery in the picture!
It’s summer and here’s a quick
appetizer or dessert! This can be grilled (no grill in the barn, I’d hate to
burn it down so we did it in pans), put in a sauce pan or in the oven. The left over sauce makes a wonderful ice
cream sauce. In fact the honey vanilla
pineapple over ice cream is wonderful!
1 vanilla
bean
4 oz honey
4 ounces (1/
cup) dark brown sugar
½ cup
freshly squeezed lime juice
Pinch kosher
salt
1 whole
pineapple
8 skewers.
A Good Quality vanilla bean ice cream! (optional)
Split open the vanilla pod and scrape out the pulp, and add
the pod and the pulp to a small saucepan along with the honey, brown sugar,
lime juice and salt. Whisk together and
place the mixture over medium high heat and bring to a boil, stirring until the
sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat
and cool for up to two hours, remove the vanilla pod. Place syrup in a squeeze bottle
Preheat grill: peel
the pineapple. Cut the pineapple into
chunks and thread the pieces onto skewers.
Coat with the syrup. Grill on all
sides until golden brown, about 4 minutes per side.
Serve with ice cream.
If using wooden skewers, soak in water for approximately 20
minutes to prevent burning.
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