Sweet, Spicy, Fresh and Fruity Labor Day Menu

Yesterday I went grocery shopping with the intention of creating something completely different for our Labor Day dinner. I was drawn to the fruits and decided to pick up two pineapples, two mangoes, 4 plantains, limes and the very exotic looking starfruit. I have never eaten plantains or starfruit.I picked up other items that appealed to me and came home still not really knowing what I was going to cook. I spent a few minutes online looking at recipes for plantains and to find out how to eat a starfruit. I found a recipe for skillet fried plantains with cheese at "Laylita's recipes.com" She said in her home country they use a fresh farmer's cheese and since I had some fresh goat cheese in the fridge I decided to go for it. Happily I had chosen plantains ripened to the level that she recommended. Large black areas on the peel. I also found out that the starfruit is very simple to eat. Just wash them well, cut off the ends, gently slice off the brown tip on each ridge, and then slice into little stars...so cute! But I still wasn't sure if I was going to put them in a salad or what.

 It seemed that everyone was making barbequed chicken, and so my mouth started watering for some too. David and I did not want to light the grill because of the unbearable heat, and honestly I have been trying to avoid carcinogens. We very rarely cook on the grill anymore as one of our many efforts to fight David's cancer. He will hold out as long as he can and then he just can't help it. Usually when the weather is nice. So I opted for oven bbq which the kids and I love anyway. The first thing I did was cut up my whole organic chickens into pieces. Buying and cutting whole chickens is much more economical and lucky for me I learned how to do it when I was about 14 years old. There is probably a youtube video if you want to learn.
 

This is my favorite piece. I cut the wing with a big chunk of the breast attached.



I then lightly seasoned the chicken with sea salt and pepper and proceeded to making my own homemade sauce. The first thing I did was to cut and slice one of the pineapples. If you have never done this it is very easy. Again,  watch a youtube video...that is what I did the first time, ha ha. We eat one pineapple a week because it is delicious, aids in digestion, and it contains an enzyme called bromelain that among other things FIGHTS CANCER. Then I gently peeled the mangoes and removed all the flesh possible from the pit. Mangoes too have a long list of health benefits. Yes, they are a cancer fighting food. One of the important ways they fight cancer is by helping to ALKALIZE the body through the various acids contained in the fruit. If you have never eaten fresh aliced pineapple and mango you really must.
                                                                                           

 

I plugged in my big Ninja food processor and put in about half of this pineapple and all of the mango. After pureeing it measured exactly 4 cups. I scraped it into a saucepot on the stove and added a few things: I can of organic tomato paste, 2 tbl Mrs Dash Salt-Free Southwest Chipotle seasoning, 2 tsp allspice, 2 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp cumin, 1 tsp garlic powder, the juice of 2 limes, 1 cup of raw unfiltered local honey and 1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar. I kept the heat on medium-low because I just wanted to help the ingredients to marry together to create a nice sauce. When I asked David to taste it he said it was sweet at first and then the spice hit you as a bit of a surprise, not too spicy, and that is exactly what I wanted. -Sidenote: Since I really didn't know what I was going to make and I was seriously winging it I didn't have fresh peppers of any sort but if I had I would have roasted and pureed the peppers into the sauce rather than using a seasoning, but it was good.

So I lightly basted the chicken and put it into the preheated oven at 375 on a lined baking pan. After about 20-25 minutes I took it out and flipped the pieces over and basted the other side with sauce after I drained some of the pan juices off.  I then let it cook about another 20-25 minutes. I took it out again and flipped it this time so that the tops were facing up and gave it a really good final coating of the sauce. To my amazement I had made EXACTLY enough sauce. At this moment I was thinking I couldn't do that again if I tried. I let the chicken bake another 20-30 minutes until it looked done yet still juicy. This is the chicken:

 

David and the boys liked the chicken. I will be totally honest and tell you it was not as good as David's good old bbq on the grill. We have a special sauce we really love that we now know is not so very healthy for you. This Pineapple-Mango Sweet & Spicy Sauce is a good all natural and healthy substitution free of extra sugars, salt, preservatives and carcinogens. Especially if you are in the mood for something a little different.

 I will not be showing pictures of the plantains. They did not photograph well, but they were pretty tasty. We all thought that they tasted like potatoes. Later I went online and sure enough a lot of articles were commenting about their potato taste. If you let them get solid black before cooking them they will be sweeter...so I have read. While my chicken was cooking I was oven roasting some butternut squash and a large yam. I peeled, cubed, blanched and seasoned them, then put them into the oven on a lined baking sheet I had brushed with a little olive oil. I flipped them once and then took them out when they looked crispy and done.  I then threw together a salad of organic mixed greens, the squash and yam, with walnuts and a warm homemade maple-onion vinaigrette. (We will talk about my vinaigrettes in another post.)  We had the plantains for an appetizer and this was our dinner:

You may wonder what happened to the starfruit??..or maybe I have gone on so long that you forgot all about starfruit completely, ha ha. Well I could not find a place for them in my dinner. I wanted to showcase their uniqueness. After dinner it seemed that everyone got a "sweet tooth." I started thinking about what I could make for dessert with the starfruit, which tastes like green apple or pear, and ingredients I had in the house... a light bulb went off!  I had organic whole grain flour, my homemade pear butter, banana, honey, cinnamon, organic butter, coconut sugar, and farmhouse eggs so I quickly threw together this yummy Starfruit Upside-Down Spice Cake. It was so cute...and delicious warm from the oven.

I really had fun experimenting with some new ingredients. When I look at what I made I do feel that perhaps my choices were slightly more a fall menu than one for Labor Day. I will chalk it up to the fact that YES, I do long for fall to be here. I am ready for warm comfort foods, scents of pumpkin spice, and COOL WEATHER.