Slow Cooker Mango Chicken over Coconut Rice & Baked Pineapple...Aloha!

Tell me what you eat,

and I shall tell you what you are.

                                           -Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

 

After tonight's dinner, with the above quote in mind, Jean would peg me as a lover of all things tropical and he would be right. I have long fantasized of changing my heritage to more suit my palate and climate preferences. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't get excited at the prospect of scaring the life out of people when I tell them I love them (I'm mostly German BTW), but island cuisine and way of life melds so much better with my current state of mind than my own German roots ever have. (With the exception of Christmas of course. I would be lost without my German Christmas traditions and pfeffernusse.) 

 

Every time I eat a perfectly ripe pineapple or sprinkle some toasted coconut on my latest creation I am reminded of how grateful I am that other cultures and countries share their food with us. My diet would be pretty unexciting if I were only able to eat the foods that naturally grew near my geographical location. It would, however, give me even more incentive to move to a tropical locale.

 

Nonetheless, this quick and easy recipe helped to muffle my desire to escape to a tropical paradise.

 

With the kids now back in school and back to a myriad of activities, it has been increasingly difficult to get a good meal on the table. This is the perfect season for slow cookers. With a little prep work earlier in the day, your family can be sitting down to a warm delicious meal moments after mom's taxi service closes for the day.

 

 

Slow Cooker Mango Chicken

 

4-5 chicken breasts

1 large ripe mango peeled and diced

3 ripe peaches peeled and diced

1/2-1 full hatch chili pepper (or pepper of your choice) seeds and ribs removed and diced

1 Tbsp lemon juice

2 Tbsp lime juice

1-2 Tbsp toasted coconut for garnish

 

Prepare slow cooker by spraying sides and bottom with non-stick cooking spray. Place all ingredients in slow cooker and cook on high for 3 hours or medium for 4-5 hours. Shred chicken and serve over coconut rice with toasted coconut on top.

 

 

Coconut Rice

 

2 c rice

1 16.5 oz can of coconut milk

1/2 c toasted coconut

water 

 

Cook rice as per package directions but sub coconut milk for as much water as you can. For example I cooked cal rose rice in a microwave rice cooker that called for 3 c of water to 2 c of rice. The 16.5 oz can was almost 2 c so I finished filling the measuring cup with water to equal 3 c. When the rice is done, immediately toss with toasted coconut. 

 

 



 Baked Pineapple

 

1 pineapple cut in half, core removed. 

1/2 c ginger snaps crushed

1/2 c macadamia nuts (I subbed hazelnuts)

1/2 c shredded coconut

1/2 c sweetened condensed milk

1 tsp coconut or rum extract

 

Preheat oven to 350. Slice pineapple in half and remove the core by cutting diagonal slices into the length of the core. Combine ginger snaps, nuts and coconut. Combine sweetened condensed milk and extract. Pour half of the sweetened condensed milk mixture into the area where the core was. Top with gingersnap mixture and top again with the remainder of the sweetened condensed mixture. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until the pineapple is a little soft and the topping is warm and bubbly.

 

To serve, cut off top and bottom of pineapple and run a long knife around the edge of the pineapple, separating the the skin from the fruit. Leaving the fruit in the skin, cut into bite sized pieces and serve.