When Life Gives You Pineapples

On Christmas Eve, my husband and I decided to take a quick trip to Lidl before they closed for the holiday, just to grab any last minute items for our family Christmas brunch (and because we love Lidl and Aldi but that is for another post).  As soon as we cleared to door, we saw a pile of pineapples and a sign that said 44 cents.  Wait…44 cents!  Now I had just bought 2 for the brunch a couple of days prior, but who can pass up on 44 cent pineapples.  So we bought 9  What would we do with them?  Who knew but I am sure we could find something.

Pineapple Bonanza

This was a challenge in “waste not, want not” and I was ready to step up to the plate.  The first thing we did was have fresh pineapple on Christmas morning, of course, and it was so sweet and good.  We also gifted one to my brother and law.  2 down, 9 to go.

Dried Pineapple

After the Christmas mad dash was over, I decided to pull out my dehydrator and give it a whirl and to my surprise, when cut properly an entire pineapple will fit on the 4 trays I have,  so that was a win. The bonus was that I realized my entire family loves dried pineapple which means more pineapple will be dried!  bwahahaha! So far, so good!

Pineapple Empanadas

But what could I do next?  I can’t dry 9 pineapples in a reasonable time frame. Then I remembered that my husband bought empanada presses from the kid’s school fundraiser because we had to buy something.  I could try my hand at empanadas. I found this recipe and gave it a shot.  I would probably do the dough a little differently next time but all it all, they were good.  I also had a lot filling left that will be great for pancakes, ice cream, and toast.  Double win!

Pineapple Jam

We hosted our annual white elephant on New Year’s Eve, as I told you guys about in my previous post, and even though it is a potluck, we always provide quite a bit of the food.  My husband showed off his skills with a vegetarian stirfry dish where he threw in pineapples and we also made appetizers with pineapples, green olives, cherries, and cheese.  They were gone in a heartbeat so I am guessing they were good.

We are now down to our last 4 pineapples and the dehydrator has been going non-stop.  We are snowed in for the next few days so I have the time to get them all done which really excites my family and there are no complaints from me.  It’s healthy and for the $4, we spent, we have really gotten some mileage on these pineapples.

Now imagine if we took advantage of opportunities and even obstacles like I took advantage of the pineapple deal.  It wasn’t on our list and in the beginning, I didn’t even know what I would do with them, however, I embraced the challenge.  By just having an open mind, I not only got a great deal but my family and I learned something new along the way.

The lesson in all of this for me is simply when life gives you pineapples, use them any way you like because it is going to be good!