Tropical Eats and Drink
Hi there, welcome back. I am so glad that you decided to come on over to the blog today. I will be talking about some of my favorite food and drink that I like to whip up whenever I am feeling, or shall I say, wishing, that I was somewhere tropical catching a cool breeze with a nice drink in my hand. Before we jump right into it I want to tell you that this is a no frills or fuss type of deal. I am just a regular lady whipping up things in her kitchen and sharing it with the world. Have I told y'all that I love to eat? I am foodie to the very core of my being. I love a good bite to eat.
Devouring the pit of the mango
Well, lets get right into it, shall wee.
I prepared three things today. Hawaiian pulled pork sliders, strawberry/mango cheesecake, and a glorious boozy rum punch. With the temps reaching well into the 90's here on Ft. Knox the timing couldn't be better for a nice cold tropical rum punch. This was my first time making the Hawaiian pulled pork sliders so I was a little apprehensive at first but the meat turned out magnificent. With everything that I am preparing today you can use what ever you like to make it yours and more suitable for your palate. I just used what I had in the house at the time.
Hawaiian Pulled Pork Sliders
Pork Shoulder (3-4 lbs)
1 small onion
1 cup of pineapple juice
Pineapple chunks fresh
1/2 cup of water
1/2 cup of brown sugar packed
1 Tbs Salt
1 Tbs Pepper
1 Tbs Garlic
1 Tbs Paprika
1/2 tsp Cayenne Pepper
*Adobo (a pinch for good measure)
King's Hawaiian Rolls
The measurements of the seasonings are a personal preference so feel free to use more or less of each. I cooked a small pork shoulder so I started with a tablespoon of each of the seasonings. When I cook it's all by the hip. I just go with what I think will be good. A good rule of thumb to go by when cooking is to start light on the seasonings and add more if needed. However, with pork, I am always a little heavy handed with the seasonings because I feel like the pork absorbs it more and it needs more flavor.
For this recipe, I cut my pork shoulder in to small pieces and washed them thoroughly with a little salt, cold water, and apple cider vinegar. I drained the water, rinsed, drained, and rinsed one more time. After my final rinse I pat dried the chunks and placed them into the crock pot bowel. I added all of the seasonings, brown sugar, pineapple chunks, diced onion, and liquids; mixed everything around by hand (I used gloves) to get all of the meat coated evenly and put the lid on. Final step was seting it on low for 8 hours and walking away.
Cleaned pork shoulder ready for the seasonings, liquids, and other tid bits.
All seasoned and ready to go.
All done. If only there was a such thing as smell-o-vision!
After eight hours time has gone by check your meat to make sure it's nice and tender and basically falling apart. Strain all meat from the juice in the crockpot and put it in a container and shred (pull apart) with two forks. It should easily break apart with two forks. If your container or dish is oven proof you can sit the dish in a warm oven to rest while you prep the rolls and the garlic butter drizzle that goes on top.
Fresh pressed garlic.
The garlic butter drizzle is nothing more than a couple of cloves of fresh pressed garlic, parsley flakes, and a stick of butter sautéed lightly over med high heat on the stove.
Cut the entire pack of rolls open but do not separate them piece by piece. They should look like two big pieces of bread that have been sliced width wise across. Kinda like making a sandwich.
Before we go any further, I suggest getting a deep oven safe dish because the sliders will have to go in the oven for for the final step and they need a place for the garlic butter liquid to collect.
After you have cut the Hawaiian rolls, layer on the pulled pork as thick as you'd like. Feel free to top with cheese or any kind of cole slaw or sweet and tangy BBQ sauces that you fancy. I opted for a shredded cheese mixture this time, but next time I will go with nice thick slices of cheddar. After you've put the sandwich together heat up the garlic butter drizzle and pour it evenly all over the top of the Hawaiian rolls and put in an oven set to 350 for about 15 minutes.
Sliders ready for the oven.
Side note*
I have a very temperamental gas oven and it can cook things fairly fast, so you may have to adjust your temp setting and time depending on what type of stove range you have. The point is to heat up the sliders and melt the cheese on the inside. So just eye it and make sure it's not actually cooking and burning. You want it to have a nice and toasty look to it when pulling them out of the oven.
Ready to come out
All theres left to do now is to wait until they are cooled down enough to eat ;)
On to the cheesecake. I made this cheesecake the night prior to making the pulled pork sliders due to the time that the cheesecake and fruit topping needed to rest. This particular cheesecake was a labor of love. I made the crust from scratch as well as the topping.
All the ingredients for the cheesecake.
For the cheesecake I used three packages of softend cream cheese, three eggs, one cup of sugar, 1/4 cup of butter, and splash of vanilla for good measure. I mixed the three packages of cream cheese, the butter, and sugar all together until it was smooth and creamy. I separated the egg yolk and egg whites then beat the egg whites until they formed stiff peaks. Slowly, one by one, I added the egg yolks to the mixture while mixing until they were well incorporated and then folded in the stiffened whipped egg whites gently. I hear this is ''supposed" to make for a fluffier texture cake.
Cheesecake batter before I folded in the egg whites.
Now, on to the fun part. For the crust I used an entire package of graham crackers and turned them into tiny crumbs. For this part you can put the graham crackers into a ziplock bag and hammer away at them until they are crumbs, or you can put them in the food processor; but thats no fun if you're trying to let out some pinned up aggression ;)
After the the solid graham crackers are all crumbly, empty the graham cracker crumble into a bowl. Add 1/2 cup of melted butter to the crumbles and about two tablespoons of sugar. Mix all together until nicely combined and dump the mixture into the cheesecake pan of your choice and spread out evenly covering the entire bottom of the pan. I used a pie dish that I have but you can also use a round spring pan. I put the cheese cake into an oven set on 350 for 35 minutes.
The graham cracker crumble mix.
Crust set and ready for the cheesecake filling.
Cheesecake ready for the oven.
While the cheesecake is doing its thing in the oven I prepared the strawberry mango topping. Ya'll, mangos are my jam! As I was peeling and cutting the mango's for the topping I couldn't stop stealing little bits and pieces and eating them. Im surprised any of the mango ended up in the puree at all.
Caught red handed devouring the pit of the cut up mango. Look at the juices running down my hand. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you know that you have a ripe and delicious mango.
The topping is pretty straight forward and simple. I washed of some strawberries (about two hands full) threw them in the Vitamix. Peeled and cut two mango and tossed the bits in with the strawberries. Added about two table spoons of sugar and pulsed until I got the texture I wanted. The Vitamix is a powerhouse blender so I only had to pulse three or four times before it was done.
Mango and strawberry going in the blender.
Yummyness
I set the topping in the fridge overnight so to the sugar could do its thing and make the topping come to life. By the time I was done with the fruit topping the cheese cake was ready to come out of the oven and rest overnight as well. I don't know about you guys, but when ever I bake anything yummy I have the hardest time letting it rest and cool. It's tourture! The entire house smells so good and all you can think about is how delicious everything will taste.
Now that everything has set in the fridge over night and rested, its time to dress this cheesecake and dig in. I spread the topping on leaving the outer edges bare, but you can cover the entire thing if you wish. It's yours to do what ever you fancy with it.
Time to devour!
I would just like to say that I am horrible at cutting anything in the shape of a circle. It will always come out a little wonky. I thought I had let the cheesecake sit on the counter for enough time to get the chill off; boy was I wrong. The thing was still pretty hard to cut. Well, lets just say that the crust was being temperamental. The cheesecake part cut beautifully.
It's not always pretty, but it sure is yummy.
Now that the cheesecake and the pork sliders are complete, its time to throw together the rum punch. The recipe for the rum punch is just bunch of random things that I mixed together that put me in the mind of tropical.
I used 1/2 cup Malibu's coconut Rum, 1/2 cup Bacardi Mango Rum, the juice of a whole lemon, one cup of Simply Fruit Punch, 1 cup of Simply Tropical, one cup of sprite. I mixed all of the liquids and threw in some orange slices, pineapple, and strawberries. I added about a cup and half of ice cubes and mixed. You may be thinking, is that all of the alcohol she's using? Keep reading. The secret ingredient (not so secret now) to all of this was about 1/4 cup of Summer Colada Ciroc. The Summer Colada is not a rum but a vodka. It goes completely against the grain of what a rum punch is but the pineapple note takes the flavor of the rum punch to the next level.
Juices for the Rum Punch.
All the fruit bits for the Rum Punch
Prepping something nice ;)
And just like that, we have all things tropical. This was so fun to make. It really made me feel like I was experiencing a little bit of the island life.
This is the part where you dig in and let you heart and mind take you somewhere topical.
Well, I hope that you guys have enjoyed this segment on Tropical Eats and Drink. I can't wait until out next food adventure. I am sure it won't be long before I'm either back in my kitchen whipping up something or going to one of my favorite places to eat. Thanks for stopping by today :)
