Aloha Sweetness

While we were at Aldi's taking advantage of their fabulous sale on Fuji apples, Jon noticed that the pineapples were also on sale for $0.79 each.  

Abigail struck up a conversation with another shopper about how to distinguish when a pineapple is ripe.  The lady explained that her husband was military and they had been stationed in the islands.  She told Abigail that these had been picked while they were still pretty green but to look for the bottoms of the fruit to be yellow.  

Armed with this advice and a little approval from her new Polynesian fruit friend, Abigail selected three pineapples.  

While our applesauce cooked down I cut, peeled and cored the pineapple.  To make it easy I simply cut them, packed them in jars with a light syrup and put them in a water bath to seal them.  Seriously, less than 45 minutes and 20 of that was boiling water and processing the jars sitting in the boiling water.  Three pineapples yielded six pints of diced fruit. 

For the syrup, I mixed 1 1/4 cup sugar with 5 1/2 cup water and brought to a boil. I then quickly brought the temperature to simmer at medium low. You don’t want the syrup to reduce. For pint-sized jars, they process in boiling water for 15 minutes. I see a cake in our future this week, minus the tin can after taste! 

a golden little bell, and a pineapple; with which the bishop went adorned, when he was set in service, as the Lord commanded to Moses. (a little gold bell, and a pomegranate, and another little gold bell, and a pomegranate, and so on, all around the hem; with which the High Priest went adorned, when he was ministering, as the Lord commanded to Moses.) Exodus 39:26-29 Wycliffe Bible