Tony Rice and More Pineapple Fun

Thanks so much for all of your sweet comments about the wedding pictures in my last post! It was fun taking a trip down memory lane on Friday. My strongest memories of the wedding are of the gorgeous weather and the awesome husb 🙂

Last night, Peter and I went to a Tony Rice concert. His group, the Tony Rice Unit, is a bluegrass group composed of two guitars, a fiddle, a mandolin, and a bass.

The group was far away, and my hand was unsteady.

The man himself (Tony Rice):

This man can play.

Watching a really good group of musicians play is fantastic. When I used to play in chamber groups, the group wouldn’t have a conductor; instead, the first violinist would be responsible for setting the tempo and leading the ensemble. My group would literally breathe together as we played – if we were good. And if we were comfortable with each other. The Tony Rice Unit was GOOD good. And they were extremely comfortable with each other. Watching a group like that is like watching a dance – beautiful.

On to today! I spent most of yesterday and today catching up on work and studying for tomorrow Counseling and Teaching exam. I broke for eats:

I never get tired of breakfast pictures (although you might!). Looking forward to a warm bowl of oatmeal is enough to get me out of bed (almost) every morning.

Since I’m still working on finishing up the pineapple from this day, I decided to whip up a tropical salad:

Pineapple, Annie’s Goddess, and a few pistachios for crunch, over lettuce. This combination was just as superb as the peanut butter and pineapple oatmeal topper I ate this day. The nutty tahini in the dressing was a delicious contrast to the tart, sweet pineapple. I’ll be eating this again. I’m not joking – I’ve got a whole other can of pineapple in the pantry.

Haven’t we had gorgeous weather in the Northeast this weekend? We went for a walk with the doggies to enjoy it, where I promptly continued my jumping streak:

Dinner was more of the wonderful eggrolls from a few days ago – just as good the third time!

In honor of Sophia, I put the largest dab of the spiciest thing I could find in the kitchen (wasabi) on my eggroll:

People aren’t supposed to cry from spicy mouth pain at dinner, right? Sophia, I will never match your iron mouth.

Before I go study my bottom off, a few notes:

(1) Check out my guest post on Travel Eat Love! Now is the perfect time to whip out that peanut butter for something OTHER than sandwiches or oatmeal 😉

(2) Have you been hankering for a new yoga mat? Check out Em’s “I hope you love yoga” Aurorae yoga mat giveaway on HomecookedEm!

(3) Samantha had a great question about sous-vide cooking (from this post):

I’m curious about sous-vide. I’ve always been told not to microwave food in plastic containers or plastic wrap because chemicals can be released into the food. Do you know if it is safer to boil food in a plastic bag?

Samantha, the truth is I don’t know. Some plastics were deemed unsafe in the last few years because of evidence of BPA leaching out when heated. Food grade containers in food service are free of BPA, but for bags … I don’t know what they use. And truthfully, often we may never be sure about the safety of things we use every day. All we can do is to take responsibility to keep ourselves educated. (As a side note: The more prevalent danger in sous-vide cooking is the danger of botulism, since the cooking is done under vacuum. Because of this, restaurants need to be licensed to cook sous-vide.)

(4) What is this, you ask?

It may or may not be the beginnings of my entry into Mae‘s Cook’s Mission competition! Ho ho, what could it be?? 😉

(5) I have a workshop at school tomorrow evening, so I’m not getting home until late (I’m not looking forward to my 45 minute drive home in the dark … ). I probably won’t post tomorrow. If not, I’ll have lots of fun pictures to share with you on Tuesday!

Whew! That addendum was as long as the post! I’m off to study, so have a nice evening!

Q: Do you like pineapple? What’s your favorite way to have it?

25 Comments

  1. A warm bowl of oatmeal gets me out of bed on most mornings too. This weather would get me up too though!

  2. I never tire of your breakfast photos!! Though they do make me very hungry!! 😉

    You are a crazy high jumper!! My jump is about a 1/4 of your’s, haha!! 😉

    Thanks so much for the shout out about my giveaway! You such a sweetheart!! 🙂

    I love pineapple!! My favorite way I’ve eaten it is warmed up and coated in coconut. Oooooohhhhhh, so amazing!

    Have a wonderful evening!!!!! (If you think I used a lot of exclamation points in this comment, you should have seen it before I went through and deleted some!!! haha!! 😉 )

    1. Em, you are too funny!!!!!!

  3. lol, wasabi is the spiciest thing in your kitchen? oh, you crack me up! Ah, I must start training you. Or you can’t say you’re Asian ;-p
    I adore pineapple, but sometimes they turn out bad. I always get the fresh ones, maybe that’s why. I have a pineapple recipe coming up soon…hee hee 🙂 But I’d love to try that dressing…tahini with pineapple….quite the combo!

  4. i love pineapple with savory foods, like fried rice and pizza…but mostly i will just eat it straight up. or with cottage cheese.

  5. I think pineapples are the best straight up but I also like them in drinks as well. That’s quite the jump vertical you have!

  6. The spiciest thing in our kitchen is actually Bhut jolokia peppers, but Jessie didn’t feel like trying any. Too much capsicum.

    1. Only Peter would have Ghost peppers hanging about in his pantry. I’m a little surprised you don’t have a bottle of pure capsaicin lying around. Put that on your list of things to get.

      1. We not only have ONE ghost pepper, we have a CONTAINER of ghost peppers. Yowza.

  7. Looks like you had a blast this past weekend- from the great concert to the delicious meals! I love the pic of you jumping- my you get high!! And the Maddie pic always brightens my day!
    I need some of those egg rolls!

  8. You can jump, girl! Wooo!

    Pineapple – yes, please! And grilled! Nom nom! Soooo good!

  9. It’s funny cause I just a pineapple yesterday and I never think of creative ways to use it. I just might have to top it on a salad like you did…love the addition of fruits on salad.
    Maybe even a pineapple pizza.
    Hope you have a great day!

    1. Don’t know where my last comment went.
      Oh well, if I write it twice, sorry.
      I love the addition of pineapple on salads. Looks great! I just bought a pineapple yesterday so I might have to give that a try.

      1. Haha! Sorry the comment form was giving you so much trouble – thanks for sticking with it! 🙂

  10. Jessie, I made a terrific fruit salad for Andy’s birthday brunch. Layered peaches, strawberries, watermelon, pineapple, cantaloupe, blueberries, and kiwi in a big glass bowl. I passed around low fat vanilla yogurt and a bowl of chopped walnuts for people to use as toppings. We loved it, it was a terrific side dish for brunch!

    1. Yum! That sounds delicious AND healthy!

  11. Hooray for music, I haven’t gone to a concert in a while now and your post reminded me of how fun they are 🙂 As for pineapples…I think my favourite way to eat them is just to have plain old chunks of fresh pineapple, especially on a hot summery day 🙂

  12. You are the cutest Jessie – I love your jumping photo!

    I love pineapple just as it is…cooled, chopped, chhyum.

    Although, my mom did a baked pinapple once. I believe she sprinkled it with cinnamon, brown sugar, and then drizzled it with a bit of rum. If I recall correctly…it was AMAZING.

    1. YES. I must try that!

  13. I adore pineapple so that salad sounds amazing! Too bad I made myself allergic to it (or hypersensitive) by eating it every day for a year…now whenever I eat it the acidity just makes my stomach be in intense pain within an hour. I bet it would be great with mango though!

    Good luck studying! I’m going to guess that mystery item you’re making is…a bread of some kind. That looks like yeast dough to me!

  14. Your oats are gorgeous! (I can never get enough pictures of breakfast foods either. 😉 ) My favorite way to eat pineapple on its own, but I also love it in sweet and sour meatballs.

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