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By Sarah Condley

Columnist

The other day, my brother, Alan, handed me two ripe pineapples, saying they contained too much sugar for his current meal plan. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them, but I took them home and sat them on the counter. That afternoon, when Brad saw them, he asked what was going on with the pineapples and what I would do with them. I told him that since he was grilling hamburgers that evening for supper, I was going to find a recipe for grilled pineapple that he could grill alongside the burgers.

After a quick search on the Internet, I had a recipe that would work. I did have to sift through several recipes because some wanted you to put the pineapple in a skillet first, some wanted you to marinade the pineapple, and some didn’t sound quite right to me. I settled on the most straightforward version that I found at celebratingsweets.com (sounds like my kind of website since I’m a sweetaholic).

The hardest part of this recipe was cutting up the pineapple. After cutting the top and bottom off, I sliced down the sides to remove all the skin. I was left with some little prickly things sticking out of what I call the “eyes,” and instead of slicing more pineapple off, I used a potato peeler to remove each little “eye.” Next, I sliced the pineapple into spears and removed the core.

The pineapple spears went into a bowl until Brad had the grill ready. He sprayed the grate with non-stick spray and placed each spear over the hot coals. While the pineapple seared, I gathered up a little brown sugar, some BBQ sauce, and some Teriyaki sauce. The recipe gave you different ways to prepare this, and I wanted to try all of them.

When Brad saw me arrive with the BBQ and Teriyaki he asked what they were for. When I told him, his eyes got big, and he skeptically said, “Ok.”  After the pineapple had cooked for a few minutes and grill marks were on all sides, Brad added the hamburgers to the grill. The burgers were almost done, so I slathered some BBQ sauce on one pineapple spear and some Teriyaki sauce on another spear. We decided to leave a couple of spears plain. As we took off a few of the plain ones, I sprinkled brown sugar all over them, and sure enough, it melted right onto the pineapple.

Brad removed the burgers from the grill and headed into the house while I finished getting the pineapple off the grill.

Our friend Shiela was joining us for supper that evening, and she was not hesitant to try the grilled pineapple.

Brad placed a plain piece of pineapple on his plate, and then I cut a chunk from each kind and put it on my plate. I’m not sure which one Shiela tried first.

After a couple of burger bites, I sunk my teeth into the Teriyaki glazed pineapple and liked the savory/sweet flavor. Next, I tried the BBQ sauce one; I liked it too, but less than the Teriyaki.

After a couple more bites of burger, I went right for the brown sugar glazed pineapple and loved it. I tried the plain one and thought it was also good.

Brad’s favorite was the plain because he thought the brown sugar glazed was too sweet. Shiela’s opinion, after trying different flavors, was that they were all good.

I’ll say I was kind of surprised that grilling the pineapple enhanced its flavor. This recipe falls into the “Nailed It” category, and we might just be grilling again within a couple of days to use up that second pineapple my brother gave us.

Next time, instead of sprinkling brown sugar on the spears I might try rolling some of them in brown sugar to coat it all over, though Brad thinks that will be going overboard on the sweetness.

By the way, we had a couple of pineapple spears left over so the next night, I heated them up and topped one with vanilla ice cream, macadamia nuts, and caramel sauce – Oh me oh my, delicious! Thank you, Alan!

Grilled Pineapple

Ingredients

• 1 fresh pineapple

• Oil or nonstick spray for greasing the grill

• 2 tablespoons brown sugar, optional

Instructions

• Cut off the top, bottom, and outer skin of the pineapple.  Cut the pineapple into 1/4-inch slices or into spears.  Core the pineapple, if desired.

• Place the pineapple slices on a greased grill over medium heat, and cook for about 3-5 minutes per side.  The pineapple should have grill marks on it and will have softened slightly.

• If adding brown sugar; place the hot pineapple onto a large platter and immediately sprinkle both sides with brown sugar.  The heat from the pineapple will melt the brown sugar within a couple of minutes.

Additional serving suggestion

• Savory – Brush teriyaki sauce of BBQ sauce onto the pineapple during the last minute or two of cook time. Serve alongside grilled chicken, fish, steak, or veggies, or add a slice of grilled pineapple to a burger.

• Sweet – Serve the grilled pineapple with a scoop of vanilla or coconut ice cream and garnish with chopped macadamia nuts, caramel sauce, and /or toasted coconut.