I think all of us who love to cook and cook well, sometimes find it a little hard to say, take the easy route.  The frozen skillet dinners, the precooked mashed potatoes or oh lord soup from a can; why eat them when we know we can cook something so much better.

A realization I have had to make is:  working a full time day job and operating your own non-profit in your “free time”  and not wanting to eat dinner at 9pm means sometimes you got to cook the easy way.  And you know what there ain’t no shame in it.  The balance I have been working on developing in my kitchen is to take it easy during the week, plus eat up leftovers, while on the weekends I get my culinary fix and COOK, COOK, COOK.

Some of these easy dishes have turned out looking not so easy.  The latest one was a BBQ Pineapple Chicken Fried Rice. That honestly after I looked down thought “what did I just make?!”  But it was yum!

BBQ Chicken Pineapple Fried Rice

Serves 6

Ingredients:

1 bag Trader Joes Frozen Jasmine Rice

1 bag Trader Joes Frozen BBQ Teriyaki Chicken

1 Fresh Pineapple

1/4 cup chopped green onions

1/4 cup chopped cashews

1/4 cup shredded carrots

2 tbsp coconut oil

1. Heat up coconut oil over med-high heat in a skillet.  Add in frozen chicken slowly cooking till chicken becomes tender.
2.  While chicken is cooking halve the pineapple, dice up and scoop out inside pineapple chunks. Forming pineapple bowls
3. Add green onions, pineapple, carrots, and cashews to chicken.  Stir.  Add bag of jasmine rice, cook till rice is tender.
4. Stir in BBQ sauce packets, allow for pineapple fried rice to heat another 10 minutes.
5. Evenly place BBQ Chicken Pineapple Fried Rice into halved pineapple bowls.
6. Serve to company and let them oooohhh and ahhhh at your culinary greatness.