Dessert Hawaiian Style

Everywhere I go I'm being offered pumpkin this and pumpkin that. But my mind is still back in Hawaii where the desserts were fabulous.

Baked Hawaiian with Macadamia toffee

Plantation Garden's Baked Hawaiian is like baked Alaska. It has coffee and coconut ice cream layers covered in meringue with a chocolate crust. Luscious!

 
Gaylord's Plantation Pie uses ice cream as it's main ingredient too. Vanilla ice cream with macadamia nut brittle, caramel sauce and roasted pineapple make this dessert marvelous. But what really caught my attention was the vanilla whipping cream. Just add a dash of vanilla to your whipping cream next time to see what I mean.
 
Kilauea Bakery's coconut and pineapple macaroons and macadamia nut butter cookies have a special place in my heart.

Not because they are delicious and they are but because of this bookshelf and it's cause. Gotta love businesses who give back to the community.

 

I'm still working on tweaking my own recipes for these luscious wonders but it really isn't all that difficult to make any dessert feel like it came straight from the islands. Here are the magic ingredients:

Coconut - folks love it or hate it apparently but it is my go to garnish. I tend to use coconut chips and stay away from the sweetened stuff. You don't need even MORE sugar. Jan has a great recipe for coconut candy here.  Her post also reminded me that coconut cream can be put in the ice cream maker as part of a recipe. Nummy.

Macadamia Nuts - I am kicking myself for not bringing back a bucket load. They are expensive there but not as much as here. The good news it only takes a small amount of these luscious nuts to make their presence known. Here's my easy gluten free cheesecake recipe.  Add macadamia nuts and/or coconut into the crust.

Chocolate fudge - the standard "lava" for any dessert. Hot fudge must be the state dessert sauce. It was everywhere and was ALWAYS called "lava." I wasn't going to quibble and say lava really needed to be red or orange because cooling lava is kind of dark brown to black. There are several good recipes on this blog but one of our group, who shall remain nameless, suggests you buy it. Any way you choose to go, the easy way or the hard way, heat, spoon over your dessert of choice, sprinkle with a few red sugar crystals or red M&Ms for the glowing coals and you have lava!   

Pineapple - lots of places roast it to use as a topping, like Gaylord's, or mix it in. But the funny thing is it is primarily from South America now, not Hawaii.

Coffee - did you know Hawaii is the only state where coffee is grown? And the homemade coffee ice creams I had were incredible to boot.

And then there are the little things like decorations from the Dollar Store and the easiest dessert of all Hawaiian Volcano Sundaes.

Leis, an army helmet (Grandma Juju was in Hawaii doing WWII research, and sundae toppings)  

They are a big hit among the under seven and over thirty crowd!

So, my kids know when we come back from Hawaii, we decompress by eating Hawaiian themed food for a week.  Do you come home from a trip and try to recreate where you've been through meals or a special dish? What Hawaiian ingredient might be your favorite?

My Favorite State, Part One.

Note:  My favorite state is our 50th in part because Man O, my dear hubby, works there on a semi-regular basis. Do I know how to pick 'em or what? In fact, we might have just been there and I'm now completely jetlagged. This blog post is a refreshed blog post from a while ago with added pictures. If you haven't read it before, yummy pancakes are at the end. If you have, it's still got some neat new pictures and I promise an entirely new Hawaii blog post coming next week. 

From the first time to Hawaii, I went along on one of ManO's business trips, I loved the people, the different beauty of each island, and the food. I wanted to see one of the most famous Japanese gardens outside of Japan that was supposedly in Hilo. I asked the concierge how to get there and he pointed and said, " Just walk all the way across our parking lot and you're there." WOW!  

 

I went to the Japanese garden all dawn, noon and dusk to catch the light and the shadows of all the statuary, ponds and bridges.

 A blend of native, Japanese, Chinese, Pacific Rim, and more, I never had trouble finding something to eat. Why? Much of the food was rice based or thickened with tapioca. But more importantly, people accommodated my needs with such grace.

No, this isn't where we stayed but seeing this ancient reconstruction of a Hawaiian village makes me want to stay in a hut on a beach some day.

When we visited Maui, we stayed at a gorgeous bed and breakfast, the Old Wailuku Inn, run by a native Hawaiian family.  The inn is considered the most truly Hawaiian bed and breakfast on Maui. Every room was decorated in colorful Hawaiian quilts (yes, quilting is big in Hawaii!) and local antiques and art.

This turtle bowl is from an artist on the island of Maui.  We found out her mother was from NC and was in the middle of a hurricane we were tracking back home. Small world connections.

I emailed ahead to share my allergies but figured I'd be eating scrambled eggs while everyone else ate the banana pancakes featured one morning. Yep, I am allergic to bananas along with wheat and corn. But the owner sat a plate down in front of me. Light, fluffy pancakes made with rice flour and topped with macadamia nuts and passion fruit! I almost fainted. I got to share the experience of slathering on coconut syrup and diving in like everyone else around the table. She didn’t take the easy way out but made the experience special for me. Mahalo, “thank you” in Hawaiian. I said it a lot that morning.

My "silver dollar" version with mango, on my Hawaiian apron showing the monarchs and hula festival that takes place in Hilo on the Big Island each year.

Here is the innkeeper’s recipe with the interesting touch of beating the egg white to peak and then adding for additional fluff.  Saturdays are made for shortcuts but this step really makes a difference!  Pamela's GF Baking and Pancake mix is a good alternative if you can't find rice flour.

Old Wailuku Inn Pancakes

1 cup rice flour (or other flour)

2 T sugar

1 T baking powder

    Sift all dry ingredients well before going on.

1 egg separated

    beat egg whites to peak

    beat yellow

1 T melted butter or margarine

1/8 t vanilla add to yellow of egg (optional)

1 cup water (make judgement as you mix)

¼ cup banana (optional)

Mix ingredients except egg whites.  Fold egg whites into mixture. Put two tablespoons of oil in skillet and cook in small batches on medium low heat.

Top with whatever tropical fruits and nuts you can get: macadamia nuts, coconut, pineapple, mango or banana slices. The fruit grows in almost every yard in Hawaii and can be found in most mainland grocery stores.

To make your own coconut syrup: Heat one can coconut milk (the real stuff) with one cup sugar until dissolved. Cool. Serve over pancakes.

Like I said above, we have been back more recently but we love this picture of our 30th anniversary celebration in Maui.

The Dry Skin War

Another day when the temperature outside is setting records on the low side. My heater has been running constantly, sucking the moisture out of the air like a vacuum. To make matters worse, I went walking this week in what I thought was balmy 30s but I forgot to add in the wind chill. My bad.  And then there has been my constant use of  alcohol based hand sanitizers because it is the evil flu and stomach virus season. I think a hazmat suit is in order over my deep arctic coat!

It was warmer on top of the Swiss Alps near a glacier than it is here in NC right now!

My skin decided it had enough. Or maybe it was me. My face was dry but my dishpan hands and hiking heels were awful. I mean like so disgusting I couldn't take pictures of myself. If you really want to know how bad dry skin can get, google it. I won't link to the pictures. Blech.

In my war against dry skin, I headed to Google. I learned I am at a higher risk for very dry skin thanks to a thyroid that doesn't work, diabetes in the family and being a woman in the prime of her middle aged life. Well, that explains a lot. My healthcare is up to date. Can't do anything about my age. So what's next?

Diet. Surely foods are important. And they are, to a point. Drinking lots of water. Making sure I eat foods with anti-oxidants. Keeping my sweet tooth at bay. The interesting thing about sugar is it causes inflammation in the body and that includes the skin. So what little sugar is left in my diet has been scrutinized! Studies go every which way on whether diet really improves skin dryness. But all of them say a healthy diet is important. I get to keep my warm milk, got a round of applause for cutting out all caffeine but my morning cup of tea, but need to up my water consumption.

A waterfall from our trip to Maui. Water. WARM! Oh, I mean lots of water!

That's the prevention part. Now to the war on what dry skin I have. Loads of weapons are in my arsenal:

 I love my dishwashing gloves from William-Sonoma (no latex). And remember to put them on!

My Curel Sensitive Skin in the large bottle It's easy to pump a dollop as I pass by.  

But then there are the heels. The cracked painful heels. Did you know you can get infections through severely cracked heels? Not to mention they snag on your fuzzy socks!

My plan of attack included soaking my feet and then scrubbing with a regular washcloth. Then I dried those tootsies and pulled out my secret weapon.

Pumice stone on a stick. Attack that dry skin over a towel to catch the flakes. Uck.

Next?

Good old-fashioned Vaseline. My grandmother swore by it. Me too. For the tough dry skin.

I put my slathered feet in plastic bags. If my hands are bad, I do that too.

  
Kind of weird but I slip on my slippers or ManO's stretched out socks over the bags and then leave them on for a couple of hours.  Note: I do not close the bags with elastic because I don't consider it safe. Usually, I  do my pampering while I'm watching a movie (see below) and not moving around because those things are slippery. OR I just put the socks on my feet as I am getting ready to bed, forgetting the bags. And voila! My feet look great in the morning!

Bonus: Movies to warm my tootsies and me up on a cold winter day? Anything Hawaiian or filmed n Hawaii. The Descendants with George Clooney comes to mind immediately. No clue why! Blue Hawaii. It is dated but still has some fun moments. But if you want to go the opposite way and go for places more frozen than you are, my top picks are: Frozen though you still have to leave your home for it, Dr. Zhivago (ah, Omar Sharif!), Groundhog Day, Ice Age and Happy Feet.

So what about you? How do you keep dry skin at bay in the winter or tame it if you have it? Do you believe certain foods can make a difference for your skin? And what about the movies that make you think warm, either by taking you off to a balmy place or an arctic one that makes you appreciate where you are?