Pinned It, Made It! Monday: Pineapple Casserole

I am joining Tammy "Country Girl at Home"

 

Years ago I had a bit of a pineapple casserole that tasted mighty fine.  I cannot remember who made it.  

I decided to try Paula Deen's recipe for Pineapple Casserole.  It looked about like all the others I found. 

So I gathered my ingredients for half the recipe.. not pictured is the flour that I forgot to set out. I soon remembered.  I used Splenda instead of sugar.... I read many recipes that substituted.

I buttered a 11"x7" dish and thoroughly mixed the flour, cheese and pineapple together.

I mixed the crumbs together.... which I used just half a sleeve and it equaled over a half of a cup.... with the butter and pineapple juice.  It was right soggy looking and you can barely tell I spread it on top.

My version does not look as pretty as Paula's :-(

 sniff... sniff... failure

I might should have used a deeper dish.  I could have let the top brown more, but the bottom was getting too brown. 

It tasted okay, but a little on the greasy side and not near as good as the one I tasted at the family gathering. I do not think the Splenda had to do much with the results.  I think it was the soggy, greasy crackers.  

I think I'm going to ask around and see if I can find out who made the one I tasted.

Paula's Recipe... maybe you will have better luck than I did.

Pineapple Casserole

Ingredients

1 cup sugar
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups grated sharp cheddar
2 (20-ounce) cans pineapple chunks, drained, and 6 tablespoons pineapple juice reserved
1 cup cracker crumbs (recommended: Ritz)
8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, melted, plus extra for greasing pan

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. 

Grease a medium-size casserole dish with butter. 

In a large bowl, stir together the sugar and flour. Gradually stir in the cheese. Add the drained pineapple chunks, and stir until ingredients are well combined. Pour the mixture into the prepared casserole dish. 

In another medium bowl, combine the cracker crumbs, melted butter, and reserved pineapple juice, stirring with a rubber spatula until evenly blended. Spread crumb mixture on top of pineapple mixture. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until golden brown.

Paula is from my hometown and I love her even though I do not have success with all her recipes.

 

Around The Yard

I haven't taken a lot of pictures lately.  I thought I  might try my hand at it.... get a bit of practice. Clicking on these photos will open them in a new window on Flickr and will give you a slightly larger view of the pictures.

I love cloud watching.  I liked how the clouds swirled.   It did not rain.. just a few clouds around. 

Those are the gourds we put up years ago for purple martins. The purple martins scouted, but chose not to nest.  A pair of Great-Crested Flycatchers have nested in the gourds every year.  They poke nesting material in each gourd in hopes that you won't figure out which nest their babies are in.  The nests usually contain a snake skin.  The parents are very mindful of humans and will usually fly into the trees if a human is seen. They nest in April and leave sometime in August.  I do not know where they migrate to and from.

A Ruby-Throated Hummingbird visiting the feeder.  The feeder is in the shade most of the day.  It is difficult to get a good picture of one.  I think this one turned out okay.

I encourage you to visit my friend Dorothy's blog Counting My Blessings and watch her video of the hummingbirds feeding right out of her hand.  Just amazing!

We only have the one family of hummingbirds and they usually have two babies.  This is the time of the year they go into a feeding frenzy.  I wish we had as many as Dorothy.



This Northern Cardinal seems to be saying "do you mind?".  I was in the house with the windows closed and my really long lens on my camera aimed through the dirty windows.  Birds have the most amazing hearing... they hear every click of the camera.  They have great vision too.

I hope you enjoyed these snapshots.  I enjoyed taking them :-)

Peanut Butter Nutella Sandwiches

Peanut Butter Nutella Sandwiches.... I had not eaten one in a long time.  So we bought some Nutella and I made a sandwich.  Not hard to do... just put peanut butter on one slice of bread and Nutella on the other.  Now deciding which way to eat the sandwich was fun :-)  I could not remember if the slice of bread with peanut butter or the slice of bread with Nuttella should be on top  So I took a bite... umm very good... flipped the sandwich upside down and umm very good.  After doing this several bites I decided that the slice of bread with peanut butter should be the top.  It just tasted the yummiest that way!

I am so picky about what goes where on my sandwiches... just one of the things that make me me :-D