Today’s got me like brrr, it feels like -11 Celsius (Google tells me 12 Fahrenheit), the ground is covered in white frozen stuff that has been falling and pinging off our skylight for more than 24 hours. It has me thinking of tropical getaways, ones I won’t be taking anytime soon, between my fear of flying and our beloved pets needing a sitter. It also reminds me of the tropical date night hubby and I had recently, Christmas 2016 our gifts to each other was a planned movie and dinner date night, mine was a tropical theme with the movie Into the Blue with Paul Walker.(due to our flooded basement last year we only got around to them now)

I purchased some leis, paper plates with fish on them, blue napkins, Hors d’oeuvre forks and little umbrellas for our rum and pineapple drinks. (All from dollar stores, we had a set budget)

Our dinner consisted of jerk chicken legs, calypso rice, and pineapple and bacon bites, as well as packaged battered shrimp. We had tropical scented candles and the heat turned up (somewhat like the Alexa commercial, you know when the girl throws a summer party when it’s a blizzard out- personally we have a Google home and it played some summer tunes for us as we cooked, like Jimmy Buffets Margaretville)

The recipes became a family favorite, the kids tasted some of the leftovers and we have made it again since, today I’m sharing with you the jerk and rice recipes (originally found online but as always changed by me here and there) as well as my corn bread recipe. Everyone wants to know my “secret” to such moist bread, secret is I soak my cornmeal for about 30mins to an hour and as soon as its cooked I only let it cool for about 10 15 minutes, then I put it in a container with a lid.

The bacon was simple we took thick already cooked leftover peameal bacon slices (back bacon or thick cut ham will work) we cut it into bite size pieces, and the same with canned pineapple rings, then place the bacon on the pineapple and squirted some Barbeque sauce on it and baked for about 10 minutes at 350.

Enjoy these recipes indoors on a cold winter’s night with an old favorite (or new) tropical movie like we did, or during a hot summer cook out (although my husband says Mother Nature has cancelled summer it seems).

The jerk spice works well on chicken legs and thighs as well as pork loin chops.

KEEPING WITH THE SCRAPPY HAPPY POST THEME, SAVE ANY LEFTOVER CELERY,PEPPERS AND GREEN ONIONS NOT USED UP IN THE RICE, CHOP, MEASURE OUT AND FREEZE TOGETHER FOR ANOTHER BATCH OF RICE NEXT TIME.

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