Pineapples

There are bargains - and bargains. Husband can never resist a bargain of either kind, hence his arrival home with four pineapples, very cheap, from the market. Notwithstanding the fact that there is no such thing as a bargain in the market (if pineapples are cheap it is because they "need using" - or, "are starting to go off", in common parlance) or that noone in the family is very fond of pineapples (Husband himself refusing to eat them in any form or under any disguise).

What on earth am I going to do with four, ever so slightly rotting, pineapples?

You can't freeze them. Jane Grigson recommends pineapple in brandy (which sounds pretty good to me, but noone but me will ever eat it, and I'm fat enough already), pineapple ice-cream (which even I don't fancy) or pineapple marmalade (and that wouldn't be heavily enough disguised for Husband, and it is a heck of a lot of work for a product the prospect of which noone actually relishes, not even me).

This evening we had pineapple and cheese (on sticks, stuck into a grapefruit) with our New Years Day fizz, and very nice it was, surprisingly for such an old-fashioned dish, much nicer than it is with the tinned pineapple it is usually made with. I am meditating gammon with pineapple for unsuspecting children tomorrow.

After that, it is just me and a tub full of chunked pineapple, in the middle of the night, when everyone else is asleep... and nightmares of multiplying pineapples.