Hawaiian-Style Vegetables-Improv Cooking Challenge

Today is the day to post our recipes for this month’s Improv Cooking Challenge hosted by Kristen over at Frugal Antics of a Harried Homemaker.  (Note, Kristen’s is in the process of changing servers so I will be back with a link as soon as I know the blog is back up.)

The ingredients Kristen chose this month were peas and carrots, a pretty common combination.  I chose to go a somewhat traditional route with these, but used snow peas in my recipe.

Many, many years ago Birdseye made a frozen vegetable and pineapple combination called Hawaiian Vegetables.  It had carrots, green peppers, onions, water chestnuts and pineapple with little cubes of frozen sauce that melted and glazed the vegetables as they cooked.  Although I don’t really like green peppers, I did love this particular dish.

I decided this was a good time to try to replicate that recipe.  The only brand I can find that makes 8-oz. cans of pineapple tidbits is Dole.  Pineapple chunks may be used, but they will need to be quartered.  They carrots need to be very thinly sliced, no thicker than the snow peas.  I like to slice them on the diagonal.  Since I didn't use them, I have listed the water chestnuts as optional.

Hawaiian-Style Vegetables
1 can (8 oz.) pineapple tidbits in their own juice
1 T. butter
2 t. brown sugar
1 c. very thinly sliced carrots
1/2 c. finely chopped onion
1 c. snow peas
1/2 to 3/4 c. very thinly sliced red pepper (I used about 1/4 of a very large pepper)
1/8 t. salt
1/3 c. thinly sliced canned water chestnuts
1 T. cornstarch
1/3 c. water

Drain pineapple, reserving juice (there should be about 1/3 c.)  Melt butter in a 1 1/2-qt. saucepan and add brown sugar.  Stir in carrots, onion,  and snow peas.  Cook, uncovered, over medium heat 4 minutes, stirring often.  Add red pepper, pineapple juice and salt.  Cover and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring often.  Add reserved pineapple chunks and water chestnuts, if using.  Cook about 1 minutes longer until vegetables are not quite as tender as you like.  Add cornstarch to water and mix well.  Add to vegetable mixture, stirring constantly.  Cook over medium heat until sauce is clear, thickened, and boiling.  Remove from heat, turn into a serving bowl and serve immediately.  Makes 4 servings.