Pineapple-Ginger Glaze

It was Hawaiian night at empo's house as I invited a recent high school graduate over for dinner.  On the menu: veggie medley served over red and brown rice with lentils, topped with a pineapple-ginger sauce, with piña colada smoothies for dessert.

If you've never had red rice, try it!  Its nutty taste is a great compliment to any number of flavors, and its rich color (seen here with long grain brown rice and white basmati for reference) is sure to add some visual interest to your rice dishes.  Red rice takes longer to cook than brown rice, so when I plan on serving both I use separate pots.  The time difference isn't extreme, so you could just as easily cook them together; the brown rice would just be a bit softer than the red.

In addition to the rice I boiled some lentils and steamed a colorful mix of vegetables: broccoli, yellow squash, sliced baby carrots, and red, yellow, and green peppers.  Since I knew the pineapple-ginger sauce would be full of flavor, I didn't bother seasoning anything while I was cooking it.

Now onto the sauce!  If you'd like to try it, you'll need: 

2 tsp minced ginger

2 tsp minced garlic

1 20-oz can crushed pineapple in its own juice

6 tbsp reduced-sodium soy sauce

First I sautéed the ginger and garlic in a bit of water over medium heat.  (I prefer not to heat my oils.)  After a few minutes I added the pineapple and soy sauce and cooked for a few more minutes until it started to boil.  Yes...it really is that simple!  This makes 4 servings of 166 grams each.  (I often forget that normal people use measuring cups and not food scales, so next time I'll measure by volume, not by weight.)

The result: Delicious!  I will definitely be making this again!  You just can't beat a sauce that comes together this quickly and still tastes great.  It's also great cold: I had leftovers for lunch today and didn't even bother to heat it up.

The skinny: A serving of the sauce alone has 101 calories, 750 mg sodium, 23.3 g carbohydrate, 1.2 g fiber, 17.3 g sugar, and 4.2 g protein.  (The sodium is high, but considering this sauce eliminates the need for seasonings anywhere else in the dish, it's not that bad.  Sodium content will also vary depending on which brand of soy sauce you use.)

The alternatives: For you meat-eaters out there, I'm sure this would be wonderful over grilled chicken with veggie kabobs and rice.  I have a sneaking suspicion it would even be good as a sweet-and-sour dip for baked pita chips.  If only I had some freshly-made pitas lying around so I could test that theory...

(Admittedly we never got around to making smoothies, but they're on my mind and I think I might have to try to concoct something tonight.)